Free Republic

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By the way, why did Doug Thompson post this and promptly leave, not even defending himself in further posts??? Where are ya Doug?
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I'm here (and have been off and on throughout the evening). Sorry you missed the posts that can be found throughout the thread. But I also run a web site that requires constant attention.

As for answering each and every question, I can't. There have been over 300 posts here.

For those who fully read, and accepted, my apology: thank you.

For those who cannot accept it, that is your right and I understand.

I will find out more about this guy but I will also listen to my lawyer because this is now a legal matter and if I don't listen to his advice, I shouldn't be paying him.

When I am able to publish more information on whoever this guy is, I will do so, but it will be published on Capitol Hill Blue. My first responsibility is to the readers there.

I chose to come on FR tonight and publish the column as soon as it was written because there was so much talk about it yesterday and because it was William McKinley who first raised issues that led to me discovering that I had been had. I thank him for that.

But I cannot please all of you, nor will I try. I will continue to publish my web site. Those who like what I do will read it. Those who do not like it will go somewhere else. It's a big Internet out there and there's plenty for everyone.

When I have something to report, I will be back. Until then, thanks for listening.

Doug

FYI, I received the following email from the editor of Japan today after I emailed them about running the article from Truthout that was apparently lifted, without attribution or permission, from Capitol Hill Blue:

Dear Sirs,

I am the editor of Japan Today, an English Internet news publication based in Tokyo.

Yesterday in our World section, we ran a story from truthout.org (which we subscribe to) about Bush lying about WMDs.

We have since learned it was inaccurate and removed it. I read the story by Doug Thompson today on your web site and would like permission to use it on Japan Today, crediting Capitol Hill Blue.


Yours sincerely,

Chris Betros
Editor
Japan Today

We gave them permission, of course, and will contact any other publication that picked up the article and ask them to run the correction.

I'd love to stick around and answer every one of these 200+ posts, but I've got a lot of work to do and very little time left in the day. Thanks for your time. I'll check in later.

Doug

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Well Doug, you haven't answered a single response. Hit and run is for losers and/or columnists that can't handle rebuttle.

Which one are you?
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I'm someone who has been answering a ton of emails, dealing with a problem on my own bulletin board and trying to run a business and a web site.

I will track this guy down. I've turned everything over to my attorney, who is setting up meeting with the FBI. We intend to use the legal system against this clown.

I'll keep folks posted and we will, of course, run stories on Capitol Hill Blue.

Thanks for the kind words from many of you. As for those with less than kind things to say, I understand your anger. I pissed as well.

Doug

Sorry about the typos folks. When I discovered I had been had, I posted the story here while someone else was proofing it for publication on our home page (where it will remain for a while). They have been fixed in the story that runs at the top of our home page.

Doug

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If I screw up, I admit it and try to fix it.
Great! I assume that means you will be contacting the people at Japan Today then to get them to fix your screw up on their website as well?
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it's worse than that. I should have listened to you guys:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/943260/posts

I have always said that when I screw up I admit up and boy, I screwed up big time. Thanks for the Freepers who first brought this to my attention. I should have listened earlier.

Doug

Try hitting your "refresh" button.

Folks, I'm off to dinner. Thanks for a stimulating and thought-provoking discussion. Anyone else who needs to contact me can do via Freepmail or by email direct at dougthompson@capitolhillblue.com. BTW, for the guy who tried to call me, you called my office line that, when I'm traveling, is forwarded to Blue Ridge Photography (which is my photo business). The kid there got tired ot answering calls for CH Blue today. I've talked to him about that. Doug

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Good. When you do, make sure there is some way for someone else besides you to verify it.
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I don't tell others how to run their news operations or do their reporting for them. Ain't my job.

Doug

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Which brings back up the other part of my post. It would be very nice to have some way to verify any part of what Terry said. Names, dates, anything
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When I am able to verify additional information (and I will) , I will write a story on it.

Doug

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Personally, I find your claim that "[your] only agenda is reporting the news" impossible to believe at this point.
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As I said before, I respect your opinion. However, I believe that if you were a regular reader of CHB, you would feel differently (but then that is my opinion).

Thanks for your thoughts.

Doug

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That's not to say that the next guy wouldn't be harder to find, but we do this a lot around here, and it very, very, rare that a person who plays above a certain level leaves absolutely no tracks. We hardly ever see it.
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I concur and I understand why you do it. I spend a lot of time on Nexis as well (as my monthly bills attest) and I would do the same thing in your shoes. However, I am not going to risk a web site that has been a major part of my life since 1994 just to juice up a story. It's not the way I operate.

Doug

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I have read your defense of your headline on this forum...and on your forum. I am curious, WHY would you edit the headline at THIS point? Not that I don't think you made the right decision, but it seems like you took an "unofficial" opinion poll, and have deigned to make the change.
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Not at all. Most of this debate took place late in the day and several readers of my web site (as well as some here) made the valid point that the headline was not technically correct. I have gone back and corrected stories that were days, weeks or even months old if somebody pointed out a mistake or convinced me that I was wrong. I'm not perfect. Nobody is. If I screw up, I admit it and try to fix it.

Doug

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It was an irresponsible thing to do in the first place, not unlike the nasty piece you wrote on President Bush a few months ago and ended up having to apologize for.

I think you have a big, fat agenda.
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I respect your opinion, but my only agenda is reporting the news. Yo may not agree with how I do it and that is certainly your choice. However, when I do screw up, I admit it. When people make me aware of debates that involve me or my various web sites, I always make myself available to those debates and respond to questions under my own name, never under an anonymous screen name. You may not like what I do or how I do it but I don't run from it or refuse to answer questions.

