I see on RatherBiased that Andy Rooney has called the memos frauds and says CBS was hoodwinked.
http://ratherbiased.com/news.html#39

It isn't terribly surprising that Rooney would do this. Back in the 1980's, a fringe magazine published an interview with Rooney in which Rooney said "the reason blacks are in trouble is because the stupid ones have more babies, watering down their gene pool."

Only problem was, Rooney never said that, and denied having done *any* kind of interview with the magazine.

Still, "60 Minutes" suspended him for a month.

He was personally and professionally insluted that CBS just took the word of a bunch of cranks, and now that they've done the exact same thing again, he's only too happy to call management of a bunch of idiots.

Funny how you can change history sitting at your desk with a mouthful of roast beef. We gotta Glenn Reynolds working on the Blog Pulitzers; what you and the other guys did is so much bigger than the sort of crap the New York Times awards itself prizes for. That being said, don't be surprised if Maureen Dowd gets a real Pulitzer for a column pooh-poohing the scandal -- or perhaps Dan himself when he decides to crack it wide open with a hard-hitting, investigative Google search.

Watch out Bill, they're on to us!

"The real story here is the right wing of the blogosphere's role in the deliberate hijacking of the national conversation. There's a technique being employed here, coordinating and amplifying a message, ensuring that it dominates the news cycle.

You take a signal that you want to propogate & pump it through large group blog sites like LGF, Powerline & Free Republic. Next you hook high profile broadcast sites like Instapundit & Drudge Report into the circuit, amplifying & feeding the signal in a loop (group blogs -> broadcast sites -> group blogs ->broadcast sites) until the signal becomes strong enough that it bleeds over into the rest of the blogosphere & eventually into the mainstream press. It's a foolproof method for taking any arbitrary thing you want to say, whether it's true or not, & launching it into the public consciousness.

I'm working on a more rigorous exposition of the technique that includes some of the network effects & algorithms involved; when I'm ready I'll publish a link to it here as well as some other places.

Tim

Posted by: Tim Keller on September 17, 2004 03:33 AM"

From here (scroll way down):

http://weblog.siliconvalley.com/column/dangillmor/archives/010801.shtml

I remember my excitement when I first saw Buckhead's "This should be pursued aggressively."

At the time, I was quite worried it would not be purused and that this fraud would go unanswered.

I wonder if Tim will next come up with an algorithm that explains why mainstream media can put any old forged memos on the air, "coordinating and amplifying a message, ensuring that it dominates the news cycle," "taking any arbitrary thing [Dan Rather & Mary Mapes] want to say, whether it's true or not, & launching it into the public consciousness. "

Congrats Bill. Making the WSJ Editorial Page is no small matter. Keep the heat on!

You need to take longer lunches, Bill. Then you can *really* get things done.

'... previously little-known Web sites ...'

Aw, even the WSJ is holier than thou. Shame on them.

Totally and completely aside from my typically on-subject remarks here but, I think I'm developing a crush on Bill.

It must be the whole 'take charge' thing.