Please stay on topic. Please don't be asses.
Digby, how will it play out?
My gut told me that since day one.
Bush/Cheney '04: Gullible's Travails
Bugging his own office in 1986? Check.
Feeding Hatfield the story of Bush's arrest for coke possession? Check.
Delivering the debate tape and prep book to the Gore campaign? Check.
It's Rove's M.O. -- tell the truth through a source that you can discredit. Keith Olbermann was onto it very very quickly. Send him an email and tell him that if MSNBC can break this one open, it'll make them the network of record for '04.
"My gut told me that since day one."
Yup, mine too. I wonder how Dan Rather will react? Rove must feel pretty confident to mess with him and CBS.
Do you think MacDougald anticipated being outted?
I said on my blog that my favorite theory is for the forgeries to come from Karl Rove, and I seem to have been roughly correct. It's an Agatha Christie plot as someone in my comments noted, but it's pretty much par for the wingnuts, IMHO.
I don't buy it. If CBS believed it got burned by the WH, why would they protect their source?
I don't buy it. If CBS believed it got burned by the WH, why would they protect their source?
That's the beauty of it, the information in the documents is actually true, Rove just made it look like it's not. By saying the documents are fishy, everyone jumps to the conclusion that the whole thing is a lie.
When karma catches up with Rove he's going to be well and truly fucked. I hope I get to see it.
Ha! I knew it ! When I saw the gushing news story in the LA Times last week about the amazing chain of e-events that started with 'Buckhead' and almost instantly scattered across the freeper side of the web, I could practically whiff Rove stink wafting from the page.
Thanks for validatin'.
The dirty trick isn't the memos. The memos are authentic. Look at this. LOOK at it:
"The use of proportionally spaced fonts did not come into common use for office memos until the introduction of laser printers, word processing software, and personal computers," MacDougald wrote on the freerepublic website. "They were not widespread until the mid to late 90's. Before then, you needed typesetting equipment, and that wasn't used for personal memos to file. Even the Wang systems that were dominant in the mid 80's used monospaced fonts."
This is bullshit. There WERE typewriters with proportional spacing, special superscripting characters and nicer-looking fonts way before the guy says. And look what he says about comptuers. He says they did not come into common use until the mid to late NINETIES? EVERYONE knows that isn't true. There were plenty of nice fonts avaiable with DOS, supported by the printer in many cases.
What happened was, Rove or somebody decided to attack the memos and sent them to MacDougald. He just MADE SHIT UP, knowing he could get it bounced around the echo chamber and the idiot media would pick it up.
All these "experts" are irrelevant. What's needed was someone who has a COMPREHENSIVE KNOWLEDGE OF WHAT TYPEWRITERS COULD AND COULDN'T DO. All these "experts" weren't expert on that. That sort of expertise appeared collectively, in comments to Atrios and Kos (notably in Hunter's diary on Kos). A lot of people put together know what typewriters can and can't do. One guy with an axe to grind shouldn't have been given the time of day.
I discount what Ms. Knox said because I think she overestimated what she knew. She could know whether she typed the memos; she couldn't know everything Killian did and didn't have typed.
There is NO techical evidence that the memos aren't authentic and the evidence from Ms. Knox is far from conclusive.
At this point, who the hell knows?
One disconcerting note in all the hullabaloo has been the notion, that, somehow, blogs have only now proved their worth as a factor in the political dialogue of the country.
Wonder what Trent Lott would have to say about that?
WaPo has the sender. See link.
"This is bullshit."
This buckwad doesn't know the difference between Palatino and Times New Roman ... how can he possibly know anything about typography?
He. was. fed. this. shit.
Yeah, I've been wondering myself -- when was it determined conclusively that these were forgeries?
Beyond that, I hope that CBS now takes the Fuckhead story and runs with it, hopefully to ram it back up Karl Rove's ass. What to they have to lose, after all?
I think the stuff he said was pretty elementary and pretty stupid. It turned out that genuine experts found some things fishy with the documents. So what? What do you expect some fucking freeper shithead to say when presneted with a document that challenges their little turd god? It's like betting on the same roulette number until it comes up. Of course this shit is gonna say it's all forged? What else would he say?
Although I believe there is a lot of reason to suspect that this whole thing is a repug sting (it just smeels like it), that some particular little freeper shit said "FORGERY!" means nothing. And saying it means something just makes you look dopey.
