Somebody should remind Rather about the first rule of holes.

The worst part was when the "expert" said that because the documents used a lower case letter l instead of the number one - that shows they are authentic (I dont see the logic either).

But the forger used the lower case l so he wouldn't end up with a superscript! He didn't have a subsitute for 7 so he ended up with the superscript after 187. This really is almost surreal . . .

Why a HANDWRITING expert is vouching for the authenticity of a copy of a copy of a copy of a fax of a PDF of a copy of TYPEFACES has yet to be explained.

Check this out some guy called this days ago:

http://blindpig.blogs.com/outside_the_perimeter/2004/09/how_to_trick_mi.html

Bill, I typed up a transcript of the part of the story that applies to the documents. I haven't fisked it yet, but I hope to be able to get to it tonight:

http://www.dangerouslogic.com/archive/000614.html

Readers' Digest version - "They might be authentic, and they reinforce how we've misled you already, so they MUST be true!"

Wow. Its official, Dan Rather has lost touch with reality.

I think Dan's problem is he's getting thousands of emails and letters from lefties praising him and urging him to stand his ground. He desperately wants to believe them, they desperately want to believe him. It's a classic dysfunctional relationship.

Poor Dan, he must be so emotionally invested in proving all the righty mailers wrong and the lefty mailers correct that he has lost all judgment. Notice he keeps referring to the issue as being politically motivated.

From the CBS website:
"Richard Katz, a software designer, found some other indications in the documents. He noted that the letter "L" is used in those documents, instead of the numeral "one." That would be difficult to reproduce on a computer today."

Me:
Yes, I just checked in Word, and it was difficult. I had to remember to type 'l' instead of '1'. Word made no attempt to change my 'l' to a '1'.

For those too young to remember, this is an issue because many manual typewriters did not have a key for the number '1', and you would type a lowercase 'l' instead because they looked the same (sort of). This would be an interesting choice for someone typing on an IBM Selectric Composer which probably had a full keyboard, including a numeric '1'.

Also, who is document expert Bill Glennon? Time quoted him as "...Bill Glennon, a technology consultant in New York City who worked for IBM repairing typewriters from 1973 to 1985, says those experts “are full of crap." [excerpted from one of yesterday's posts on this site]. So yesterday he was a technology consultant who used to repair typewriters starting in 1973 (a year AFTER the memos were written), and today he's a CBS "document expert".

I saw the crude attempt by Dan and CBS news to blow smoke at their MemoGate forgery. Where did they get this guy Bill Glennon from? I've been in electronic publishing since the mainframe days and never heard of him. He said tonight that "proportional spacing was available, superscripts were available as a custom feature and that proportional spacing was available between lines - you could order that anyway you’d like."

Proportional spacing was a feature of the IBM Executive typewriter but that machine used cast type bars and the idea of it producing legible 8pt. superscript letters is hard to believe. While there may have been type bars available with superscript numbers for scientific notation , to achieve the kerned "th" on these memos would have taken a type bar containing the equivalent of a ligature. Proportional spacing between lines (leading) was not possible on any typewriter other than by changing the escapement pawl to ratchet at either single or double spacing. I’m sure there were a variety of platens (rollers) available on the Executive at 6 or 8 lines per inch but you couldn’t change the platen without losing the position of the paper you were typing on. I’d really like to see the machine(s) that Bill was describing.

Using a lower case "l" instead of a "1":
On MS Word the characters are nearly identical but what is not identical? The proportion!
If you type l87th in word the "8" juts right close up next to the "l"
If you type 187th all the numbers get equal spacing.

So, a professional typist would NEVER use a "l" in place on a "1" on any machine that produced proportional type. It looks like crap.
Second look at the memos ANYWHERE you see what appears to be the number "1". Does the next character jut right up next to it or does the character seem to be given the proportion of a numerical "1"? To me, every-time I see what is represented as a "1" has the correct proportions of a "1" not an "l".
I think this is a horrible argument.
(posting this on a couple of blogs)

Dan Rather brings out an “expert”, and one of his contentions is that the documents use the letter l in place of the number 1. These look way too similar to me, but is there a way to tell them apart?

As a matter of fact, there is. And Dan’s expert is flat out wrong. The ones are printed using a number 1 and not the letter l.

In Microsoft Word, the spacing between number 1s is fixed, at the same spacing as all other numbers, such that they line up when making columns of numbers. The letter l spacing is not fixed, since it is just another letter. Since the letter l is so thin, it has a very small spacing and tends to look like it is practically adjacent to other letters, especially next to other letter ls.

