Dan Rather's Raw Deal- Page 2

[Gothampc]

Posted: 6/23/06 at 3:52pm

"I wonder what you said about Reagan before he left office."

His barber says he doesn't dye his hair. Then why did the Secret Service just buy 100 cases of Grecian Formula?

[PalJoey]

Posted: 6/23/06 at 9:11pm

A nice compilation of expert testimony from Wikipedia:

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Proportional fonts

One of the initial doubts bloggers raised about the memos was the use of proportional fonts. The majority of typewriters available in 1972 used fixed width fonts, and most of the authenticated documents from the TexANG were typed using fixed width fonts commonly associated with typewriters; one document released by the Pentagon on September 24, 2004 used a proportionally-spaced font somewhat similar to the font used in the Killian memos.[1] Some have suggested that because they are photocopies, the actual font of the Killian Documents may be almost impossible to identify. Various proportional fonts were commonly available on military typewriters of that era. This 1969 letter[2] from Gen. Ross Ayers of TexANG also exhibits proportional spacing, as does this letter[3] of resignation in protest from a TexANG secretary, as does John Kerry's 1967 Navy fitness report[4], as does this 1963 White House memorandum.[5] None of these proportional font examples is the same font as that used on the Killian documents.

Several experts interviewed by the media suggested that the proportional fonts in the documents indicated likely forgery. John Collins, vice president and chief technology officer at Bitstream Inc., the parent of MyFonts.com, stated that word processors that could produce proportional-sized fonts cost upwards of $20,000 at the time.[6] Allan Haley, director of words and letters at Agfa Monotype, stated "It was highly out of the ordinary for an organization, even the Air Force, to have proportional-spaced fonts for someone to work with."[7] William Flynn, a forensic document specialist with 35 years of experience in police crime labs and private practice, said the CBS documents raise suspicions because of their use of proportional spacing techniques.[8] The Washington Post also indicated the presence of proportional fonts as suspicious "of more than 100 records made available by the 147th Group and the Texas Air National Guard, none used the proportional spacing techniques characteristic of the CBS documents". However, several documents later obtained from the TexANG, including parts of Bush's service record, display proportional fonts.[9] None of these documents used the same proportional font as the CBS documents.

Bill Glennon, a technology consultant in New York City with typewriter repair experience from 1973 to 1985, said experts making the claim that typewriters were incapable of producing the memos "are full of crap. They just don't know." He said there were IBM machines capable of producing the spacing, and a customized key — the likes of which he said were not unusual — for creating the superscript th.[10] Thomas Phinney, program manager for fonts at Adobe Systems, responded to Glennon's statement by saying that the memos could not have been produced with either the IBM Executive or Selectric Composer, which had been suggested as possibilities, due to differences in letter width and spacing.[11] Phinney says that each time a typeface was redeveloped for mechanical technologies with different width factors, the width and designs are altered, which is why even if Press Roman had been intended to look like Times Roman, the result is significantly different.

Typewriters with proportional fonts were first introduced in 1941, mass-produced from 1948 onwards, and were in widespread use by 1972. The most common device available in 1972 with proportional font support and similar (though not an exact match) to the font some claim was used in the memos (11-point Press Roman vs. 12-point Times New Roman) is the IBM Selectric Composer.[12] The IBM Executive was the most common proportional-spacing typewriter of the era, and supported a single serifed proportional font that is very different from the Selectric Composer font that most closely matches the font some believe is used in the memos. The Selectric Composer was a "Selectric" in name only—really a low-end typesetting device rather than a typewriter, and cost $3,600 to $4,400 in 1973 dollars ($16,000 to $22,000 in 2004 dollars). (Regular Selectrics were available second-hand for around $150[13], but could not have produced the documents in question.)

Desktop magazine in Australia analysed the documents in its November 2004 issue and concluded that the typeface was a post-1985 version of Times Roman, rather than Times New Roman, both of which are different in detail to IBM Press Roman. The article did not dispute that superscripts and proportional fonts were available in the 1970s.
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Sophisticated spacing

Kerning is an option in Microsoft Word but is turned off by default. Joseph Newcomer, an expert cited by critics of the memos, explained that the memos do not display true kerning, but instead use a characteristic of True type fonts he called "pseudo-kerning."

Characters in Microsoft True type fonts are described by "ABC" dimensions where C is the offset from the right edge of the character to the next character. Certain characters, such as the lower case "f", have a negative offset value. That allows the next character to "tuck in" underneath the overhanging loop of the "f". The comparable function on a manual typewriter is the escapement, the amount the carriage or typing ball advances with each letter. Mono-spaced typewriters have a fixed escapement value of 1 character; every letter starts the same distance from the previous letter. The typewriters of the time that were capable of proportional spacing achieved this using a variable escapement that advanced the ball 1/3, 2/3 or 3/3 of a space, depending on which letter had been typed. However, no typewriter had the capability to perform "negative escapement" that would be required to place a lower case "r" or "o" underneath the overhanging loop of an "f", as seen in the Killian memos.[14]
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Word wrapping

Because a typewriter does not have the ability to know what the user is going to type next, it is up to the typist to decide when to move the carriage to the next line. Sometimes, a typist will use hyphenation to split a word between two lines on a syllable boundary, while computer word processors like Microsoft Word do not do this by default. The documents are not hyphenated; several official TexANG documents are not hyphenated either.[15] Critics have argued that it is implausible that a manual typist would have ended each line at the exact same point as a computer program written decades later.
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Superscripted "th"

The default behavior of Microsoft Word is to format ordinal abbreviations (1st, 2nd, 10th) as superscripts, that use a smaller font size and are raised above the line of text (1st, 2nd, 10th). This automatic formatting can be blocked by leaving a space between the number and the letters, or it can be reversed using the undo command. On most typewriters of the 1970s, a superscripted ordinal was made by manually rolling the platen back slightly so that the letters could be typed above the line of text; however, the letters were the same size as the rest of the letters since they were produced with the same elements. Some typewriters had a special key for creating a smaller, superscripted "th", but this would be confined within the line of type, unless the typist manually rolled back the platen.

