Posted on 09/18/2004 8:51:41 PM PDT by kristinn
An Atlanta lawyer, Harry W. MacDougald, has become a key figure in the controversy over whether CBS News relied on forged documents to question President Bush's service in the National Guard.
Writing under the nickname "Buckhead" in a posting on FreeRepublic.com, a conservative Web site, MacDougald was the first to question the authenticity of documents, purportedly written in 1972, because the proportionally spaced fonts used in the memos were not used in typewriters at that time.
"I am saying these documents are forgeries, run through a copier for 15 generations to make them look old," he wrote in a message posted less than four hours after the Sept. 8 broadcast of "60 Minutes II" in which the documents were revealed.
Overnight, "Buckhead" became an Internet hero to conservatives as his five-paragraph posting touched off a cascade of questions about the documents. One suggested he be named "Freeper of the Year," using the name FreeRepublic posters call themselves.
On Democratic blogs, meanwhile, questions were being raised about how "Buckhead" could have analyzed the typefaces so quickly, and whether the questionable documents could have been a Republican plant.
MacDougald, 46, confirmed he was "Buckhead" after the Los Angeles Times traced his identity through biographical hints posted on the Web site. He declined to comment further to the Journal-Constitution or to the Los Angeles Times.
MacDougald serves on the advisory board of the Southeastern Legal Foundation, a conservative advocacy group, and as a sole practitioner was involved in two of the foundation's high-profile cases: a challenge to the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform bill, and the Arkansas disbarment proceedings against former President Bill Clinton.
He also wrote an amicus brief for FreeRepublic.com in a breach of copyright case brought against the Web site by the Los Angeles Times and The Washington Post.
Phil Kent, a former president of the foundation, said he was "tickled" to learn of MacDougald's involvement.
"He's always been kind of an Internet watchdog," Kent said. "Harry's a jack-of-all trades. He's very aware of a lot of things most of us wouldn't pick up on."
Former Atlanta City Councilman Lee Morris, who was deposed by MacDougald as a friendly witness in one of several whistle-blower cases he successfully litigated against the city, described him as a "meticulous" attorney, who "seemed like he was fired up for the right reasons."
Former Atlanta Journal-Constitution columnist Colin Campbell, who interviewed him several times about the whistle-blower cases, said MacDougald struck him both as "a man of integrity" and "someone who loves to stir the pot."
While several associates referred to MacDougald as a prodigious researcher, none knew of any experience he has had in identifying forged documents.
MacDougald works for Womble, Carlyle Sandridge & Rice, a North Carolina-based firm that opened its Atlanta branch in 1993. He's a graduate of Brown University and the University of Georgia Law School.
He's also a member of the Atlanta chapter of the Federalist Society, a conservative legal group from which a number of the Bush administration's federal judicial nominees have been drawn.
The memos reported on by CBS were allegedly written by Bush's Texas Air National Guard commander, Lt. Col. Jerry Killian, suggesting that Bush had received preferential treatment and failed to show up for a required physical.
The Washington Post reported Saturday that Bill Burkett, the former Guard officer suspected of providing the documents to CBS, contacted former Sen. Max Cleland (D-Ga.) in August to offer the same information to Sen. John Kerry's campaign. Cleland confirmed that he told Burkett in a brief phone conversation to contact others in the campaign.
Burkett wrote in a Web posting that the Kerry campaign didn't call him back. The Post also pointed out several words and phrases that were repeated in the alleged Killian documents and in Web postings made recently by Burkett.
In addition to the speed with which the typeface discrepancies were pointed out, Democrats have questioned the immediate release of copies of the documents by the White House, which had obtained them from CBS.
As more information filtered out, "Buckhead" became more cautious than he was in his initial post.
Congratulations were "premature," he replied to one admirer on Sept. 9, saying his conjecture was "not 100% conclusive because the IBM Executive and IBM Selectric Composer would do proportional fonts."
