Posted on 09/12/2004 2:43:11 AM PDT by West Coast Conservative
These days, CBS News anchor Dan Rather and his colleagues at the network's magazine program "60 Minutes II" are enduring an unusual wave of second-guessing by some of the public and fellow journalists.
For that, they can thank "Buckhead."
It was a late-night blog posting by this mystery Netizen that first questioned the validity of documents Rather cited Wednesday as proof that George W. Bush did not fulfill his National Guard duty more than 30 years ago.
Buckhead refuses to further identify himself, other than dropping hints that he is a male who lives on the East Coast — preferring to proclaim that the scramble to verify the contentions in his posting marks an extraordinary achievement for a medium that has operated more as an underground world of ideological venting than a source of legitimate news.
But Buckhead is vehement about one thing: He acted alone when he posted, to the conservative website FreeRepublic.com, what was widely believed to be the first allegation that the CBS report relied on documents that could have been forged.
"Absolutely, positively, on my own, sitting at my computer in my bedroom just before midnight — but not in my pajamas," he wrote in an e-mail exchange with The Times. "But once I posted the comment to Free Republic I was no longer working alone, and that is the real point of the story about the story about the story."
That story began Wednesday, 19 minutes after the "60 Minutes II" broadcast began, when another FreeRepublic poster, TankerKC, noted that the documents were "not in the style that we used when I came into the USAF…. Can we get a copy of those memos?"
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
I'll give the LA Times credit for getting the source right. Which is more than I can say for CBS.
BTTT
How do THEY know who is an amateur and who is professional here? There are quite a few professions represented on FR.....Plus I feel left out, I NEVER freep in my PJs, undies maybe but never PJs.
The "right wing" they're referring to is actually the "silent majority" of the past.....Hint LAT We are silent NO MORE. The internet has given us a voice.
My sarcastic comment made it:
"'All hail "Buckhead,"' wrote one posting to Free Republic. 'Here, here,' wrote another. 'But how do we know Buckhead is really not Karl Rove….'"
(s)Next on E! what pajamas were freepers wearing! and celebrity liberal surfing the political web web! (/s)
does anybody wear pajamas?
LOL, that was my comment. I was sarcastically making fun of DUers and Dems saying the forged memo came from Karl Rove. Never been quoted by the LA Times before.
Funny, that was my quote they used. I was sarcastically making fun of Dems for even suggesting it.
The Rove quote was mine. Funny, I was making fun of Democrats for being so paranoid.
LAT hasn't a clue about sarcasm.
Maybe this will prompt someone in the MSM to do a 'fair and balanced' report on FR, complete with an account of how the LA Slimes took FR to court to try to, in effect, silence us.
The MSM knows this.
Mister Multimillion Rather has be ustaged by ordinary people.
CBS bosses will remember this during the next anchor contract negotiations.
Intelligent news is not information filtered by Mr. overpaid Rather for 24 minutes of a few soundbites.
Next time just hire a news reader or program a CGI talking head.
I am very glad the media establishment thinks FR is a bunch of amateurs. They will always underestimate FR and that is a good thing.
FR was instrumental in getting GW Bush elected the first term and has been instrumental in getting him elected a second term.
The media doesn't get it and that is good.
The internet is crushing the leftist media and will continue to do so as long as we have the freedom to express our views.
(s)Playboy and the women of FR! Sexy pictorals of what hot conservative women are not wearing!(/s)
The MSM hsa successfully shifted the conversation from Kerry's record to Bush's.
While this has been a good couple of days for us, I would rather see Kerry back on the defensive.
Congrats!
I remember getting an internet post quoted by a mainstream journal once. Felt pretty good.
It was after Clinton's dog Buddy died. I said: Buddy should have known better than to play go-fetch-the-stick in Ft. Marcy Park.
Mine was just an off-the-cuff remark about a dead dog.
But you guys could be credited with actually helping Bush win the election.
Sick? I'd say we are nauseated, disgusted, offended, provoked, appalled, tormented, agonized, and way too aggravated.
I'd add, the Dems with their allies in the MSM don't seem to mind at all how their biased news is not only tearing families apart, but dumbing down educational standards, our courts, rule of law -- and has been doing so since... 70s, by my watch. Dems/MSM create a hostile teaching environment throughout the US colleges campuses for divergent political views-- and how? Some people are still adhering to same old "Kronkite" image that the US news WOULDN'T lie. Of course the devoted "news" believers, refused to acknowledge that there is real life, real expertise outside the newsrooms.
Long, long ago, I was getting the Economist and South African News JUST to get a balanced scorecard on the US news. It opened my eyes. So, the MSM can just blame "outside" sources for my eyes being opened. Europeans, for all I might disagree with their policies? Still -- their students are far better prepared to discuss all manner of diverse politics. The MSM has only ONE VIEW presented a million ways -- BUT, ONLY, VIEW. There are some MSMs who have opened the floor and door to "news diversity", a bit, and it's about time.
MSMers seem mired in the idea that only liberals and Dems "talk" to other countries and outside sources. And when it became clear, especially, that the internet was a valuable tool being used by everyday citizens to research, learn more -- THE DEMOCRATS PROPOSED TO TAX THE INTERNET. And they still do.
LOfreakinL
Looked to me like an attempt by the author to show how they can "ferret out" information about Bloggers and other LA Times "enemies" (i.e., we can get information on you anytime we want to). Must be based upon their vast knowledge of the Internet. LOL. What dorks these people are.
Me neither but I know of some who access their site and read their stuff as opposition research without ever registering.
Here's how they do it:
Just click on bugmenot.com and read their faq. You can get access to virtually any news website that requires registration without ever actually doing so. For all I know you can get on FreeRepublic using the same scheme (just kidding but I can't actually check that out.) Just put their little icon in you links bar and whenever you need a username and password just click on the link and a window will pop up with the info you need. Just use it once and you will be able to log on forever to that site.
Sounds almost illegal. May be. But it works.
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