I have a lot more on this guy at my webiste here. We've been waiting for this to break for 2 days in Georgia.
Wait a second. Buckhead is a right-wing operative so therefore Rove was behind the forgeries? Isn't that a bit of a leap?
I wouldn't be surprised if the discovery of the 'forgery' had been planned in advance, but even if it was, all that means is that Rove or his minions had advance copies of the memos. It sounds like CBS spent a while passing the memos around to various experts. They could easily have fallen into the wrong hands.
I have no trouble imagining Rove creating forgeries to discredit Kerry, but I do have trouble imagining him forging those particular memos. Bush comes off sounding like a real spoiled brat and then there's the part about disobeying a direct order. Did they really have to be that damning to make the scheme work?
(continued)
The Right keeps crowing about CBS 'backing down' about their authenticity, but what CBS has really been saying is, "we're looking into it." Unless they're in denial or playing for time, that means there's a real possibility that they're authentic.
Maybe afer Killian retired from the Guard, he became concerned that someone would scrub Bush's records and destroy the memos. Figuring his ass needed more coverage, he recreated them from notes and had them typed up by someone else. The secretary sounded like a pretty credible witness, and this fits with her story.
(Of course this is all just speculation, but the same could be said of "memogate" itself.)
"MacDougald is a lawyer in the Atlanta office of the Winston-Salem, N.C.-based firm Womble Carlyle Sandridge & Rice ..."
Some of my favorite McDougald career highlights:
Drafted amicus briefs in the 11th Circuit for SLF in Johnson v. UGA, regarding constitutionality of affirmative action in college admissions, Gratz v. Bollinger a 6th Circuit affirmative action in law school admissions case, Washington Post Co. v. FreeRepublic.com, a First Amendment and copyright fair use case.
Alford v. Osei-Kwasi, 203 Ga.App. 716, 418 S.E.2d 79 (1992). Successfully defended jail officer who used a taser on a six month pregnant inmate.
Duckworth v. Whisenant, et. al., U.S.D.C. N.D. Ga., Obtained defense verdicts for three officers in 8 day bench trial of excessive force claims, limited verdict against DeKalb County to $500.
And of course ...
Drafted petition to disbar William Jefferson Clinton filed by L. Lynn Hogue.
And they flushed Marian Carr Knox, whose interview was more damning than any forged document. I hope the Democrats use it far and and wide.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/
2...ain643768.shtml
I am also struck by the connection between the Republican party and the freepers.
Striking too, how both of the latest fishy "scandals" - Parlock and Buckhead - have ties to the Freepers.
Like, laughing at them is good fun and all, but a nest of ratfuckers is a very dangerous thing.
I think Beth upthread has it right. Someone leaked or slipped the documents to Rove while CBS was verifying them and he concocted the scheme to immediately attempt to discredit them, using Buckhead, a trusted GOP operative. I think we give Rove too much credit by saying that he "planted" the documents on CBS and Rather. I doubt he'd plant anything that damning of Bush's character. Instead, Rove performed damage control, employing Buckhead to spread the forgery meme by creating doubt about proportional spacing, fonts, etc.
but where's the outrage at the blatant falsehoods perpetrated by bogus "experts" touted by CNN and the Washington Post - "experts" who insisted that 1972 was so long ago in the age of dinosaurs - before the invention of the wheel and the discovery of fire - that typewriters couldn't possibly have had letterspacing capability - claims that were swallowed whole not just by Mike Allen and Wolf Blitzer, but by Josh Marshall, Kevin Drum and Mark Kleiman
the CBS docs are said to be "maybe/could be forgeries" - yet they may well be completely legit - but it is absolutely certain that the "experts" at the WaPo and CNN et al were bald faced liars
so when will those news orgs and their reporters be put on the hot seat for endorsing that fraud perpetrated on the public?
oops
sorry for the double post
I guess just hitting the refresh button resubmits
I have no trouble imagining Rove creating forgeries to discredit Kerry, but I do have trouble imagining him forging those particular memos... Did they really have to be that damning to make the scheme work?
In a word, yes. Remember James Hatfield, the author of Fortunate Son? It was Rove who provided him with the details of Bush's cocaine arrest, and then subsequently exposed Hatfield's felony conviction:
The Bush camp with its long tentacles was of course aware of the book and was monitoring it closely. According to Hatfield, someone from the Bush camp had contacted him and he accepted an invitation to meet to see if he was "on the right track." When he met the caller in person, he said it turned out to be Karl Rove himself, Bush's chief strategist.
