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LA TIMES: No Disputing It: Blogs Are Major Players (FreeRepublic.Com & Buckhead Mentioned!)
The LA Times ^ | Sept. 12, 2004 | Peter Wallsten

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 ...


TOPICS: Free Republic; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: cbsnews; forgery; killian; mediawingofthednc; msm; rathergate
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To: andyandval
does anybody wear pajamas?

I'm forming the virtual chapter of "Buff FReepers". Want in?

181 posted on 09/12/2004 6:35:39 AM PDT by Drango (What's the Font, Kenneth?)
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To: West Coast Conservative

"Bastion of Right Wing Lunacy?"

L0L nice try Smearboy!


182 posted on 09/12/2004 6:36:59 AM PDT by mylife (The roar of the masses could be farts)
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To: dawn53; ChiefKujo
I wonder how many other news items have been first reported on Free Republic.

Here's one...President Bush is eating in my undisclosed location

183 posted on 09/12/2004 6:39:56 AM PDT by kanawa
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To: Buckhead; TankerKC; Howlin

Karl, is that YOU?!

LOLOLOL! I'm lovin' this! Kudo's again Buckhead, Tanker KC and all involved.

Prairie


184 posted on 09/12/2004 6:41:13 AM PDT by prairiebreeze (sKerry is a sKunk!!)
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To: InterceptPoint

Yes they do list false FR accounts that can be used to get onto FR without having an account!


185 posted on 09/12/2004 6:41:30 AM PDT by longtermmemmory (VOTE!)
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To: Alia

Addendum: Therefore, I VERY MUCH APPRECIATE FREEREPUBLIC!!! It's more than simply appreciate.. I'm grateful. There are posters from all over the world who post and get "posted" in FR. I no longer have to seek out "foreign sources" JUST in order to get a more comprehensive picture on the US; but I can now get it - focused. In past I had to weed out foreign commentary -- as their articles were written with focus upon their own countries (to their own country's benefit), with news on US being primarily, peripheral. Now I can get the news from within my own country, about my own country -- and with so many views, I get to become... news-educated. And by my own fellow countrymen.


186 posted on 09/12/2004 6:45:45 AM PDT by Alia
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To: MeneMeneTekelUpharsin

Clearly Jim Jordan hates pajamas.


187 posted on 09/12/2004 6:46:10 AM PDT by bvw
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To: West Coast Conservative

During this election, the divide between those who seek the truth and those who seek to deceive is strikingly clear.

I am proud to be on the side of the "good guys"!


188 posted on 09/12/2004 6:49:12 AM PDT by bear11 ("In a time of universal deceit - telling the truth is a revolutionary act." George Orwell)
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To: longtermmemmory
Yes they do list false FR accounts that can be used to get onto FR without having an account!

I'm sorry to hear this but Jim should be able to lock them out if there are not too many of them and no dedicated effort to generate new ones. Unfortunately if there are enough DU'ers willing to share their login and password there is not much you can do about it.

189 posted on 09/12/2004 6:58:43 AM PDT by InterceptPoint
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To: airborne
It seems to me the amateurs are at 51 West 52nd Street in New York City.

After all, they're the ones who couldn't spot an obvious forgery, even when people warned them ahead of time.

190 posted on 09/12/2004 7:03:35 AM PDT by B Knotts ("John Kerry, who says he doesn't like outsourcing, wants to outsource our national security.")
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To: kcvl
>>>"They don't understand we are sick of them">>>>>>
I passed the word to my local rag Houston Comical that if stopped publishing the "Deaths" page that I would drop my subscription. Except for wanting to know who has died in my city they print *nothing of interest* to me.

I actually heard the woman at the newspaper groan when I said that. It made my day! ha!
191 posted on 09/12/2004 7:03:54 AM PDT by Ditter
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To: kcvl

And another thing the article fails to understand is that the anonymity of the posters makes for BETTER info...

Nobody can sit on their laurels or resume at Free Republic, you sink or swim based solely on the quality and documentation of the facts you add to the discussion.

And BTW, you're a particularly excellent swimmer ;-)


192 posted on 09/12/2004 7:06:46 AM PDT by Tamzee (Free Republic .... Partisan Pajama People)
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To: Howlin

Nice monitor .. LOL!


193 posted on 09/12/2004 7:08:04 AM PDT by Mo1 (Why is the MSM calling the Vietnam Vets and POW's a suspected group??)
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To: West Coast Conservative
"It was amazing Thursday to watch the documents story go from FreeRepublic.com, a bastion of right-wing lunacy, to Drudge to the mainstream media in less than 12 hours," said Jim Jordan, a strategist for independent Democratic groups opposed to Bush. "That's not to say the documents didn't deserve examination. But apparently the entire thing was cooked up by a couple of amateurs on Free Republic. The speed with which it moved was breathtaking."

They still don't get it. The network that thought America wanted to see Ronald Reagan taken apart in a sleazy movie-of-the-week, and the like-minded, just don't get it. You'd have thought that debacle taught them a lesson. I guess when Dan Rather is forced to admit the forgery, they'll get it, maybe a little bit.

194 posted on 09/12/2004 7:09:15 AM PDT by veronica ("Not all Muslims are terrorists, but almost all terrorists are Muslims." Abdulrahman Al-Rashed)
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To: Skywarner
And that's the problem that the MSM is having coping with us here on FR and in the blogsphere in general - the MSM can't handle the truth if it goes against their agenda.

Good point. If the MSM was interested in actually reporting just-the-truth, they'd consider the Internet and blogging a tremendous boon. The fact that we get in their way is telling.

195 posted on 09/12/2004 7:10:05 AM PDT by Tamzee (Free Republic .... Partisan Pajama People)
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To: hoosiermama
How do THEY know who is an amateur and who is professional here?

Yea - what you said.

I think there's gonna be some great post-Rathergate fallout - good exposure for fr and the conservative blogs, and damage to Old Media credibility (we've always known cbs et al were arms of the dnc, but having actual proof is sweet).

196 posted on 09/12/2004 7:10:31 AM PDT by searchandrecovery (Socialist America - diseased and dysfunctional.)
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To: Tamsey
Nobody can sit on their laurels or resume at Free Republic, you sink or swim based solely on the quality and documentation of the facts you add to the discussion.

Hearsay and anonymous sources don't hold any water here or on any of the reputable blogs -- as opposed to the MSM.

They have strayed so far from the path of legitimate journalism that they cannot even admit that it is facts that make the case, not anonymous unsourced propaganda.

197 posted on 09/12/2004 7:13:53 AM PDT by browardchad
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To: West Coast Conservative
Buckhead - help is on the way!


198 posted on 09/12/2004 7:14:55 AM PDT by badgerlandjim (Hillary Clinton is to politics as Helen Thomas is to beauty)
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To: TankerKC; Buckhead; Jim Robinson
Welcome to the FReeper Hall of Fame. I admire your humility and esprit de corps (mon dieu, he spoke French!) in this, your 15 minutes of fame! FReepers doing what FReepers do ... a loose collection of like-minded patriots, applying their experience and expertise in an instant analysis of the news of the day. You make us all so damn proud!
199 posted on 09/12/2004 7:15:53 AM PDT by NonValueAdded (hey, hey, ho, ho ... Kerry, sign the one-eight-oh!)
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To: badgerlandjim

ROFLOL


200 posted on 09/12/2004 7:19:49 AM PDT by hoosiermama (Bush Democrats = Zell's Angels)
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