Well the obvious new suffix for scandals is (th).

Nice!

Now, gentlemen, I clearly stated in my morning editorial that there would be no Woodward and Bernstein. Thousand points of light, globe-spanning collaboration moving at Internet speeds, testament to the power of cooperation.

That's the party line, goddammit, and I expect you guys to fall in with it!

As Mrs. Kerry would say:

You'd have to be an IDIOT to think my Johnny would do something like that...

If there'd been a blogosphere back in the 1970s, Woodward and Bernstein would have been exposed as fraudulent hacks; particularly the hilarious Deep Throat source.

My suggestion? "Memopalooza".

It's already a "scandal"....? Christ, it doesn't even sound like we have heads or tails of anything yet, but who cares, fan the flames!

(recall Drudge tried to get the Kerry mistress thing into "scandal" terrain.... wait, I have to go check Hugh Hewitt's site, I'm sure it's a 5-alarm fire over there!)

That's right, Ed. This is all blown way out of proportion. It's not like there's an overwhelming body of evidence assembled by thousands of people on hundreds of Web sites or anything.

I think the Simpsons have already done it, whatever suffixes we come up with....

oh, and-"All your suffixes are belongs to us."

DNCBS'd

Um, correct me if I'm wrong but a "scandal" would indeed imply that the Dems had something to do with this forgery -- assuming of course the documents are forged. And as far as I can tell, the "thousands of people" (give me a break) haven't shown diddly to that end (yet?).... Leaving the outrageous "scandal": CBS was duped. Thus, my point about the fanning of flames.

Ed -

Are you crazy?

bloggers and mainstream journalists have now dug up about 8 or 9 different forensics experts (at last count) that are staking their reputation that the docs are fakes. These are people that work for the govt in forgery cases and testify in courts of law, not conspiracy theorists. Several have mentioned publicly that they are voting for Kerry.

Bloggers have also reproduced the docs with Word, and the family of the dead officer in question is casting doubts on the docs.

As far as "scandal" goes, I said "if" teh Kerry campaign is responsible. I've passed no judgment and it was a light-hearted post.

It seems very likely that this is a scandal for at least CBS, unless they pull a serious rabbit out of their hat.

If we assume based on current info that it will be a CBS "scandal", can you then respond to the larger issue having to do with Bush & his supposed military service....? Something that obviously gets put aside thanks to this "scandal".... It's that larger issue that's truly THE scandal in all of this.... But you just keep fanning those flames and work up a head of blather with your thousands of other bloggers -- gads....

Give it up, Ed. The only people who care about Bush's service 30 years ago are those who aren't voting for him anyway.

That attack has been beaten to death since Bush ran for Governor of Texas. It has no more legs. Your guys have squeezed every vote out of this issue possible. Bush will not address this anymore just as Kerry will not release ALL of his military records.

Now, the new twist is there are apparently forged documents that CBS was sloppy in verifying. Very sloppy... And this angle speaks volumes concerning main stream media bias that your guys say doesn't exist.

But here it is for all to see

Ed,

You are somewhat insulting in tone, but ...

Let me tell you this:

Even if everything about Bush were true, yet there was some forgery perpetrated by the mainstream media involved, the larger story here would be about the media's failure to vet the story, I think.

The largest part of the story (since few people really care about the national Guard story, rehashed in 3 separate elections) is a possible failure of the media.

Why is it you will work yourself in a blather over Kerry & Cambodia story, or Swift Boat B.S. about self-inflicted wounds, etc., but yet in one fell swoop you just dismiss the Bush military baggage (ample!) as old, tired news....? How convenient! What intellectual honesty.
Good-bye! I spend a few minutes a month troving in right-wing waters, but now I must flee. Don't know how anyone stands it.

And I love the way you guys seem to equate duration with worthiness, that being GW military baggage (has been an issue for three elections, ergo not a worthy topic). The atrocities of past wars have been topics for longer than that and yet I wouldn't say that they deserve any less attention now due to age.... An absurd rationale.

(oh, and yes, as you implied, I'm an elitist!!)

You are hysterical.

"blather"

Can the rhetoric. Bush has never staked his presidency on his examplary service 35 years ago. Simple as that.

It's also important to note that the SwiftVets met a higher standard of proof.

And Ed? You may not understand this because of partisanship, but if the shoe was on the other foot, and Kerry was framed up by false documents given to the press by the Swifties, THE BIGGEST STORY would STILL BE the media's failure.