Doug

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Beyond what is alleged in this thread, the article on your website is false on its face. The White House admitting that something was shown to be untrue does not in any way shape or form mean that the White House admits Bush lied. As a matter of fact, the White House categorally denies lying. Your article lies.
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In retrospect, you and others here make a valid point. The headline is technically incorrect because the White House made no such admission. I have edited the headline and the lead of the story to reflect that.

Doug

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But not enough. Saying "well, there's no information about my political work in the Eighties for Republicans on Google, ergo, Google is suspect" does not mean that your individual from January happens to exist. Indeed, if he was some "high powered consultant" in D.C., wouldn't there be some record of his activities from the late nineties?

And Nick Danger and others didn't just use Google. They used NEXIS, they used WHOIS, they used several different Web and non Web-based search methods. Your friend from January just didn't show up. Your Republican Consultant is off playing Miniature Golf somewhere; meanwhile, we're supposed to buy into Wilkenson?

Then, today, this Mystery Man shows up who gives you (not Dana Milbank, not Andrea Mitchell, not even Bob Woodward, but you) a story that just happens to jive with your obvious dislike of the President and your opposition to this war. Oh, not only is Bush deceptive, but he gets frostily angry with people who won't agree with his cooked up evidence! "Why, dagnabbit, I'll find the Evidence when we get to Eye-Rack! Meanwhile, make it up!"
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The story in question did not quote a DC-based consultant (as hard as it may be to accept, some very good consultants don't live anywhere near Washington, which is a point in their favor).

This isn't the first time we have beaten other media to the punch on a story. As noted earlier, our stories on Clinton's women started a feeding frenzy. When Bill Powers of the National Journal called, his first comment was "damn, how did you get to them before we did?" The editor of U.S. News & World Report told Felicity Barringer of the New York Times that his reporters used Capitol Hill Blue as "an early warning sign of stories that were developing." I don't expect any of this to change your mind. You come from a partisan point of view. I don't. I also have nearly 20 years of working in and around Republican politics. That gives me sources that many reporters who have never worked the GOP side of the fence don't have.

You're welcome to your opinion but I won't get into a name-calling contest with you. Jim Robinson is a friend of mine and I worked to help him with the unjustified lawsuit against FR by the Post and L.A. Times. Trash me or CHB if you want but I do not, and will not, trash a fellow webmaster's site.

Doug

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I have sent you a freepmail with some questions to send to Wilkinson if he chooses to respond. If I feel there is a big story here, I will run with it myself in my college paper.
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I will pass it on.

Doug

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You're way too modest. Using the search string 'Doug Thompson Eddie Mahe', google gave me this as the second hit:

http://www.politicsonline.com/netpulsearchives/221netpulse.html

A warm NetPulse welcome to two new contributing editors - - Doug Thompson and Richard K. Faust, both of Washington. Thompson is founder and publisher of Capitol Hill Blue, a daily Web e-zine started in 1994 that averages 200,000 user sessions a day. A former congressional staffer, he is a communications specialist with the Eddie Mahe Company.
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I stand corrected. I've never done a search on myself but others have told me that none of my political work ever shows up, even though I've been quoted in a number of publiations as a "Republican operative" or "GOP consultant."

Doug

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I would have taken your article more seriously if you would not have said Bush lied when even your source didn't say that. All he said was that Bush believed that it would be proven true and therefore, he went ahead and went with it. Your source did not say Bush told him something along the lines of: "Well, you are right, but I am going to say it anyway." The latter case would constitute lying. Not the former, which was actually what happened according to your source.

You also should have tried to find a second person to confirm what Wilkinson said.
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The use of the word "lied" has also sparked some controversy on the Capitol Hill Blue forum as well. It was my decision to use the word. Wilkinson did not accuse the President of lying. I did, based on information from other sources (who would not go on the record) that Bush was told outright that the information had been discredited before the State of the Union address but that he chose to use it anyway. To me that was a lie and I chose to use it in the headline and the lead of the story.

It has been interesting to watch how the various media have played the story today. Most have used words like "wrong" or "incorrect." The Washington Times said "White House concedes false Iraqi claim," almost as strong a headline as CNN's: "US knew uranium report was false."

So why such a strong headline from us? Because I'm mad. Bush didn't have to use a discredited claim to justify the war with Iraq. He had plenty of other justification, so why taint the issue with bad intel? As I said before, we don't pull in our punches for anyone. Not Bill Clinton, not George W. Bush. One week we're called leftist, the next we're a propaganda arm of the GOP. I once had a city editor who told me that "when you piss off both sides, you're doing your job." Based on our email, we must be doing our job.

Doug

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"You dislike Bush? Fine. You want to peddle the claim that he pushed to make the Niger story up? You'd better have more than "Terence Wilkenson" to back your story up.

Now where did you leave your "high powered Republican consultants" from last January's steaming pile? Oh yeah. In a bar with "Terence Wilkenson"." END QUOTE

I read that attack earlier this year. As I recall, the author said he couldn't find any listing for the Republican consultants named in the article because, like today, the names didn't pop up in an Internet search.

You can search the Internet until the cows come home and you probably won't turn up any information that from 1981-87, I worked for three different Republican congressmen on the Hill (as press secretary, chief of staff and a committee consultant). You also won't turn up the fact that from 1987-1992, I ran the Political Action Committee for the National Association of Realtors (at that time the nation's largest PAC) or that I worked for the Reagan-Bush re-election campaign in 1984, served as a campaign consultant to both the National Republican Congressional Campaign Committee and the National Republican Senatorial Committee or that I worked from 1992-2002 for The Eddie Mahe Comapny, one of Washington's oldest and best known Republican consulting firms (at the same time I was publishing Capitol Hill Blue).

Good research is a lot more than running someone's name through Google.

Doug