Hatfield killed himself. And Rove ensured that his book's content would be lost in the scandal over his past. How damaging was the information that Rove confirmed to Hatfield? More damaging than the TXANG documents, surely. And yet it came straight from his mouth.
I'm convinced that the 'Fuckhead' Freeper got tipped off by Rove. And I'm not the only one. Get a source to tell the truth, then destroy him. It's pure Rove. And the sooner that fucker is frogmarched, the better.
This buckwad doesn't know the difference between Palatino and Times New Roman ... how can he possibly know anything about typography?
My thoughts exactly, anon -- it can't be reiterated enough that anyone who has been examining this particular type with a fine tooth comb, then states it was "probably Palatino or Times New Roman" is simply lying out his ass about something.
It makes less than no sense. Unless the bastard was simply trying to be too clever. Then it makes perfect sense.
He. was. fed. this. shit.
Anonymous | 09.18.04 - 2:30 am
Amen. Fuck these fucking assholes.
Follow along. Bush was a bad boy. He drank too much. He did cocaine. He skipped out on his military duties. He was arrested at least three times that we know of.
A federal judge has ruled that next Friday, the White House must release ALL of Bush's military records. This is going to look very, very bad just a few weeks before the election.
So how does Karl Rove engineer a coverup to all this? How does he draw public attention away from his bad boy's very real deficiencies and frame the debate in such a way as to attack "liberals" instead?
They prepare fake memos mimicking the real information they want to cover up. They then prime a GOP activist in Atlanta to debunk those memos as forgeries as soon as they appear. Then they feed those fake memos (containing very real information) to CBS. CBS runs with the story, the primed debunker fires off his "debunking," the rest of the blogsphere picks it up, then the right wing media, then the mainstream media and bam, people aren't talking about the content, but the dirty forgeries and CBS' gullibility.
Next week, when the real memos are released or something like them, people will be so numbed to the whole mess and the entire thing will be so complicated that no one will pay any attention and the media will be so burned by the CBS debacle that it is unlikely to cover the story at all. And again, the bad boy gets away scot-free.
All the rest of this noise over evil CBS and the gullible media is just spin and fury, a way to discredit that very real information when it finally appears and cover up the truth of Bush' actions.
The White House is holding onto Bush's service record and admits that there are pieces it has yet to release. All FOIA requests on this material have to be run through the White House. Bush's former CO's secretary admits that she did type memos containing exactly the information that the fake CBS memos contained. But the public has never seen them.
Who had motive, opportunity and the cunning mind to pull off this massive deception? I think it was Rove. It fits his MO, it is consistent with the way he has worked in the past and it needs to be done if Bush is going to survive this election.
His fingerprints are all over this.
It is like our side is playing chess against the GOP but we only are able to think one move ahead. They plan out these grand Machiavellian schemes and we are still wondering whether to move the pawn one space or two.
Look -- this Freeper was waist deep in the big muddy of the Hunt for Bill Clinton back in the 90's -- and the Southeastern Legal Foundation he works with is financed by Richard Mellon Scaife of Arkansas Project fame. He worked with Ken Starr.
As Digby says, guilt by association does not meet the higher standards of good liberal journalism -- but all slices of bread deserve a SMEAR of butter. This has nothing at all to do with the Kerry Campaign -- don't even expect to see him comment. But I don't think most folk liked this cast of characters the first time round during the Hunting of Clinton -- so make the connections and slather it on.
I has more tons more credibility than *any* evidence that was Whitewater related.
Hence....
FAIR GAME.
The GOP is just reaping what they sewed. Unfortunately there are so many "principled" Democrats that they are unwilling to scream bloody murder. What these folks tend to forget is that their princples are being shat upon already and it will certainly get much worse if Junior is re-elected. This isn't a decades long Ghandi-esque struggle folks. It's friggin' down and dirty American politics with a *very* close finish line!
What's the famous line? "If the other guy brings a knife, you bring a gun!"
Follow along. Bush was a bad boy. He drank too much. He did cocaine. He skipped out on his military duties. He was arrested at least three times that we know of ...
...insider trading to the tune of almost $1,000,000, failure to file SEC disclosure when required, falsifying intelligence data to gain support for war, invading a foreign sovereign ...
