Letter cut off in Finder Windows

[PIX]

Since the Lion upgrade, on my 2006 iMac, I noticed that any letters preceding a lowercase "j" is partially cut off on drive and folder names.

Notice that this doesn't occur with a different letter combo proceeding the word Projects:

I recently took the plunge, since 2005, and did a clean install. The the issue persists. Not sure if transferring my preference files over to the re-install has any bearing on the recurring issue? I was unable to reproduce this Lion issue on my 2010 MacPro.

Has anyone else experienced this problem?

 

[GGJstudios]

Use Font Book to validate your fonts and make sure none are damaged.

 

[PIX]

Use Font Book to validate your fonts and make sure none are damaged.

The kerning font anomaly occurs on test external HD install with both 10.7, 10.7.2 installers as virgin installs.

 

[ZMacintosh]

on a blank drive/partition?
Are you sure they were "Erased & Installed"?

any external drives or other disks connected at the same time with fonts on them?

Have you tried in safe mode?

 

[PIX]

on a blank drive/partition?
Are you sure they were "Erased & Installed"?

any external drives or other disks connected at the same time with fonts on them?

Have you tried in safe mode?

A virgin install. In other words a newly created partition with no content.

What would be the purpose of booting into safe mode when the OS is a fresh install?