Eliot Spitzer seems to be an arrogant and unpleasant but nevertheless useful human being who has generally opposed the true evildoers in our society. It is probably a net loss to the nation that he will be driven from office by a 98-year-old law resurrected for the purpose by a corrupt Justice Department fresh from Roveroading another useful Democratic governor to prison for seven years.

But that’s life, in Bush’s America anyway. You win one, you lose a couple dozen.

So let’s consider another aspect of this case. Here’s a snippet from the government’s complaint against Governor Spitzer. (Later on in this exercise you will be asked to enlarge it, but be warned that it’s a long load for dial-up connections.)

First of all there are no typographical or spelling errors; nor are there any, as nearly as I could tell, in the whole 55-page document from which this comes. Either it’s the product of an organization run by rigid control freaks or of a spell-check program.

Probably not the latter, however, since the document appears to have been typed on a manual typewriter. Was it, though? There are digitized fonts that mimic typewriters, schmutz and all. But now click to enlarge the image and examine the word “that” in the sixth line from the bottom.

Note the difference between the first “t” and the second. Note the difference between that “that” and that “that” that appears almost directly below it. Plainly what we have here is a document hand-typed by a female (almost certainly) human who exerted, as humans do, varying pressures with each keystroke.

In the Hughes Memorial Library in West Cornwall, Connecticut, (open Saturdays, depending on the weather) between 10 and 12:30) there is just such a typewriter as the one used by the human being referenced above. It is there for the amusement of children, who mash down the keys with varying degrees of force, usually considerable, and enjoy the clack as the corresponding letters magically appear on a sheet of paper wrapped around a device known as a “platen.”

Once I saw an adult sit down before this old Royal and bat out a few words for nostalgia’s sake. When she got to the end of the line the machine seemed to jam. The librarian had to remind her to use the lever to the left of the platen, called a “carriage return.”

So how come the FBI still uses manual typewriters in the twenty-first century? Is it because the complaint is based on a 98-year-old law, dusted off and set back up on its feet? If you were invoking the Monroe Doctrine, would you have to use a quill pen?

Or did J. Edgar impose some weird typewriter protocol (spaces between the periods in ellipses, for instance, as in the above sample) that the fearful Fibbies still follow lest they offend the old deviate himself, down where he twirls in his tutu for the Devil?