His crimes are part of a lifelong pattern. In fact, "Bush's character? It's the pattern, stupid." might work as blogocampaign slogan.
I'm with Lowell, grant and other above; the memos are authentic and the CBS gave the White House a heads up while working on the story (I think whis was even reported somewhere).
This enabled Rove/Creative Response Concepts to seed their sockpuppets with all those false claims re available typewriter technology and phone font comparisons.
If they were really planted on CBS, would they not have been readily identifiable as produced by MS Word (actually matching font, proper baseline, etc.)?
The differences in appearance of the actual memos and MS Word reproduction attempts as well as the wildly-swaying inaccurate testimonies of so-called experts re proportional fonts in the 1970s, point to an after-the-fact "muddy-the-waters" operation to discredit the memos, rather (haha) than an engineered plant on CBS.
"Principled" Democrats? You mean like the ones at Dkos or DU or Indymedia? The ones carping for years about GHWB abortions, Kissinger getting cornholed by Dan Rather(ahh, the memories!) at the Bohemian Grove, October Surprise, 300 Committee using Israelis to kill Buckley, ad nauseum? If you're under any delusions that you people(how Digby attracts you loons is beyond me) are any different than the freepers spouting crap about Mena airfields and cocaine parties you're as deluded as you are partisan. Which should come as no particular surprise.
Yeah, a grand conspiracy. So much more plausible than Dan's daughter in Austin hatching a plan with Barnes in Austin to sacrifice Burkett in Abilene to his old pal from Seattle, Mary Mapes. Or that Rather just got screwed by shoddy assistants. I almost wonder if when you people wake to find a viscous fluid in your shorts is Rove the first thing to enter your mind?
Good post, but I can't help but recall a week or so ago when you upbraided all the lefty blogs who even addressed the possibility that the memos might not be authentic, even though several of those blogs, suggested just what you now speculate. As I recall, you said we could either stand behind the memos' authenticity, or "the better part of valor" would be for us to just shut up. Basically, your suggestion to blindly support the documents as genuine, by simply talking out of our ass without regard to facts, would have turned our blogs into a mirror image of Powerline, Drudge, and the others you, I and others have spent the past years debunking. If we didn't take your advice, it was because we didn't have the "stomach" for political discourse. I resented that, and still do. But I'm glad you've come around.
News of the Buckhead scam is spreading fast. Grab your ass beopussy - your side is going down on this one.
Google News
.
Please notice also the media attempts to finger Burkett as the source of the documents. Why would Burkett, who wants to remain anonymous, fax forged documents from his hometown Kinkos? Knox said that she didn't believe the documents were legit because they contained references that would likely have been used in the army, not the airforce. Why would Burkett make changes that would suggest his own army background? The WP article on Burkett makes note of the fact that Burkett made comments on a Yahoo newsgroup that sounded similiar to phrases used in the memos. But why assume that members and the WP are the only ones monitoring Burkett's postings? In fact, I'd love to know who brought the newsgroups to the WP's attention. Both Knox and Rather alluded to an explanation near the end of the interview: It looks like someone had the originals, but wanted to cover their tracks, so they put in changes. Doesn't sound like they had Burkett in mind.
An 'a' for creativity and a 'd' for execution. But the hounds are out and in force, sniffing for clues everywhere. Get the popcorn ready. We should work under the supposition that Rove's arrogance has no bounds, cuz it doesn't. OT: Let the word go out: THE ONLY PERSON WHO CAN PULL US OUT OF THE MESS IN IRAQ IS JOHN KERRY!
Yeah, "my side". I've been reading Digby's for months because I'm such a staunch Republican. Mmkay. Fuckwit.
Rove the Machiavellian Dr. Evil hatches this coup d'etat on Dan Rather(revenge for that hatchet job on the old man in '88, no doubt), CBS, Harold Moonves and Viacom, AND Kerry, DNC, Terry, etc. all thanks to a poster in a freep thread 4 hours after the show aired. One using an existing account with god knows how many other posts as a trail. And this guy is your archnemesis? For fuck's sake.
No grand Machiavellian schemes perhaps, but if old enemies end up slimed and miserable (like Burkett, whose been harrassed for decades) so much the better.
