So the options for a conspiracy are:

1. it was done by a completely incompetent forger associated with the DNC/Kerry camp, or

2. it was done by the evil genius Karl "covert op" Rove?

The question would have to be, who do you want running the GWOT?

incompetent staffers? or the master of covert ops?

That's some pretty astute analysis by the LA Times.

I mean, the guy was a regular at freerepublic.com. Could it be, could it possibly be, OMG, that he's a Republican??? I am stunned by this revelation. It's almost like an Onion article:

"Area Man Who Defends Republican President Admits That He, Too, Is a Republican"

How come they never report things like "Dan Rather, a reporter with strong ties to liberal Democrat causes" and stuff?

But I do find it interesting that the media is focusing on trying to show that everyone who demonstrated the memos to be forgeries are conservative and/or Republican, rather than dealing with the factual errors of the problems. This is known as an...ad hominem attack, I think? How come we haven't had any newspapers deal with the questions of the memos' authenticity in detail? If that's what's in dispute, wouldn't that be the thing that's most interesting to readers?

Mary Mapes talks with John Carlson, KVI 570 AM, www.kvi.com, jcarlson@fisherradio.com
(Before his 3pm PT show today sometime).

Mary Mapes didn't do an on air interview, but she called him to discuss his discussion of her, and her father the other day. (Monday I think).

My (third hand) impression was that her attitude was 'well, these documents may be fake, but we've got LOTS more to go, you just wait'.

That... doesn't sound like someone that even SEES the issue that has me extremely irked.

When your _experts_ claim that they were quoted drastically out of context, that tells you just how silly a position you're holding. Two handwriting experts 'We can't confirm anything, but those signatures appear similar' and two document experts who 'expressed grave misgivings'....

They're going to continue digging, not recognizing the latrine has seeped into the hole corrupting everything. There's people that have made emulators for the typewriters of the era....

Jeez "in their longtime efforts to paint the mainstream media as politically biased". What color is the crack this guy smokes? So it all just some smear campaign against the noble media? Yeah and they "painted" the sun yellow.

I wish Darth Rove could have engineered this then the election wouldn't even be close. Anyone who could line up all the variables into this scenario is prescient on the order of frigging Paul "Maud'Dib" Atreides.

Real a-hole thing to out Buckhead I think he just pointed out it was fake in a post he didn't persue it like the other guys did. Even if they proved he was completely crazy it would mean nothing.

I'd hate to post again right after the last one, but something came to my mind: a couple days ago, someone on one of the blogs mentioned that when ambushed, the best course of action is to lay down some covering fire while retreating to a more defensible location.

It looks to me like CBS is trying to do the latter (focus on what the memos are trying to say rather than whether or not they were forged) while newspapers like the LA Times are trying to do the former (trying to say that the people showing the memos are forged are just partisans).

So what's the best course of action to counter that?

Yeah that was on belmont club. And its exactly what they are gonna do. Although I think they are so stupud/delusional that their "cover" fire is gonna be more TxANG stuff which imho would be a bad idea.

They would be smarter to use cover fire on a different topic. The more they bring up stuff the more other news outlets will mention the forgeries.

Bill,

There is one giant, gaping hole in your argument that any liberal will instantly spot:

Karl Rove has evil mind-control powers that he uses to make every bad thing in the world happen.

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"Democratic National Committee Chairman Terry McAuliffe even speculated openly to reporters that the whole thing could have been orchestrated by White House political advisor Karl Rove."
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(sigh) As a Democrat, I'd just like to say that I'm really really really really really embarassed by this sort of thing.

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"2. Can anyone sanely imagine a scenario where CBS would merely take the documents and ignore the repeated warnings of many of their experts if they received them from a Republican operative?"
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Well of course Rove was wearing a fake beard and moustache at the time. Hey, wait a second! Has anyone ever seen Bill Burkett and Karl Rove in a room at the same time!!!!!!

I shouldn't be giving hints, but some conservative cartoonist really ought to draw something making fun of this scenario. And Republicans should be flattered that the DNC chairman holds Karl Rove in such awe that he imagines Rove could pull off a scheme worthy of "Mission Impossible."

--Rick Taylor

I live in Atlanta and I cannot be happier to know that 'buckhead' is from Atlanta. Bloggers cut seeBS off at the knees and it all started here.

Wow!! What are the chances that the poster from freerepublic.com is a conservative republican????? What a great scoop. Not.

"For one thing, how could they possibly guarantee that CBS would post copies of the documents on their web site?"
They couldn't, but IIRC the White House released the copies they got from CBS to all the other news groups.

Christ on a Crutch -- they think it is a scoop that a poster at the Freeper site is a conservative Republican? A guy who doesn't like Clinton? Oh my stars and garters!! Who'd a thunk it?

The fact is, the guy only noted that it looked like a word-processed document and called for aggressive investigation. It was others in the blogosphere -- including this site-- that ran with that ball.

