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To: HowlinglyMind-BendingAbsurdity
Olberman on MSNBC had Barbara O'brien who wrote Blogging America on with no reference to her political background as if she was a blog expert. She expressed concern that Blogs were becoming opinion leaders. Said she had received various nastyisms for questioning Buckhead opinion regards forgery et al. Free Republic was a "radical site"

Decided to look at her site out of curiosity. Italics are quotes from her blog.

"What a strange experience. I didn't actuallly (sic) meet Keith Olbermann, because I was in a little studio in Midtown Manhattan and the main MSNBC studio is in New Jersey. And I didn't get to say any of what I had hoped to say. Olbermann was going on about how blogs are possibly being used by political parties to put out rumors and spin, and I couldn't think of much to say except "yeah, could be." But I was able to sit in the chair and get words out of my mouth. Also I got picked up by a limo (whoo-hoo!) and got a little gift bag with a coffee cup and coffee and some chocolate-covered macadamia nuts.

More Blog..

"This whole sorry episode began on the evening of September 8, when a lawyer named Harry MacDougald, posting anonymously as "Buckhead," wrote on Free Republic that the memos were forgeries created by computer word processing or possibly by typesetting equipment but not on typewriters available in 1972. By the following morning this assertion had been picked up by a number of right-wing blogs. It hit Drudge mid-afternoon, was on Fox News by early evening, and was all over mass media in time for the 10 o'clock news "

"In other words, the unsupported opinion of one anonymous man traveled from a radically extremist web site to all of mass media and became cemented as conventional wisdom in less than 24 hours. Note that most of the same people who ridiculed Dan Rather because he wasn't more careful about the memos accepted "Buckhead's" claims at face value. We may yet learn that the memos were forged, but this cannot be determined with certainty without the originals. "

"People all over the web who hitherto didn't know a ligature from a serif are suddenly "experts" who hang great significance on the exact placement of a superscript or the fact that words on the PDF file can be made to align with the same words created with word processing. Although when I tried it, it turned out like this: "

"The above doesn't prove anything. Clearly, the red letters (word processing) are a tiny bit larger than the black letters (from the CBS scans). But without the originals, we don't know if the scans are true to size (I suspect they are not), which is why all the animated GIFs that have been created to show perfect alignment don't prove anything, either. On the other hand, because of the extreme degradation of the characters themselves I suspect there's enough distortion in the CBS scans that they may no longer align perfectly with their own originals. If the originals still exist and someday come to light, expect someone to claim they aren't the real originals because they don't line up perfectly with the scans. "

"And, once again, typewriters did exist in 1972 that could have typed the originals*******. They were the more expensive models, but they did exist. That being said, there are enough questions about the provenance of the memos that I agree they should be questioned and investigated. If the originals turn up and it turns out they were forged, I promise to announce this on The Mahablog in 52 point Helvetica. "

********* Barbara is no doubt suggesting the Selectric Composer which is really not a typewriter, it only looked like one. It was -rather- a printing shop machine. It was an: expensive ($4,000 in 1070's), nasty. complex, ill tempered, error prone machine, with a user manual that might as well have been written by the idiots that write VCR manuals. One posting tells how his dad owned a print shop and got so disgusted with the Composer that he ordered the poster (his son) to carry it out to the street and put it in the garbage!

Yea right Barbara. You're obviously a real typewriter expert!

Interesting that you call Free Republic a radical site. Your blogs are so mainstream and even handed.


Some samples below:

"These five essays were written and published in December, 2003, for Open Source Politics. In these essays I attempted to get to the bottom of the reason for George W. Bush's alleged popularity and what must be done to save America from itself."

"Bush "Pioneer" Caused the Blackout!!!!! (person donating more than $100k)"

"As our soldiers suffer in Iraq with inadequate water, food, sanitation, and shelter, President George W. "Bring 'em On" Bush treated his top fundraisers to a private barbeque (sic) near his ranch. "

Nice of Olberman and MSNBC to have such an unbiased person on. A real piece of work.

PS: Barbara, you need a spell checker.

One more reason not to watch MSNBC.

92 posted on 09/20/2004 9:55:33 PM PDT by dickmc
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To: dickmc
Just in case Barb wants the true facts on the culture of the unfolding blogocalypse, I'm wearing plaid boxers with a can of American beer in front of me on the desk just to the right.
94 posted on 09/20/2004 9:59:48 PM PDT by HowlinglyMind-BendingAbsurdity
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To: dickmc

Sounds like they were real desperate to have dug this idiot up. Maybe she stayed at a Holiday Inn Express.


118 posted on 09/20/2004 10:14:19 PM PDT by eggman (With CBS and lies as with cats and hairballs - expect the unexpectorated.)
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To: dickmc
"This whole sorry episode began on the evening of September 8, when a lawyer named Harry MacDougald, posting anonymously as "Buckhead," wrote on Free Republic that the memos were forgeries created by computer word processing or possibly by typesetting equipment but not on typewriters available in 1972. By the following morning this assertion had been picked up by a number of right-wing blogs. It hit Drudge mid-afternoon, was on Fox News by early evening, and was all over mass media in time for the 10 o'clock news "

The goofier liberals seem to be having a hard time coming to terms with the fact that conservatives are better bloggers. And better with handling the internet in general. Now...THERE's a story for them to work on.

137 posted on 09/20/2004 10:45:26 PM PDT by HowlinglyMind-BendingAbsurdity
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To: dickmc
Ahhh...MSNBC isn't all bad...Joe Scarborough had Howard Fineman and Pat Buchanan and they were all blasting this new Kerry Konnection, Joe Lockhart and Max Cleland's suspicious part. He also had Jon Klein on, fmr. CBS News VP, who said a LOT of butt needed to be kicked at CBS.

Joe himself was suggesting Heyward should resign and put Burkett's email up on screen where he explains his conversation with Cleland.
Burkett: "I asked if they wanted to counterattack or ride this to ground and outlast it, not spending any money. Cleland said counterattack. So I gave them the information to do it with."

He also had Linda James on, the forensic examiner who was contacted by CBS on Sept. 3, and she examined them and told them she saw major problems with them, the signatures and the superscript font thing. CBS never got back to her after her analysis (surprise).

Joe a few nights ago said nice stuff about how great the blogger revolution and Dan Abrams talked about it tonite.

146 posted on 09/20/2004 11:00:54 PM PDT by gab1279
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