James Wolcott described their much more modest aims in "Outfoxed":
"They don't have to win every argument, but if they can muddy the argument enough, if they can turn it into a draw, that to them is a victory because it denies the other side a victory."
Even if dox come out showing Bush's true status, the argument has been forever muddied.
Oh let's see, more than once you've referred to Digby posters as "you people". I guess, then, the 'other side' for you is 'those people'. You're above partisan politics, right? You see world as 'you people' and 'those people'.
And Rove is the arch-nemisis. Buckhead is but a pawn.
If you want to add any value here, offer a substantive refutation to what beth or grant said above.
Oh, so this isn't in the same league as the "Rove killed Hatfield" conspiracy bunk? Certainly everything bad that could possibly go wrong is directly due to the scheming of the demilich Rove. He is all-powerful afterall.
Yes, poputard, I make a distinction between bloggers and commenters. Digby's been in my blog list since March DESPITE the commenters. It's the reason I rarely bother reading them much less posting. After the mild switch(noted somewhat by shoveldog) I looked. Especially considering the treatment Drum got recently.
Digby lathers it on pretty thick sometimes but is atleast honest enough to admit a possible error even when called on it by a first time poster. That's why I come here. Not for you and your ilk.
By the way, I re-read twice and saw nothing either beth or grant posted that was substantive. Unless you're willing to accept that 1) Rove is Machiavellian par excellence, 2) a genius yet 3) he used a trusted GOP operative using a handle he took from his neighborhood in Atlanta and who had repeatedly made an ass of himself both online and in print...while using his name, address, employer...blah blah blah...to carry out his nefarious plans.
Since Rove is allegedly the font(pun not intended) of all your woes I'll say it again...For fuck's sake. Can it get any worse?
So let me get this straight - you're saying Rove is above political dirty tricks? Maybe you should have stayed out of the fray, because by making implications such as that, you're showing your ass here. Rove is like O. J. Simpson's dream team. There is no limit to the degree of advocacy that he performs on behalf of his client. Manipulate? Sure. Lie? Sure. Cheat? Sure. Obfuscate? It's a must. The glove? If it doesn't fit, you must acquit. The memos? Fill in your own rhyme.
In other news, 'beowulf' believes that reality shows are actually representative of real life.
" THE ONLY PERSON WHO CAN PULL US OUT OF THE MESS IN IRAQ IS JOHN KERRY!" Good line Andre. I guess the backstory might be "Again a Democrat is called upon to clean up another Republican mess".
Yes, poputard, that's exactly what I said. Geez. No wonder you people think Rove is omnipotent. It's because you are utterly feckless and impotent.
Now answer my question. If you have a "nocturnal emission" do you immediately poke pins into a Rove juujuu doll?
Hey, are you clairvoyant too, anon? I just watched my first ever "reality" show this week. Cuban is such a wanker.
Oh wait. You're the "Rove fed Hatfield" loon. And to think I almost started a conversation. Ha! By the way, did Hatfield leave any notes fingering those other two "sources"? Now that he's dead he won't have to worry about those pesky confidentiality, libel, etc. laws. Roll out the old sack of bones and prop him up. It can't be any worse than what you've had lately.
The documents are real, of course. Remember, CBS gave copies of the documents to the White House before the 60 Minutes telecast aired, and Rove no doubt had plenty of time to send a third party out to try and muddy the waters by having this guy make the absurd claim they are forgeries. The White House could then distance itself from all of the hoopla when in most likelihood was up to its eyeballs in the "controversy."
Any experienced typist can tell you those documents were NEVER forged on a word processor. Any experienced typist could also tell you MacDougald didn't know what the hell he was even talking about.
One doesn't have to resort to wild theories about the documents being plants if you know the facts.
I've maintained all along the documents are real, and people were buying into a monstrous hoax, including huge chunks of the media.
McAuliffe should shut his stupid mouth. The documents were NEVER plants, and I wish to hell people would QUIT BUYING THE MACDOUGALD CRAP that they were forged.
Are most people here that young and that ignorant they don't even know what a typewritten page looks like?
$DEITY, I didn't think that I would ever read something not-over-the-top, sense-making by Susan Nunes.
Does anyone in the English speaking world doubt that chimpie left before his contract with the ANG expired? Was there really any earth shattering news in the memos? What has been the aftermath of CBS broadcasting the memos?