Unsurprisingly, the exact same phenomenon is seen in the memos produced by CBS. Look at the memos printed here and see for yourself:

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2004-09-09bushdocs.pdf

First, let us look at the second memo at this site dated 04 May 1972. There are three separate spots where three number 1s are adjacent (111). One is in the header, one is in paragraph one, and one is in paragraph two. Notice how all the number ones are spaced out from each other. Now compare this to the word Ellington, in paragraph one. Notice that the letter l’s are practically on top of each other. Notice how close they are to the adjacent letters E and i. You can see this phenomenon in all of the letter l’s in the paragraph. The spacing between the letter l’s and its neighbors is minimal. The spacing between all of the number ones and their neighbors is significant. And of course, the spacing in all of these examples matches what Word does exactly with number ones and letter ls. What a coincidence

The number ones in question in the piece are contained in the memo dated 18 August 1973, the last memo at the previously mentioned site, the one that Charles (of Little Green Footballs) overlaid. They highlight the number 1 in 1973 and the letter l in Alabama. But notice how close the letter l in Alabama is to its neighbors. Notice how far away the number 1 is from its neighbors in 1973. Unfortunately, there are no adjacent number ones in this memo, but there are adjacent letter l’s. Look at the word “all” at the end of the first paragraph and the word “I’ll” at the end of the second paragraph. Look how close together the letter l’s are. Look how close the letter l’s are to their other neighbors. Now look how all of the number 1’s are spaced from their neighbors. Look at how far apart the 1 is from the 8 in 17 and 187, and how far the 1 is from the 9 in 1973.

Of course, coincidentally, all of this spacing matches exactly what Microsoft Word does.

So, there are two possibilities, as I see it.
1) These memos were typed on typewriters too ancient to have a separate number one key, so number ones had to be typed as letter ls. However, the same typewriter is so sophisticated that it knows what the typist is thinking and gives proper spacing to the letter l depending on whether you meant to type a letter l or a number 1.
2) These memos are poor forgeries typed in Microsoft Word.

Hmmmm. Looks like there isn’t any way to figure this one out :-)

This may be a dumb idea, but has anyone tried to find other documents written by Killian in the same period, to give an example of the fonts/spacing/superscripts/whatever that his office equipment normally produced? Sort of like a "control" group. Not that it would prove anything, but it might help shed a little light on the subject.

I would think that whoever theoretically pulled the controversial documents from Killian's files would be eager to release other, non-Bush-related paperwork to support the Bush memos in that way.

The documents just shown on the CBS show did not have the 5000 Longmont address blacked out nor did they have the underlining on the 19 May memo. It's now certain that CBS altered the documents (without noting the alterations) before posting them as PDFs.

Also the initials on the bottom of the 19 May memo differs on the CBS and USAT versions. What gives?

The same lack-of-blacking-out and lack-of-underlining was present in USA Today's copies of the memos.

So one defense CBS has lost was "we re-typed them for clarity." Which would be a travesty of journalistic ethics, but, much less a travesty than they are stuck in right now.

I'm wondering how much longer CBS will let Rather draw this out. The longer the better, as far as I'm concerned.

I've demonstrated the "1" vs. "l" distinction on my blog. As expected, CBS and its "expert" are wrong.

http://www.corante.com/importance/archives/006148.php

Can someone please explain to me what Richard Kurtz's argument was about the "1" versus lower case L? The only difference between a 1 and lower case L in Times New Roman is the spacing. The ones in 111th look like ones to me, not lower case Ls. Why would it be so hard to reproduce on a modern computer anyway? (Not as difficult as producing superscript on an IBM Selectric that's for sure - changing balls and all)

So what is he saying? Is he just blabbing on (lying) to confuse the credulous and naive or does he have even a hint of a point? Or did he go off his lithium?

Ah! Thanks Ernest! Just what I was looking for! :)

The one-verses-ell is just mind blowing.

Even were it true, it doesn't prove anything at all.

I think Rather was trying to bluff. It's "hey, this is an entirely new spin on things! No one's talked about one-versus-ell! See, we can do groundbreaking analysis, too!"

It's like watching someone go to Alzheimer's. Kind of sad.

Paul W -- you'd be wrong: such a "control group" would prove EVERYTHING. I expect getting the proper authorities (in Colorado, Texas or anywhere else) to release appropriate comparisons will be as difficult as it is for CBS to find adequate document experts to support their claims.

of course, don't count out some new documents that purport to be such a control group popping up through the same channels as the current round-file docs did. the lesson of forgers and card-sharps: never overplay your hand, and don't use the ace up your sleeve until you have to.