I'm not really even a conservative and I dislike the Freepers in many respects; I'm a socially liberal libertarian. But I know BS when I see it.

--Mona--

I've figured it out! The forger is really Robert Ludlum. He's researching his new book, "The Bourne Forgery". Bourne, the man who doesn't exist, comes along and plants forged memos with a major news outlet in order to influence a major election, and then gives everyone involved amnesia!

Don't think so? Wait until we see how bad CBS' memory gets when they're asked to explain this mess under oath.

JD,

But the question is, if there was no CBS story because they didn't fall for the memos, then would the Whitehouse have released those documents that they got from CBS?

Probably not since CBS wouldn't have sent the memos to the Whitehouse because there was no story because the memos were fake.

Please correct me if I am wrong but I thought the first Freeper to notice something amiss with the CBS documents was a poster by the name of TankerKC?

I tried to stay away from this one, but I can't resist: I suspect that people who need to believe Karl Rove is behind the whole thing, probably already "knew" it. There is a self-defense mechanism whereby an ego that perceives itself as being under attack seeks to create justification by altering it's environment.

I think back to the dark days just after the '96 election where I was willing to believe a great many things rather than believe that the American people had actually chosen "him" to lead the greatest nation in the free world, and I thought the world was going to end. Was it logical? No. Did the world end? No. Are the people who see their campaign falling apart being logical about why? No. Will the world end? No.

The reality is, we will have another election in 4 years. Maybe it will focus more on "ideas", rather than on 1972. Maybe we will get to debate the real differences in the liberal and conservative viewpoints in America. But I suspect not. I doubt it will be about 1972 again, but next time one candidate or the other will suspect that they can't win on ideas. And it will be about hoola-hoops, or electrical bananas, or something.

(As an added bonus I've snuck the word "rather" into this comment to subliminally drive home the point that a real exchange of ideas start's with a real media, a media that might have a bias, but doesn't try to cheat... I thought it was a trick worthy of my great, dark, lord, Karl Rove)

I cannot help but believe the White House has a "tee hee corner" and everytime something stupid like Rathergate arises, Rove, Card, and company gather in the "tee hee corner" and laugh themselves silly, in a quiet way. Tee hee hee, Tee hee hee, Tee hee hee!

Leslie: My recollection is that you are correct. TankerKC, whoever that is, sent up a question, and the lawyer at issue in the LA Times story posted back to Tanker that it was an MS Word doc, and also called for an investigation. The rest, as they say, is history. It is true, I think, that Tanker was the first known person to question that the CBS memos were authentic.

--Mona--

The DNC is so funny. On the one hand, the memos are true...on the other hand, they are so fake that it had to be a plant.

Of course, there's all the evidence pointing to Burkett in Texas, hardly a Republican operative. And there's the fact that apparently CBS talked with the source of the docs for many years, trying to convince them to release them. Plus, does anyone think CBS would cover up for a Republican involved in such a plot?

Seriously, I think if Rove had done it he would have created better forgeries. These are so obvious that one would have assumed that CBS would have noticed the fakes immediately and not run with the story.

As for the White House releasing the docs, this only happened because CBS gave them copies on the day of the story airing, after CBS had decided to run with the story. If CBS had not run with the story, they would have never given the WH copies.

This "Rove planted it" is yet another wacked out Dem conspiracy theory.

And now, the evil genius Rove has engineered another devious scam, naming a hurricane after himself that will soon hit our shores.

Alas, not like any other, this hurricane will target only Democrat districts, carving a swath of destruction, rendering all polling places inoperable until after the election.

Voter disenfranchisement via natural disaster. Who, I ask, other than this dark force behind the curtain, could be so utterly diabolical?

Thad wrote:

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I tried to stay away from this one, but I can't resist: I suspect that people who need to believe Karl Rove is behind the whole thing, probably already "knew" it. There is a self-defense mechanism whereby an ego that perceives itself as being under attack seeks to create justification by altering it's environment.
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I think that's just about right. I see lots of stuff like this both on the left and the right. There are times when I can look back and even see it in myself, although that's the most difficult.

But what bothers me about this is that its the chairman of the DNC saying it. (sigh) Oh well.

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I think back to the dark days just after the '96 election where I was willing to believe a great many things rather than believe that the American people had actually chosen "him" to lead the greatest nation in the free world, and I thought the world was going to end.
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Funny, that's about how I felt in 2000. :)
If the election is close, I'll bet whichever party loses will be looking darkly at all those new computerized voting machines.

--Rick Taylor

Bill wrote:

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UPDATE: TallDave reminds me of the trump card that overrules my logic:

"Karl Rove has evil mind-control powers that he uses to make every bad thing in the world happen."

In fact, he just made me write this post. Think about it.
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Egads! You're right! In fact he made me write a post pooh pooing Terry so he could have a Democrat covering his tracks for him. I just found a tiny transmitter in my ear.