In my mind, it is a repuke disinformation campaign. What better target than CBS and Dan Rather(for the repukes, that is). They wouldn't want to use FuxNewsChannel or fauxfox(CNN) and certainly not GE owned MS-RNC. ABC? Does anyone watch ABC for news?
Any god damn thing to keep the real issues away from the center of news.
Freeperland and the L-Dotters don't even have to explain how their great warrior/king walked away from his commitment. They are all atwitter over forgeries, and how CBS lies about their hero.
Repuke dirty trick, and a pretty effective one at that.
troll panties all tied up in knots cause digby called it. heh heh heh. type louder, trolls, i love the sound of desperation.
Go back to the sidelines beopussy. There's no need to match wits with you here. You're only half prepared.
These elves, these political operatives who betray democracy, deserve the same treatment as The Man Without a Country: www.eastoftheweb.com/short-stories/UBooks/
ManOut.shtml
"The differences in appearance of the actual memos and MS Word reproduction attempts as well as the wildly-swaying inaccurate testimonies of so-called experts re proportional fonts in the 1970s, point to an after-the-fact "muddy-the-waters" operation to discredit the memos, rather (haha) than an engineered plant on CBS."
Yeah, what's with these freeper clowns "reproducing" the memos in Word, than saying, that of course the memos are "15th generation copies" so of course they still look a little different.
Okay, well make 15 copies of your Word doc, idiots and see if letters drop like on an old typewriter ...
Why is MacDougald not answering any more questions? Pretty weird for such a normally loquacious fellow.
This is SO Karl Rove: I'll bet he arranged for Burkett to get his hands on the docs earlier this summer, hoping he'd peddle them to the DNC.
BTW, The Friday White House night paper dump was laughable: a fluff letter from George Sr., a long-known fluff piece for Junior in the local paper from 1970. Memo to Bartlett, et. al: these don't qualify as official documents. Even the White House press corps knows that.
Someone needs to find out if "Buckhead" is billing clients for the time he spends on freerepublic...
You know, there may be an argument over whether or not these things are fake, but there's NO WAY you can say that they are fake based on proportional spacing, curled apostrophes, and the font.
Why? Because I had a 1960s-era IBM Selectric typewriter growing up -- a hand-me down from an aunt who used to be a secretary. It had proportional spacing and the option of using either a straight or curled apostrophe. Other fonts were available at that time, including "Press Roman", which looks just like Times New Roman.
The real problem, however, is that no one really cares about how Bush & Cheney hid out during the war. It's a diversion to keep people from paying attention to Iraq, the economy, massive intelligence leaks (Chalabi, Plame, Khan), and Halliburton conflict of interest, and it makes the Dems look petty.
Tch. Tch. Tch. Beowulf. Beowulf. Beowulf.
How many times do I got to teach you guys about the eye for an eye? It's not the same publishing the home address of someone who has been identified in a newspaper and someone who is not a public person. Much less that the guy identified in the newspaper is a rich, well-connected lawyer, can take care of himself. Not to mention how many promises/vows/duties you violated to do what you did.
And don't get me started on the Ninth Commandment. You guys act like I never said anything on the subject. Feh.
Spend a few years fasting, praying... a hair shirt would be nice. Then we'll talk. Until then bubbeleh... well, Dick Cheney said it best.
Nothing is "tied up". I checked the comments because Drum's posters were entertaining after he addressed the memo story. I didn't post until I went to Chris' site. After that I just vented.
Poputard, you should be looking forward to the day when you are "half prepared".
You: "So let me get this straight - you're saying Rove is above political dirty tricks? Maybe you should have stayed out of the fray, because by making implications such as that, you're showing your ass here. Rove is like O. J. Simpson's dream team."
Not only did I not say anything of the sort you're back on the Master Rove meme. Rove is so slick he uses an operative who's been an active freeper since Jan 27, 1998 with pages and pages of posts including personal information AND happens to be a vocal wingnut in his community?
(cont)
Why didn't he just make a new account himself and hijack an ip from a Democratic operative? You know...like "someone" did to the Indiana Democratic Party?
Again, you're doing exactly what the freepers did with respect to Morris, Carville, and Begala...making the hack into the devil incarnate. Fact is if Rove is as wiley and deceptive as you claim then he did not do this. If he did do this then he's not as wiley and deceptive as make him out to be. Take your pick. I care not.
Bailwoof spaketh:
"Not for you and your ilk."
