“Buckhead” vs. Dan Rather: Internet David Slays Media Goliath

September 26, 2004

by Nicholas Stix

“Buckhead” and Post #47

As soon as CBS put the “documents,” or rather photocopies of them on its Web site, a FReeper (denizen of the conservative/Republican Web site, FreeRepublic with the username “Buckhead,” almost immediately showed that the “documents” were likely forgeries. In his now legendary post 47, Buckhead argued,

“Howlin [another FReeper’s username], every single one of these memos to file is in a proportionally spaced font, probably Palatino or Times New Roman.

“In 1972 people used typewriters for this sort of thing, and typewriters used monospaced fonts.

“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. 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.

“I am saying these documents are forgeries, run through a copier for 15 generations to make them look old.

“This should be pursued aggressively.”

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.)

Actually, the typewriter fonts used in the CBS documents existed at the time, but were not commonly used, and certainly not by the Texas Air National Guard, much less by Col Killian, who did not type memos.

Only when the “blogosphere” lit up with activity, did the socialist mainstream media (SMSM) grudgingly pick up the story, and eventually kick into high gear, even as their members refused to credit the Web world. “Buckhead” was identified by the Los Angeles Times as 46-year-old, conservative activist Atlanta attorney Harry W. McDougald (“Buckhead” is a tony Atlanta neighborhood).

When I reached McDougald, he said, “Well, I’m not doing interviews, Nicholas, so I’m not going to be able to help you. I’m sorry.”

Oh, that’s a shame!

“Yes, but that’s what I’m doing and I’ve done that consistently, and that’s where I’m going to stick.”

Polite, but firm.

The refusal by most of the SMSM, when the Memogate hoax was exposed, to credit McDougald/Buckhead and his FReeper compatriots is typical of the vanity and arrogance of that media subculture, whose partisans still believe that they have a monopoly on describing social reality and prescribing political action, and that civilians have merely to accept what they dish out, and follow their marching orders. (Politically correct “journalistic ethics authority” Jim Romenesko of the Poynter Institute, also refused to discuss Memogate until everyone and his Aunt Ida already had, which led Washington Dispatch editor C.K. Rairden to skewer Romenesko, along with CBS. Romenesko’s views are pretty much representative of the dominant talking points in university journalism programs.)

Eventually, it came out that some of CBS’ own document experts had had grave misgivings about the authenticity of the documents; people whom Rather claimed had vouchsafed the documents’ authenticity had never seen them, but only had their contents read to them over the telephone, or only seen photocopies; and that Rather had ignored the insistence of Col. Killian’s wife and son, that the memos could not have been from him. And even after the hoax was exposed, Rather was caught presenting a former typewriter repairman as a document expert." .......

 http://www.mensnewsdaily.com/archive/s/stix/2004/stix092604.htm