However, I'd prefer not to be denied my pound of flesh. So, I'll post it here:
Mr. Anson --
You apparently have no idea how easily and quickly one could discern that the Rather documents were neither a.) typewritten, nor b.) dated to 1972 (or earlier).
I learned how to type in high school, during the fifties. I subsequently spent over twenty years in the advertising business. In this capacity, I did a lot of typing myself...and purchased a lot of typeset material.
Without being "expert" in either, it is really not that difficult to tell whether an item has been typed, on any kind of typewriter, or has been typeset by a computer. And 'typesetting' is what Word and other word processing programs do. Aside from being used for simple correspondence and memoranda, they can also produce repro-ready type -- given the proper resolution printer and paper quality.
Anybody, literally *anybody*, Mr. Anson, who had any experience with typewritten and typeset documents -- and was paying attention -- would recognize the difference. I gather that you probably aren't old enough to be familiar with typewriters and, thus, recognize that distinction yourself.
Under the circumstances, I am shocked that Mr. Rather himself didn't grasp the questionable provenance of the documents the moment he saw them. I can only conclude he was blinded by partisanship...or something.
Frankly, I'm surprised that it took us three hours to arrive at that conclusion on Free Republic. But, then, some of us didn't watch the show and had to rely on the pdf postings later. At that, we evidently spent more time examining the documents and arriving at a conclusion than CBS did.
In addition, I hope this note also serves to demonstrate that conservatives (and 'righty bloggers') are actually capable of stringing two or more sentences together.
Talk about condescension...
okie01
I'm sure that The Great and Powerful Rather rose above having to personally put fingertip to keyboard about half a century ago -- thus, his memories of typewriters are dim and his hands-on experience with word processing nonexistent.
Since it looks like this clown's email account is not accepting email, as a public service, here's some general contact information for the New York Observer:
comments@observer.com
212-755-2400