How DARE you refer to us as an ilk!!! Them's dueling words!!! Sir, choose your weapons and a second!!!
Bailwoof spaketh #2:
"No wonder you people think Rove is omnipotent. It's because you are utterly feckless and impotent."
Okay, folks, he's repeating word-for-word from Gush Windbag's script, he (the Windbag) made the same comment (except for the "feckless", I doubt he knows what that means) two days ago on his show. Case closed.
I think Rove's ulimate goal is to make sure that our national political conversation remains limited to he-said, she-said back and forths about the military backgrounds of Bush and Kerry. What Rove wants to avoid is having to defend the Bush record on the merits, It's true that Shrub's sorry attempt at military service has hurt him a bit in the polls, but the GOP is willing to make the trade-off in the hopes that the voters will never be confronted with substantive issues.
"...the GOP is willing to make the trade-off in the hopes that the voters will never be confronted with substantive issues."
Well, perhaps, but many substantive issues don't play hide an seek -- they should be clearly obvious to anyone paying minimal attention, si?
Christopher, after spending all of 4 seconds finding your info I googled you and saw you were praised on the floor of your state Senate. I was hesitant to post what I'd found because you were referred to as a student intern(good job by the way). But seeing how it was 2 years ago I crossed my fingers and hoped you weren't still living with mom and pop and posted it. If you do then I'll apologize.
Thanks for showing class and removing the info on your page. Hope Digby ripped yours before anyone checked to see if I was joking.
Clem, "impotent" was played off "omnipotent". Not only are they antonyms but they have the same root. Ain't I sleeeeck? Maybe I'm Rove.
Dear Beowulf -- Are you having orgasms while you post? If you find us so distasteful (or feckless, or whatever other word your thesaurus regurgitates), then why are you here, hmmmmmm? Methinks you're enjoying it. Get a life.
Here's my plausible scenario.
Burkett forged the memos, based on things he knew to be true. He probably thought he was helping get a story out that he knew was factual.
One of the CBS experts had questions about the memos, and let CBS know ON THE PHONE. "Somehow" the GOP machine got info about the contents of that phone call. So they set up the trap - told CBS they were not questioning the authenticity, got it onto the internet, and got the PR firm to blast the story everywhere.
They're smart, that's all. And it shows they are willing to fight. I only wish they were this good at fighting terrorists. Instead they use this resolve and strength to raid the treasury and give our social security savings to a few rich fucks.
We should be focusing on WHY DID BUSH STOP FLYING?
I didn't really explain so...I pared down my newspapers list in Jan/Feb so I'd have time to read more blogs. I stumbled upon Digby's by sheer luck("Hullabaloo" is part of a song where I live). After a few weeks I was about to write off Digby's and move on but couldn't resist putting in a jab before I right-clicked. Digby shocked me basically posting "You're right. I apologize." Been a regular reader every since. Like I said previously--I come here for Digby not his fans out of respect not gladhanding fellow travellers.
So, no, I'm not having orgasms. But I do enjoy it. Thanks for asking, everyman.
Anyone noticing how all the hoopla about the memo, typeface, blah blah blah has completely decimated the original story....personal and attributed statements by Barnes??!!
Masterful!
Speaking of patterns, I'm reminded of the Bush DUI story in 2000, when the Bushies were extremely interested in the party affiliation of all the players, and very effectively shoehorned that info into reporting of the story. They couldn't muddy the facts, so they went with the dirty tricks angle. I remember Judy Woodruff specifically and quickly - within a day or two - leading with The Bush DUI: how will it hurt the Democrats?
Rove killed Hatfield = Clinton killed Foster. To say one is possible and not other flies in the face of human nature, though, admittedly Rove would've had more obvious gain than Clinton. So let's dispense with that nonsense.
I don't think Rove is enough of a genius to have provided the memos; remember that would require his hand to be undetected by CBS. Rather, I think he got a heads up and had his countermeasures in place and waiting. Rather // Ha ha ha huh. Poor Bastard.
Anyway, this whole thing plays to Bush in taking peoples eyes off what's important for another news cycle.
Kerry in a major landslide, mark my words. - Huge, absolutely HUGE. 340+ EV. You heard it from the Geenomeister first.
"Kerry in a major landslide, mark my words. - Huge, absolutely HUGE. 340+ EV. You heard it from the Geenomeister first."
