PC World: Top 10 Internet Scandals of All Time (Free Republic & Rathergate)

via MSNBC ^ | 6 FEB 2007 | Dan Tynan, PC World

[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.

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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.

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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.

[alnick]

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.

Ah, the old fake but accurate angle.

[Lancey Howard]

Yeah, he/she/it is still registered, believe it or not. Her(?) posts were fairly innocuous, and I don't know if there was any agenda there, but clearly she was a goofball.

[IronJack]

"Deep in the Heurtgen Forrest?"

DITHF. A mnemonic that will live in infamy ...

[Mr. Bird]

quidam was definitely the most entertaining. I would say we (not all, but most of us) were willing consumers of such enticing puzzlements. Quidam would be laughed off the web today, but back then, there was this strange, naive hope that he actually knew more than us.

As for me, I could use a good ***ASH ALERT!!***

[PGalt]

Truth is on the march BUMP!

[Marie Antoinette]

The Tsunami is coming! ;-)

[Shermy]

Thailand?

[Kevmo]

BFLR

[pyx]

Bringing down Dan Rather in Rathergate along with his MSM machine was a LOT bigger scandal than Mark Foley.

[ThomasThomas]

Typewriter fonts are not arcana, one of my favorites is on the D model executive IBM. I only have 5 old manual typewriter so I an only a novice collector.

[bpjam]

Mark Foley gets #2? That's complete crap. The union-thugs set up a phony website to 'out' the emails from Foley to a 19 yr old former page and its a 'web' event? It was just political assasination. It had nothing to do with the web any more than the Swift Boat Vets were a web event just because they had a website.

[Matchett-PI]

bttt

[Mr. Brightside]

My favorite typewriter is the Woodstock, specifically the Alger Hiss model.

[I'm ALL Right!]

WE'RE NOT WORTHY!!!WE'RE NOT WORTHY!!!WE'RE NOT WORTHY!!!

[Ditto]

Anyone remember "Deep in the Heurtgen Forrest?" LOL

I remember it well. But it was another Freeper (sneakeypete?) who smoked him out. ;~))

[jveritas]

WOW!!! Congratulations :)

[MarkL]

But notice that MSN just can't quite say, "since the evidence was obviously faked, there's no way to know if the charges based on that evidence was valid."

Nope, they just say, "nobody concentrated on the charges, but on the fonts."

As Danny boy said, "Just because the evidence is faked, doesn't mean that the charges are false!"

Mark

[BamaGirl]

Yeah I noticed that too. What a bunch of cry-babies.

[weegee]

Eventually coordination between the DNC and CBS was uncovered but that was not mentioned either. Neither was it mentioned who actually forged the documents.

Instead the messenger was blamed for focusing on "arcana" of typefonts. The real arcana was the Left trying to spin the "coulda, woulda, shoulda" of how the documents still COULD be genuine (although no ink signed typed letter was ever produced because the beast does not EXIST).

[weegee]

Again, in Foleygate, it was shown there was coordination between the DNC and the media who SAT on this story and then tried to take the GOP to task for "what they knew" and "when they knew it" when the DNC held more information in their hands (and at least one of the staffers was a Democrat).

The original allegations of soliciting and molesting minors (or even active aides) was false. But the media tried to rail this all the way up to the GOP leadership.

Again, the internet community uncovered more details than the media ever wanted to discuss. In the Congressional hearing over the issue, it was uncovered that the DNC DID indeed know.