Among the 6 memos produced by Bill Burkett there are 3 instances of a superscript "th" that are both smaller than the other characters and raised above the line of type (for example, 111th).[16] There are also 7 instances where a space is inserted between the number and the letters, and 4 instances where "th" and "st" ordinals immediately follow a number but are not superscripted.[17][18] Three of the documents use multiple formats for ordinals within the same document.

Marian Carr Knox recalled that during her time at the Guard she used a mechanical Olympia typewriter that did have a special 'th' key. (This 'th' character was the same weight as the other characters.) She said it was replaced by an IBM Selectric in the early 1970s. Several documents of unquestioned authenticity in the Bush records have superscripted 'th' characters interspersed throughout; however, they are not raised above the level of the normal text.[19][20] Like the 'th' key available for the Olympia, they go to the same height as the other lower-case letters. The official report of Bush's ANG unit for 1972, typed on a monospaced typewriter, contains numerous superscript footnotes, all apparently created by rolling the platen forward.[21]

Because a superscripted ordinal mark using a smaller font and raised above the line of type could have been created in 1972 (using a typewriter with a small-font 'th' key and manually rolling the platen back), Philip Bouffard, an authority cited by critics on other issues, has stated of the superscript, "You can't just say that this is definitively the mark of a computer."[22]
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Centered headers

Bloggers at ChronicallyBiased[23] noted that two of the memos, dated May 4 and August 1, 1972, feature a three-line centered heading which aligns exactly between two memos dated three months apart, and with a comparison document created using the auto-centering feature of Microsoft Word.[24]

Creating centered headers is possible on a typewriter, even if the font is proportional. The typist can left-justify the header and then use the space bar to count the number of spaces from the end of the text to the right margin. In addition, the IBM Executive and Selectric have a kerning key that would give a more accurate measure of the whitespace. Once this number is determined, halving it gives the number of leading spaces for a centered header. The same centering will be achieved on different occasions if the paper is inserted flush to the paper guide, and the same count of spaces is applied. For an example of multiple centered lines produced using a proportionally spaced typewriter font, see the third page of the contemporary annual history of Bush's Alabama guard unit.[25]

Word processors, by contrast, center text based on a computer algorithm using a fixed central reference point rather than the left margin on the typewriter as measured from the paper's edge. If the paper in a printer is flush to the left of the paper guide, then a word processor will achieve the same centering throughout a given page and on different pages. The bloggers asserted that it is unlikely that two documents produced 3 months apart by a manual centering process would exactly overlap. In the Killian memos the text matches perfectly when overlaid with a word processor-produced 3 line address block, and between the 3- and 2- line blocks of different memos.
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Curved apostrophes

In several places, the documents use apostrophes such as in the words I'm and won't. These are curved somewhat to the left, similar to the shape of a comma. Allegedly, most typewriters of the era featured vertical apostrophes, rather than angled ones. However, for an example of curved apostrophes on documents produced by Bush's unit, see the 1973 "historical record".[26]

Bloggers have frequently asserted the documents use curly, or "smart", quotes – distinct left and right double quotes. This feature is common on modern word processors. In fact, the documents use no quotation marks of any kind, either single or double.
illian documents authenticity issues

[JohnBoy2]

Posted: 6/23/06 at 10:13pm

Did anyone actually read that?

[PalJoey]

Posted: 6/23/06 at 10:18pm

Yes.

[JohnBoy2]

Posted: 6/24/06 at 12:33am

And...?

[SueSnell]

Posted: 6/24/06 at 12:37am

We enjoyed it. Shouldn't you be off helping out the victims of Katrina or camouflaging Coulter's Adam's Apple, JohnBoy? Goodnight, Fascsist Boy! Night Coulter Felon! Night!

[JohnBoy2]

Posted: 6/24/06 at 12:39am

???? And, who's we? You and Tommy Ross?

[SueSnell]

Posted: 6/24/06 at 12:51am

No, Randy Jackson. "But dawg, I gotta give you props, aiight? For the reference digging and name dropping, you know what I'm sayin'? You in the dawg pound for sure."

Seriously, good for you. We may have diffent outlooks but we share pop, uh,....culture? (note to self: STOP watching the fACTS OF LIFE...)

[JohnBoy2]

Posted: 6/24/06 at 1:00am

I don't know if we share different outlooks or not. My posts here, are limited to not being a fan of Dan Rather's, and being bored by the whole thing. Besides, it's so yesterday's news, that it's olds. And, thanks for the "props". My Sue's a good girl.

Updated On: 6/24/06 at 01:00 AM