Well, I certainly hope you're correct, but have you paid a visit to the following lately:
http://www.electoral-vote.com/
The blue states seem to keep fading as the days go by. No, I ain't no troll -- perhaps this is an invalid site, I have no idea (in other words, it could be "cooked", if you know what I mean). What is the basis for your opinion?
The polls all (except Gallup) show a tight race. Historically, undecideds break 3 to 1 for the challenger - so if you see race 48 - 46 for Bush, the 6 percent in the middle are going to go 4.5 to 1.5 for Kerry, a 50.5 to 49.5 Kerry win. A lot of the states showing weak Bush are going to fall for Kerry, including some traditional red states. We NEED to get the House and or Senate on President Kerry's side so GOTV and dem talking points are still crucial, but the Presidential race is all but over IMO.
If Rove did have a hand in this (I'm still an agnostic on this), it could only be because there's a much, much bigger story he's trying to fend off. Bush is taking a hit on the TANG thing, which suggests a willingness to suffer short-term damage in order to avoid a bigger hit. So rather than being distracted by all the memo crap, we need to be pushing harder to unearth the real story Rove is so afraid of.
everyman - electoral-vote.com changes quite rapidly. Click the previous report button and surf back to before the Republican convention. Bush took the lead during the convention, but Kerry took it back a few days ago, having almost as wide a margin as it gives Bush now. I think the site uses the most recent poll taken in each state, whether it's USA Today, Gallup or whatever. In any event, it's extemely fluid and fun to watch, but not an accurate predictor of anything, yet. For example, God hadn't phoned in his hurricanes yet when the last FL poll was taken, so Bush has those EVs -- for now.
poputonian, Two of those hurricanes went straight through the heart of Bush country, bypassing Democratic Dade county. Florida belongs to Kerry until Diebold says otherwise.
I honestly think they're being punishes for putting that Harris bitch in the HR.
Heh heh. It's called threading the needle.
"everyman - electoral-vote.com changes quite rapidly. Click the previous report button and surf back to before the Republican convention. Bush took the lead during the convention, but Kerry took it back a few days ago, having almost as wide a margin as it gives Bush now. I think the site uses the most recent poll taken in each state, whether it's USA Today, Gallup or whatever."
Thanks, I needed that! I wasn't exactly headed for the roof, but it helped put the right spin on things, and there are so many things spinning lately!
Did anyone read the article in Prweek on the memos?
Creative Response Concepts (CRC), the VA-based agency promoting the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, used right-wing blogs and news sites to turn a CBS report casting doubt on President George W. Bush's National Guard service into a potential black eye for both the network and the Democrats.
http://www.prweek.com/news/news_...D=222586&
site=3
Wow You guys are good good good
It only took you a week (or was it 8 days?) to figure out that a poster named buckhead who lurks on the Free Republic website is indeed a republican.
Yoou all have big futures in ferreting out the obvious.
Everybody knew he was a republican, papertiger. It just took a few days to ferret out the proof that he was a full fledged lying sack of shit member of the professional GOP character assassination squad.
Everybody knew he was a republican, papertiger. It just took a few days to ferret out the proof that he was a full fledged lying sack of shit member of the professional GOP character assassination squad.
And then, just when we thought it couldn't get any worse, it did. He's a lawyer, too.
He's a freakin' Scaife elf and a member of thee Federalist Society. Is that a 'conspircacy theory,' beowheat?
"And then, just when we thought it couldn't get any worse, it did. He's a lawyer, too."
HEY!!!!
Whom would you rather have as VP? A lawyer, or a "businessman"?
Oh damn ... my bad. I forgot we got a couple of those on our side. Well, statistically, there are some good lawyers. Yeah, that's the ticket.
No, lordwhorin, but believing Rove has some part in this abortion definitely is. But conspiracies are to wingnuts what slop is to pigs so continue connecting the dots. You're helping your side about as well as the Mena-coke freepers of the 90's helped theirs. G'job, mate.
There's a typo in that article: "Freepers collectively possess more analytical horsepower than the entire news division at CBS"
It's supposed to be "horseshit".
"Freepers collectively possess more analytical horsepower than the entire news division at CBS"
must be hoarding it somewhere supersecret
Ha ha ha. That's funny.
You know, if Rove is really this smart, then the Dems might as well pack it in right now. They'll never win so long as he is around.
Commenting by HaloScan
