[js1138]

Please get this straight. The typewriter used for these memos was NOT clumsy or hard to use. Please stop making FR look stupid.

[ladyjane]

Please get this straight. The typewriter used for these memos was NOT clumsy or hard to use. Please stop making FR look stupid.

The problem is confusion about the typewriter used. It was NOT a Selectric. Selectrics did NOT have proportional spacing. To get proportional spacing you needed the IBM Executive. It was very clumsy to use well. Correcting mistakes was difficult because different words had different spacing. The Executive was used only by experienced secretaries. I cannot imagine a GS1 or GS2 having one. I could give you more details about why it was clumsy to use if you are interested.

[katana]

For preparation of standard documents you are no doubt right that the Selectric wasn't hard to use. I used one myself in the seventies at college. But it was neither a word processor nor a type setting machine.

The article raises a few details which are difficult to ignore regarding the likelihood that these documents were typed quite recently using word processing software. Even if the doc's are genuine they are irrelevant to which man is the best pick for Commander in Chief, but if they are demonstrably forged it would and should be a very big story.

As with the Swift Boat commanders' expose of Kerry's distortions and lies, the White House will want to avoid any appearance of involvement with exposing Rather as either the victim or the source of a hoax. But it is exactly what this forum and the internet are good for.

[RedEyeJack]

Probably depends on your skill level... Much more difficult than using Microsoft Word. Also, these documents were apparently being typed by an Air Force (ANG) Lieutenant Colonel whose primary skill was as a pilot. Based on my limited experience of many years ago as an officer trying to create plans and orders using such a typewriter, the Colonel would had to have had exceptional typing skills to have produced such error free documents including the use of superscripting... IMHO the net centric world has exposed this whole thing as a fraud in less than 18 hours... This is one for the good guys.