Squabble over the "World's Worst Signature"

New dollar bills may soon bear a peculiar signature, namely that of Jack Lew, Obama’s nominee for secretary of the treasury. The excitement in the U.S. media knows no bounds.

Reports about Barack Obama’s intention to nominate Jack Lew as his new treasury secretary are providing an abundance of fodder to satisfy the media. It’s not about Lew’s strategy for dealing with the economic crisis but rather his “loopy” electronic signature that every dollar printed will bear.

Departing Secretary of the Treasury Tim Geithner and other former secretaries memorialized themselves with readable, elegant penmanship. But several commentators have remarked that Lew’s signature — consisting of several loops of various sizes — looks instead like a telephone cord or a coil spring.

Like Sally Brown’s Hairdo

The graphology firm Graphology Consulting said on its website: “The signature of Jacob ‘Jack’ Lew is among the most mysteriously weird (with goofy overtones) that we have seen in a quarter century of graphology.”

Kevin Roose of New York Magazine said that Lew had “the world’s worst signature. And pretty soon, that signature could be on every single one of your dollar bills.” Roose also remarked that Lew’s signature was reminiscent of “Sally Brown’s hair in Peanuts.”

The Washington Post’s “Wonkblog” ironically remarked that Lew’s signature could make the dollar the best currency in history. The newspaper asked handwriting expert Kathi McKnight to analyze Lew’s signature. She said that it “was similar in style to the handwriting of Princess Diana and showed he had a ‘softer’ approach to problem-solving.”

President Obama could make public his selection of Lew as Tim Geithner’s replacement as early as Thursday. Whether or not he will decide to change his signature by then is not known at this point.