Thursday, September 09, 2004
The lefty blogs on Fontgate
Consider this a little mini "Carnival of the Commies" round-up of lefty blog reporting on the Killian memos (the underlying documents forming the basis of the 60 Minutes II broadcast Wednesday night), which the righty blogs -- powered by Powerline -- have been ripping up all day. Powerline started tearing into the memos a little before 8 a.m. CDT, and thirteen hours later the story had reached The Weekly Standard.
So how is the left reporting it?
Atrios
At 3:39 pm, he posted on the history of typewriters, having located an article that claims that the IBM Selectric models from the 1940s had "a near typeset quality result."
At 2:24 pm, Atrios is reporting on this A.P. story, which alleges that "Bush refused a direct order...." The story's substance turns on the Killian memos. "The A.P. plays it straight. Good for them," says Atrios. Of course, Powerline had already been beating on this story for almost six hours at this point. Even TigerHawk, which is always behind the curve owing to the condition of employment of me and my co-blogger, was all over the probable fraud almost an hour before Atrios praises the A.P. for "play[ing] it straight."
Joshua Micah Marshall
Talking Points Memo actually does play it straight, citing the Powerline work at 1:15 pm (well after which Atrios was still cheering the A.P. for its straight reporting of Bush's insubordination). Marshall hung his faith on the due diligence that he assumed CBS News performed before it aired its story:
By 7:30, Marshall was conceding that "[t]his debate has quickly spiralled in so many different directions that I can't keep track of all the different points of suspicion folks have raised about these documents," but he nevertheless rises to the defense of the superscript.
Kos
At about 2 pm EDT, Kos linked to the A.P. story that alleged that Bush "refused a direct order." There is nothing subsequent to that post, and no mention of the possibility that the memos are forgeries.
Brad DeLong
DeLong posted at 11:30 am, and constructively acknowledged via a link to Andrew Sullivan that the documents might be forgeries. He wrote, though, that Sullivan had asked the wrong question:
A good question, but I'm guessing that it will be DeLong, and not Bush, who will not like the answer.
TalkLeft
TalkLeft spotted the forgery story, but seems to be running with Atrios' line about the features and benefits of IBM Selector typewriters 50 years ago. There's some good stuff in the comments:
Getting tired, so more tomorrow.
So how is the left reporting it?
Atrios
At 3:39 pm, he posted on the history of typewriters, having located an article that claims that the IBM Selectric models from the 1940s had "a near typeset quality result."
At 2:24 pm, Atrios is reporting on this A.P. story, which alleges that "Bush refused a direct order...." The story's substance turns on the Killian memos. "The A.P. plays it straight. Good for them," says Atrios. Of course, Powerline had already been beating on this story for almost six hours at this point. Even TigerHawk, which is always behind the curve owing to the condition of employment of me and my co-blogger, was all over the probable fraud almost an hour before Atrios praises the A.P. for "play[ing] it straight."
Joshua Micah Marshall
Talking Points Memo actually does play it straight, citing the Powerline work at 1:15 pm (well after which Atrios was still cheering the A.P. for its straight reporting of Bush's insubordination). Marshall hung his faith on the due diligence that he assumed CBS News performed before it aired its story:
The deeper point is that CBS reported that they had handwriting experts scrutinize these documents to ascertain their authenticity. It seems hard to imagine they'd go to such lengths to have experts analyze them and not check out something so obvious as seeing if they'd been written by a typewriter that was in existence at time. (Hard to imagine or, if true, unimaginably stupid.)
By 7:30, Marshall was conceding that "[t]his debate has quickly spiralled in so many different directions that I can't keep track of all the different points of suspicion folks have raised about these documents," but he nevertheless rises to the defense of the superscript.
Kos
At about 2 pm EDT, Kos linked to the A.P. story that alleged that Bush "refused a direct order." There is nothing subsequent to that post, and no mention of the possibility that the memos are forgeries.
Brad DeLong
DeLong posted at 11:30 am, and constructively acknowledged via a link to Andrew Sullivan that the documents might be forgeries. He wrote, though, that Sullivan had asked the wrong question:
The right question is different. Killian wrote his memos. The originals were sent to higher authority. Copies were placed in Bush's personnel file. Copies were kept in Killian's file.
The copies placed in Bush's personnel file have disappeared. Who "disappeared" them, and when?
A good question, but I'm guessing that it will be DeLong, and not Bush, who will not like the answer.
TalkLeft
TalkLeft spotted the forgery story, but seems to be running with Atrios' line about the features and benefits of IBM Selector typewriters 50 years ago. There's some good stuff in the comments:
And where were these "forgery experts" while Bush was lying about Iraq?
Getting tired, so more tomorrow.
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