Hailey rides to the rescue of Rather et al

David Hailey is a faculty member at Utah State University who has been trying to show that the forged Bush memos used by Dan Rather were actually produced on a typewriter.

Of course, as most everyone knows, Charles Johnson created an animated gif file that proved beyond any reasonable doubt that the forged memos had been prepared using the Times New Roman font under Microsoft Word. But maybe David Hailey didn't see this as his paper expresses some surprise that so many have concluded that the font used was indeed Times New Roman.

But apparently unaware of the existence of the animated gif and through some very complex and convoluted cut and paste and computer-assisted manipulations, Hailey concludes that the font used was a "typewriter" font and that, therefore, it was most likely produced using a typewrite. But when Hailey concludes it was a typewriter font, that means that he found it by searching a font directory using "typewriter" as the keyword. Of course, a compter font called "typewriter" would not be uncommon.

The bottom line here is that Hailey seems to be trying to produce something that Rather, Mapes, et al. can use to justify acceptance of the forged documents in the first place. They can reference Hailey to show that some presumably educated person with some presumed expertise in the field was able to conclude that the documents may have been prepared on a typewriter and, if so, how could lay persons like Rather and Mapes be expected to know any better.

But what is in this for Hailey? Perhaps a casting call for the next round of celebrity wresling? For sure, Hailey will get a place in the Mary Mapes' Rolodex if she gets into trouble again in the future.