Later in the day, "Buckhead" wrote to another poster that he felt additional information was confirming his suspicions.
"As for my part, this tsunami would, without any doubt whatsoever, have happened w/o me, so it ain't no big thang," he wrote.
"I will have a cold one tonight, though."
Maybe I can sweet-talk my husband into doing it -- I don't have the car this week. What should we look for?
Thanks.
How did Buckhead survive his undergraduate years at Brown University? He must have been one lonesome dude.
Not only a federal judgeship -- I do hope he'd replace Mrs. Eddie Rendell, the $1.5 million dollar Apellate Judge -- but a few contracts with Big Oil and Haliburton too -- just to salt his larder.
But he works for Womble, Carlyle, et al? Huge Dem supporters. Go figure.
I, too, argued that proportional fonts existed.
The convincing evidence for me was, the blacked out address, the "CYA" and the exact spacing match to an MS Word document (even if it was possible to match the spacing, the odds were not in its favour).
The universities and the MSM don't even make a weak attempt to put any checks in place. If they would at least hire conservatives, to work side-by-side with their liberal staff, then perhaps they would be able to join us in the New Era of Credibility.
Remember to keep your bullets in the front pocket.
It's become almost a hobby with me, the idea that the more militantly activist you get the more nuts you go, the more selectively you filter the input of your senses to the point of forming an impenetrable delusional system, and the more you imagine yourself ordained and compelled to lie, cheat, steal, kill, whatever. Dan Rather's newscasts have the integrity of a pamphlet proving the Earth is 6000 years young and all geology is wrong, or an article announcing that the UFOs landed at Roswell and are controlling the governments of the Earth but it's being hushed up to avoid a panic.
Two glasses of merlot last night and I flub that.
These people really believe us 'normal' folks are not capable of critical thinking. It would interesting to research big stories the MSM has broken in the past and see what the outcome would be nowadays. They thought they'd get away with this easy...twice. What have they done, that up to this point, they've passed as legitimate news?
There was the small matter of 13 point line spacing.
I once wrote a program to create facimile forms on a HP laser printer from a COBOL mainframe program. Some of the form was filled in from a database, but the company that used the form wanted to be able to complete it in a typewriter. Every blank and every box had to line up perfectly with typewriter spacing and line feeds. There were no 13 point lines.
>>>Why the hell are these media morons writing as if you need some sort of twenty year certification course to determine that these look like obvious forgeries?
Someone here pointed out that this amounts to an admission of total incompetence on the part of any print media morons making such statements in their reporting on this story. When your business is printed words on paper, Buckhead's observation is really pretty obvious. I know when I read #47 that night, I though "dang, I should have noticed that!", and I'm certainly no "document forgery expert".
And one in the chamber?
FGS
bttt
Yesterday, September 18th L.A. Times, had a half page article titled "GOP Activist Made Allegations on CBS Memos" and subtitled "An Atlanta lawyer who helped get Clinton disbarred is the blogger who called them fakes."
By and large it was a list of facts with the implication that his blowing the whistle so fast and being a conservative activist are good arguments for this being "engineered by Repubicans eager to undermine reports that Bush received preferential treatment in the Texas Air National Guard..."
At the end of the article, if you're willing to slough through 35 paragraphs of disclosures, someone who knows him says, "...and so rather than being a matter of conspiracy, it's just him doing what he does."
They've been twisting the news for so long, they don't know how to stop. They continue to lie, when the truth would serve them better. Morons.
Hey, the louder they squeal and the more names they call him, the more he knows he's stuck them where it REALLY hurts.
I wish you people would quit trying to get him appointed to the Supreme Crotch, though. He'd have to sit there and look at that Ginsberg thing. I wouldn't wish THAT on a *friend*...
It must feel great to be be able to tell all the LW naysayers, told ya so. I suspect that once all the hubbub dies down you will be able to relax, after the election of course, an reaqlly take a hard look bak at what happened.
I think a book by you documenting the CBS/Rathergate story would be a bestseller.
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