I could produce a document about the coming American revolution, on a word processor with Times New Roman typeface. Then show you a photocopy of that document and claim the original was printed by Benjamin Franklin himself.

It would be impossible to prove, conclusively or otherwise, that the original document was a fake and not produced by Ben Franklin.

You could argue that such composition technology did not exist in the late 1700's, but you would be wrong. It simply takes time and patience to produce a wood-print original that looks exactly like Microsoft Word printed on an HP Laserjet, then run through a photocopier.

When Dan Rather says Times NewRoman was available in 1973, he means someone could have licensed it. He does not say a typewriter manufacturer actually used it to produce the graphic image on the CBS documents.

Nor when it is said IBM Selectric Composer typewriters were able to produce typesetting effects such as superscript and matching quotes, is it being said or demonstrated such a typewriter actually produces the image of the CBS documents.

On the other hand, Microsoft Word, out of the box, produces exactly the image of the CBS documents.

But, that is still not "conclusive proof" in the eyes of the Left.

I'd like to read more about what this means going forward...think about this. John Kerry supporters as well should be really worried about this, this could just as easily happen to any candidate for any office. Look what it took to get this story on the air. Any schlub who took the time to get a typewriter from that era could have done this, and CBS ran with it. Fortunately for Bush, it was almost too obvious that it was faked. I sure as hell hope the news organizations take this as a lesson in how NOT to authenticate sources. CBS needs to pay for this, otherwise the lesson is lost.

Hey, amidst all the jabbering about kerning (which, incidentally, has nothing to do with this--kerning isn't even generally used in MS Word), remember that nothing has been conclusively proven either way. For me, I believe that there is overwhelming doubt about these documents, and I've stopped citing them on my site. But nothing's been "proven" yet.

As for the blog triumphalism--stow it. Look, folks, the blogs are a nice addition to the world of media. And a few times--this one and the Trent Lott affair, for example--blogs have helped to shed light on things that needed light shed upon them.

But while blogs are a nice addition, they have not supplanted big media yet, and I would suspect it will be a long time before they do. Indeed, without big media, blogs wouldn't function very well--because blogs are more about commentary than original stories.

The blogs are sometimes better sleuths because … I can do this: COMMENT. A Freeper comments about his suspicions … someone sees that post and says to themselves, "the guys at powerline should look into this,” and the guys at powerline, bring up the topic to their audience, full of talented people who know part of the puzzle. Some operated IBM proportional-space-model typewriters in the 1970s, some wrote the software that replaced the IBM typewriter in the 1980s, one is maybe a forensic document expert that keeps samples of every typewriter typeface known to mankind, and some military clerks who spent years writing military memos in the 1970s. What the blogs, and the Internet in general, give all these "experts" is a fast easy way to add what they know to the discussion. The rest of us are the jury. And, Powerline, or Shot in the Dark, has to serve that jury well, because the feedback is immediate, and there are a million other blogs competing for those curious eyeballs. Instead, Rather and CBS TELL the jury what their verdict is. They tell the 1970s military clerk that they know what a genuine 1972 military memo looks like, better than he does.

Nothing can be "conclusively" proven until CBS comes forward with the original documents, or admits they never had them, if they didn't. However, you say that nothing's been proven either way, but our only evidence that these documents are genuine is the word of Dan Rather. The evidence against is a long list of irregularities, improbabilities, and near impossibilities.

Regarding kerning: I think the problem here is that the word 'kerning' has been applied where 'tracking' is the appropriate typesetting term. (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tracking for a definition. IANATypesetter.) Kerning doesn't appear to have been done in the Killian memos (and indeed would have been impossible without manual typesetting or a computer word processor) but the way the Killian memos match up identically with the same text introduced into a MS Word document (where kerning is not used by default, but tracking *is*) should be relatively solid evidence. Tracking would also not have been possible without manual typesetting or a computer -- any system that does it must retain memory of what characters have been typed, something a simple typewriter (or even a complicated one, like the ones Killian supposedly used, even though he hated to type) just can't do.

Disclosure: I was a technical writer for five years. I know more about fonts and kerning than any normal person would ever need.

"Hey, amidst all the jabbering about kerning (which, incidentally, has nothing to do with this--kerning isn't even generally used in MS Word),"

It's a setting. And it was apparently set; the CBS documents were kerned. And while it may or may not be "generally" used in MSWord, it was NEVER used in any commonly-available electric typewriter. It's a type*setting* function.

"remember that nothing has been conclusively proven either way."

Either has the theory of evolution, "conclusively", but the basic outlines are pretty broadly accepted. Since Hodges, the Killians, and even Rather's own handwriting "expert" have bailed, even the major media are abandoning CBS's line on the dox.

"As for the blog triumphalism--stow it."

I'm not seeing any - not from the credible ones. Merely a sense that "we" did something good, and may have done some much-needed damage to the American media's undeserved reputation for fairness and accuracy.

"Indeed, without big media, blogs wouldn't function very well--because blogs are more about commentary than original stories. "

This is not a problem, though. Bloggers are themodern pampleteers, supplying a check and balance that the Imperial Media has needed for at least thirty years.

Mitch, can you direct me to an image that shows that the Killian memos used kerning? It's near impossible to tell from the documents hosted at Powerline. I know I've seen blown-up examples that may or may not have shown kerning, but I don't know where, and I'm feeling lazy.

Never mind. I decided to be not-lazy and found this, linked from LGF:

http://homepage.mac.com/cfj/newcomer/index.htm

It appears that the Killian memos exhibit what this expert refers to as 'pseudo-kerning.' The link is long and detailed; short summary: pseudo-kerning squishes characters within a word together. It is something that is designed into the font itself, and is also impossible without a computer.

Just a word, if I may.

On typefaces, I have a little knowledge. I worked on the tech side of digital pre-press for 4 years, and for a digital font house for another 3. I helped develop the first 1,000 dpi laser printer and toner, and have examined laser printed forgeries for the FBI. Heck, I even have a copy of "Digital Formats for Typefaces" autographed by the author, Peter Karow of URW. (URW produced the digital outline fonts from which *all* others -- Monotype, Adobe and Microsoft -- are derived). Oh, and I've been a tech writer for about 15 years, on and off.

With the original Killian documents it would be a matter of seconds with a 100x stereo microscope to determine if they are typewritten or laser printed. On a first-generation copy it would take a few minutes to determine authenticity.

From an n-th generation copy scanned in on god-knows-what and viewed as a PDF on a 96 dpi monitor, it's impossible to even hazard a guess. Anyone who *does* hazard a guess from anything on-line is only seeing what he or she wants to see (or not see).

I know less about logic than I do about fonts, but deriving a conclusion from an unsteady ziggurat of 'possible', 'could' and 'maybe' seems to indicate going from conclusion to premises, instead of the other way 'round.

Regards.