--Rick Taylor

Rather showed the memos to the White House before releasing them. I bet Rove recognized they were forgeries, but said, "Dan, we have no comment on these documents at this time, but sure, you can release them."

And then they all went to the corner and said "tee hee".....

*** LA Times NEWSFLASH ****

"Partisan political operatives" - namely Republicans - claim that they believe most of the visitors and contributors to "DemocraticUnderground.Com" and "MoveOn.Org" are really liberal supporters of the Democratic Party.

Terry McAuliff, chairman of the DNC, and Dan Rather, anchor of CBS News, deny the charges.

Said Rather, "How dare these 'partisan political operatives' question the patriotism of ordinary, 'middle of the road', American moderates! Why, I haven't heard of such hate speech since a Texas prairie chicken crossed the road on a day so hot that it would melt the Gummi bears in a San Antone horney toad's gizzard!"

Another thought wrote:
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The DNC is so funny. On the one hand, the memos are true...on the other hand, they are so fake that it had to be a plant.
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Haven't you been paying attention? Rove made inferior copies of the real memos before destroying them. That's how he was able to dupe CBS. They were fooled because the content was genuine. Karl Rove is a genius!

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Of course, there's all the evidence pointing to Burkett in Texas, hardly a Republican operative. And there's the fact that apparently CBS talked with the source of the docs for many years, trying to convince them to release them. Plus, does anyone think CBS would cover up for a Republican involved in such a plot?
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Burkett is simply one of Rove's many disguises. Have you ever seen a picture of Rove together with Burkett? I don't think so.

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Seriously, I think if Rove had done it he would have created better forgeries. These are so obvious that one would have assumed that CBS would have noticed the fakes immediately and not run with the story.
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Obviously Rove has a far better grasp of the incompetence at CBS than either you or I. The man is a super-genius.

Excuse me, my transmitter is beeping.

--Rick Taylor

- Ever since the wheels of this story started falling off to the point where it looked like CBS et al had been snookered I've tended to agree with Yehudit...The easiest senerio to believe is that Rove looked them over...Recognised them to be forgeries...Thought for a few moments....Chortled and handed them back to 60 minutes...He would be aware of how badly CBS would be champing at the bit to "get the goods on Bush"...It fits pretty much everything else the RNC/Rove camp has done this election....basically wire the dynamite to the track and then sit back and let the DNC deal with the trainwreck...punch and pivet....W might not know if he got favoritism, But daddy surely does...So Rove had one thing Mapes didn't... a sure way to verify... *chuckle*

Notice also the assumption in this latest conspiracy theory is that a lawyer could not have recognized the obvious fraud in the docs...that would take some sort of expert in typography.

The sad truth is that the docs are so blatantly a fraud that anyone familiar with MS Word and having had any experience on typewriters could have recognized it. I suspect a good lawyer might have such experience.

Also, the fact that one is a lawyer doesn't rule out some level of expertise in typography and such. Again, I would imagine a lawyer would have lots of current experience in MS Word, and, given their age, lots of experience with typewriters. Also, lawyers are typically sticklers for details.

So sure, the more technical analysis has come from the technical experts in typography, but it didn't take such an expert to raise doubts.

As the expert Dr. Newcomer has written:
It does not take a sophisticated expert in forensics or document authentication to spot these obvious forgeries. The forgery is obvious to anyone who knows the history and technology of digital typesetting, not to mention to any intelligent 12-year-old who has access to Microsoft Word.

You can also bet that if this were some Republican plot, CBS would have long ago apologized and outed the culprit. CBS would have liked nothing better than to turn this story against the Republicans in this way.

Dan would have done mea culpas from morning to night if that brought down Bush.

If you've ever taken any college level math, you've encountered the term "by inspection". The prof will write an equation on the board, skip four or five steps, say "by inspection we have . . .", write another equation and proceed. "By inspection" means that the intervening steps are so obvious and apparent that anyone should be able to jump from Step 1 to Step 6 without dragging himself through the intermediate steps like someone who has not taken the prerequisite classes. That the Rather memos are forgeries is so obvious that anyone who is halfway competent in the field of typography and layout can glance at them and tell "by inspection" that they could not have been created with 70's technology.
What has constantly astonished me during this whole affair is the thought that the worthy people at CBS, supposed experts in their field, could not have looked at these documents and recognized "by inspection" that they were frauds. Either Rather's acolytes are all callow, ignorant interns, or they were so intimidated by "The Great Man" that they were afraid to say what should have been obvious to anyone who is moderately competent in the publishing field.
While many dwell on the partisanship and political agenda of Rather and the CBS crew, let us not forget that their inability to immediately reject the memos as indefensible forgeries indicates either (1) that the level of competence at CBS News is very low, or (2) the level of work-place intimidation must be very high.

- Well of course at some point, pretty early on, CBS knew they'd been had. