I remember that night and that thread, I even considered signing up that night but the information, input, and opinions kept outstripping the tiny input I had related to my few months as an Army clerk during the period in question, so I remained a lurker.
I saw it as a freerepublic event, something that was emerging and unfolding from freerepublic, not just something that an individual was posting or had posted. I had to attend a club meeting that night and couldn't wait to get back home to my computer and watch the flow of information.
*""That was the first blow, from which all the others followed. Several FReepers in the Pajama Posse researched the matter further on a series of threads that night, to be joined by a number of bloggers, among them Ratherbiased.com, PowerLineBlog.com, LittleGreenFootballs.com and Instapundit.com. (The term blog derives from Web log. I believe Pajama Posse is a facetious reference to FReepers who do research on the Internet while in their pajamas. While some FReepers are lawyers and current or former journalists -- the late Barbara Olson was a FReeper, though not an active one -- many of its best researchers are simply bright, hard-nosed civilians with a modem and a large library.)""*
The strength of FR is in the world wide reporting base, like in the case of the shuttle disaster.
Having been in the Army in the ‘70’s and having seen many, many typewritten memos, I knew something was wrong with the Rather documents. Buckhead spotted the precise technical problem. I remember that being one of the best days ever to be a member of this forum.