Posted on 02/06/2007 4:37:21 PM PST by 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.
SNIP
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.
SNIP
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.
(Excerpt) Read more at tech.msn.com ...
That's why it's called "PC" World.
You didn't really think it had computer stuff in it, did you?
FR had "Courage!" then! : )
LOL!
You have a link to that report? I'd like to read it...RD
bump
What was that scandal?? I don't remember it.
Wasn't there a fake Army Ranger here awhile back?
The real story is not the ones we know about, it is the ones that never surface because of the fear of us.
Yep, speed_addiction, who got zotted.
I don't know how to find it.
It was later shown to be a hoax.
Thanks for reminding me. I actually saw that piece of garbage. You're right, it would be hard to get away with that level of outright lying today.
I see that Dick Morris is gearing up to make this and next year a great expose on Hillary's misdeeds (as if we've forgotten...but clearly most Americans have forgotten). I hope he ends up "Swiftboating" the old hag next year.
&&
I hope he does also.
And I have new challenge for the FR Pajamhadeen:
Find out how much money Hitlery has actually given back to persons/entities that she later was forced to acknowlege were not appropriate sources of campaign contributions. Remember all of the promises that she would return donations? Was this actually done? I doubt it.
Nope, an obscure Quidam reference. He was always very... cryptic. LOL!
So the fact that Rather was using forged documents to smear the president shortly before an election is not important. We bloggers only argued about fonts. But fonts are like DNA: Hard evidence that they were forgeries, whereas analyzing signitures, finding the letter was written in non Army style etc. are only matters of opionion, like finding fingerprints near a crime scene.
Not only that, they listed FR first.
Uhhh....ya. A sad chapter in FR history. It spawned the "anti-freepers" that are still active today.
Thanks Connie.
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