It's not such a left-right issue on this.

The point is, I'm more concerned wih Dan rather than John Kerry on this. There is as of yet no evidence that the JKerry camp did anything wrong.

===============================

REPORT SHOWS BUSH WAS AWOL

Earlier this year, President Bush told the nation "I did my duty" in the
National Guard in 1972 when he was supposed to report for service.[1] But
according to a major new report, that is not true.

As a new examination of documents by the Boston Globe shows, "Bush fell well
short of meeting his military obligation." Twice during his Guard service -
first when he joined in May 1968, and again before he transferred out of his
unit in mid-1973 to attend Harvard Business School - Bush signed documents
pledging to meet training commitments or face a punitive call-up to active
duty. But "he didn't meet the commitments, or face the punishment, the
records show."[2]

Bush also has claimed "I did show up in Alabama"[3] in 1972 when he was
supposed to report there for duty. But as the Globe notes, "Bush's service
records do not show him logging any service in Alabama until October of that
year." Furthermore, "even that service is in doubt" as "no one has come
forward with any credible recollection of having witnessed Bush performing
guard service in Alabama or after he returned to Houston in 1973."

A new group called Texans for Truth will begin airing 0:30 second television
ads featuring a National Guardsman who in 1972 served in the very same
Alabama unit Bush was supposed to have joined. That Guardsman testifies that
he never saw Bush show up for service - a story corroborated by others.

I know, I know, all of this is old news, retread, and therefore not relevant to this election. Promise that same principal will hold for Kerry?

Ed, I can't parse all of this with you, but I am not intellectually dishonest. Early on, I advised that John Kerry's Vietnam rhetoric was off limits. For reference:

http://www.indcjournal.com/archives/000306.php

BUT THEN - Kerry made his service the focus of his campaign. Can you deny it?

He was criticized on his Senate record. Instead of defending the senate record with arguments clarifying or supporting the votes, he repeatedly brought up patriotism and Vietnam. Over and over again. And again. And again.

So it became a legit attack angle in my mind, AFTER I had written that post above defending his service.

But again, truth be told, most of the electorate doesn't care about Kerry OR Bush's Vietnam-era military records. This issue simply isn't going to decide the election.

Yeah, the whole "-gate" thing is rather boring. This current kerfuffle should be referred to as the "Ratherpot-Dome Scandal".

Ed you ignorant slut.

USA Today via me: A retired Alabama Air National Guard officer said Friday that he remembers George Bush showing up for duty in Alabama in 1972, reading safety magazines and flight manuals in an office as he performed his weekend obligations.
"I saw him each drill period," retired Lt. Col. John "Bill" Calhoun said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press from Daytona Beach, Fla., where he is preparing to watch this weekend's big NASCAR race.

"He was very aggressive about doing his duty there. He never complained about it. ... He was very dedicated to what he was doing in the Guard. He showed up on time and he left at the end of the day."

I vote for "-forge" as in "Memoforge.

Then you can have Medalforge, Cambodiaforge, Shoveitforge, Triallawyerforge, Hairforge, Touchingforge, Screamforge, and Doyouknowwhoiamforge.

It just works for me.

My candidate for the name of this scandal: the Dead Sea Documents.

(As it happens, I believe in the veracity of the Dead Sea Scrolls. This has more to do with the abrupt manner of their discovery and their viewing by only "experts.")

Besides, doesn't "Dan Rather and the Dead Sea Documents" have a nice ring to it? Kinda like a Hardy Boys mystery.

I wrote more about this little observation here:

http://slarrow.blogspot.com/2004/09/linuss-law-meets-bloodhound-blogs.html

(Another observation in that is a comparison of the open-source saying "Given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow" with how that's worked out in the blogosphere when it comes to news.)

Watergate of itself was not particularly important; after all, Nixon carried 49 states after the news of the break-in er...broke. In fact as far as we know there's no evidence WHATSOEVER that he knew about it in advance.

His crime was the cover-up. Had he thrown them to the wolves, expressed his deep disapointment, fired everyone who even looked like he was involved, he wouldn't have been forced to resign.

If Kerry knew about this in advance and it can be proved he's actually looking at jail time. If he didn't know about it he should be giving his staff the 3rd degree right about now to find out if THEY knew about it, and if they did his campaign is finished. He might as well bow out and let them run Hillary.