Posted on 02/06/2007 4:37:21 PM PST by Polybius
The Web is a great way to deliver information, but it's also a great way to expose, spread, or jump-start a scandal.
SNIP
The Net's biggest scandals are nothing if not democratic, touching everyone from the most ordinary individuals to the highest office in the land. Not everyone deserved the notoriety. Some were hapless victims of privacy breaches; others were exposed by hackers or misguided crusaders. But in almost every case, somebody ended up getting fired, sued, or mortally embarrassed.
SNIP
3. Dan Rather Bids a Font Farewell
They were supposed to be the smoking gun the Bush Administration was desperate to conceal: four documents, dating from the early 1970s, that allegedly proved that powerful friends of our current president pulled strings to keep him out of Vietnam and put him into the National Guard. But shortly after 60 Minutes host Dan Rather revealed the documents' existence in September 2004, the gun blew up in his face. Conservative blogs Free Republic, Little Green Footballs, and Power Line questioned the authenticity of the documents--specifically, whether a 1970s-era typewriter could produce the superscript th and curly apostrophes found in the four memos.
Instead of focusing on where W actually was when he was supposed to be serving with the National Guard in 1972, political bloggers immersed themselves in the arcana of typewriter fonts--and the mainstream media followed suit. Twelve days after airing the segment, Dan Rather publicly apologized for the story, saying he could not vouch for the documents' authenticity. A few months later, he quietly left CBS--with the inevitable "gate" permanently appended to his name.
(Excerpt) Read more at tech.msn.com ...
Hey..I thought that wasn't half bad..cut me some slack..(G)
"Instead of focusing on the allegations, the bloggers focused only on the facts."
I noticed that, too.
LOL!
FOR THE RECORD: CBS Memos Controversy on Free Republic
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1220090/posts
You'd think that PCWorld would know the difference between a blog and a forum.
Something FR can easily forget.
I remember him well. He sure had people going for quite awhile.
CBS was doing just that.
Exactly. And the media continue to use falsified and non-existant evidence, sources, and stories to advance their far left agenda. Fortunately, there are places like Free Republic where this sort of deceit can be exposed.
The mainstream media was forced to look at the freakin' facts. REGRETFULLY.
This smacks of "accurate but false."
Here's the historical record: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1212057/posts?page=36#36
At the time, it was known that this was timed like the Rathergate plot to have just this effect. Yet there still hasn't been consequences to those who plotted this and carried it out.
The soft underbelly of the conservative movement is that it has no mechanism to deal with the double standard of the left and no stomach to make the left live by the same rules. We just shrug it off and decide thats how the game is played.
Rush has been trying to change this ground, but till we find the way to deal with these situations without becoming the slimy slicks on the left, we cannot win against this sort of slime attack. Tom DeLay still languishes due to false charges, and the cost of this folly is incalculable.
Indeed ... and perhaps if they said bloggers jump on plot to take down a sitting President it would be far closer to what really happened.
Allrghty!!!!!
I'd put last summer's "fautography" escapades on that list somewhere too. That was 100% driven by the internet.
Oh yeah - - but my favorite was quidam. "Trust Starr". Remember all his cryptic posts about "the turtle"?
Great point.
I agree! It bugs the crap out of me as well! If one of the meida idiots actually visited this site, they would see...it is obviously NOT a blog... (rolling eyes)
Listening to that Clinton sycophant talking to Clinton and also to his secretary was a real eye-opener, especially when he trashed the RAT governor candidate from Mass. And then several of the FR faithful tried to discredit my report, even though it happened just as I heard and reported! I reported verbatum what that empty suit from Iowa blathered in his speech!
And a little-known factoid...when I got off of the train, my bag, sitting on my roll-behind, fell off...and guess who courteously put it back on for me? You guessed it...the Clinton mouthpiece! :-)
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