TIME MAG: 'THE BLOGGERS-HOW TO KNOCK DOWN A STORY' (Print Version Includes Buckhead Pic)

Time.com ^ | "Posted September 27, 2004" | Joshua Macht, et al

[L.N. Smithee]

Posted Sunday, September 27, 2004

Having caught the scent of a juicy story from the MSM (mainstream media) to bite into, the bloggers were waiting to pounce like a pack of hounds behind the butcher shop. On Sept. 7, the day before the CBS broadcast, left-leaning blog talkingpointsmemo.com announced that 60 Minutes was to air "documents that shed light on Bush's guard service or lack thereof." The following afternoon, bloggers at freerepublic.com, a conservative website, began anticipating the coverage with comments such as, "CBS should have to register as a Democrat [campaign organization]." Minutes into the broadcast, another Free Republic blogger (known as a freeper on the site) questioned the authenticity of the CBS documents. A few hours later, yet another offered plausible evidence of fakery: the CBS documents could not have been produced by typewriters available at the time. "These documents are forgeries," said the writer. "This should be pursued aggressively."

The comments were penned by someone known online as Buckhead. And they might have languished had it not been for powerlineblog.com, a well-trafficked right-wing website that linked to Buckhead's claims. The rumblings filtered up to Matt Drudge, who linked to Power Line, setting off a surge of publicity. Soon 500 other blogs had linked to Power Line. Among the assertions: 1970s-era typewriters couldn't have produced the superscript th that appears in the memos (this was later disproved). The next afternoon, both the Washington Post and ABC News carried stories about the postings. The mysterious Buckhead had become a folk hero among red-blogged Americans.

But the mystery didn't last long. As first reported in the Los Angeles Times, Buckhead is Harry MacDougald, 46, a conservative, big-firm lawyer from Atlanta with a history of pugnacious activism. As an advisory-board member for the Southeastern Legal Foundation, he helped write the group's petition to disbar Bill Clinton and worked with former Clinton prosecutor Kenneth Starr to challenge a federal campaign-finance law. As the online avenger Buckhead, he has described Clinton as the "Ozark Caligula." Now identified, MacDougald shuns media attention; as one of his postings claimed, perhaps disingenously: "It wasn't me, it was the swarm."

—With reporting by Mark Coatney and Nathan Thornburgh/New York and Viveca Novak/Washington

[billorites]

"I'd forgotten I was that old."

I wrote my Master's thesis on a Kaypro. So did my wife.

I've got two in the closet. Still remember all the WordStar commands.

My 10 y.o. uses it sometimes for Pong.

[kaktuskid]

Older than Kaypro.

Older than a Trash-80!

[L.N. Smithee]

With the exception of the bloggers comment the article is written rather fairly especially for a "Time" article.

You're right. I was expecting a harsher treatment of FR, much like the DNC smear of Jerome Corsi as "anti-Jew, anti-Catholic bigot." I should count my blessings.

[LiveFreeOrDie2001]

*** Fear the rath of agressively pursued accuracy of the New Media ***

[ThomasPaine2000]

Being a "weakly magazine" means they are only seven days out of date..

[Judith Anne]

Older than a K-Tel Record Selector. ;-D

[billorites]

Kaypro was my first computer.

I bought a Kaypro IV and a Juki daisy wheel printer second hand when I graduated from college for $3000.

That's 1984 dollars. Both still work.

[OKC Patriot]

Nobody really knew just how hugh this would become... downright series!!!

[LiveFreeOrDie2001]

Older than the Lightbulb - Happy Birthday today, lightbulb! :-)

[tgslTakoma]

The online story has a link to FR... expect more new FR signups from this story (and no doubt more PO'd RATS, too).

:-)

[Maceman]

The newly-coined term is pajamahadin

Pajamarazzi is an infinitely better label.

[bannie]

Shame on you: You're gonna' offend blind people when they see that.

;D

[Galena Nevada]

Notice in the article a parenthetical aside stating that the superscript assertion has been disproven. I disagree. I have not seen an adequate explanation which shows that the superscript, as shown in the forged documents, could have come from a 1970s era typewriter. One of President Bush's documents has something akin to a superscript (a small "th" next to a number) but this so-called superscript was shown not to be a superscript at all, because it was not set higher than the preceding text (as the superscripts in the forged documents are), and in fact, was set at the same level as the preceding text (just smaller in size). If I weren't a news junkie, I would have read over that parenthetical statement and would have spent the rest of my days thinking that some of the arguments against the authenticity of the documents were false.

[Petronski]

Print is dead. --Egon Spengler

[ThomasPaine2000]

I still have fond memeories of Condor rDBMS

[bannie]

PDP-11

:)

[Petronski]

Pajamarazzi is an infinitely better label.

I agree. [blush]

[tophat9000]

If you never played the text computer game "Star Trek" on a teletype hooked to an pdp8 that you bad to boot by hand loading the bootstrap program hex code in to the registers... and thought you were on the bleeding edge of technology....well that's old

[LiveFreeOrDie2001]

Pajamarazzi it is.

[badgerlandjim]

"...koff... koff... oh... the stench... but... must... get new...
koff.. DNC memo... koff... to CBS to... ugh... throw...
koff... suspicion onto... Republicans..."