[George W. Bush]

The WSJ writer was directly quoting the thread itself. He probably should have put in a [sic] after the misspelling. While I agree that it's unfortunate there was the typo, I don't think it significantly detracts from the thread.

Point taken.

But maybe the writer was pointing indirectly that ordinary middle class Americans don't have to spell as well as a news service copy writer in order to scoop the Associated Press with a compelling live news account.

The misspelling gives the account a flavor of authenticity, of just ordinary people typing in their comments informally, people who like aerospace and watched it via the net together and then realizing something had gone horribly wrong.

I don't think a misspelling detracts from our report thread on bit. It represents FR very nicely just as it is.

[Spirited]

FR is consistently on the leading edge of breaking news if it remains judiciously unfettered.

The media in the past has breathed a great deal of blab and "prop-agenda" at important times while Freepers local to the matter at hand can report from local radio and eye witness experience what is really going down.

I agree with "George W. Bush" poster that misspelling is not significant especially at times of heightened duress. I hope that we support the freedom of those who would like to but do not spell or write that well to post here.

We don't need to manifest an elitist attitude even if FreeRepublic is an elite corps. Elitist attitudes belong on that other website where the word only applies to their attitude and not to their substance.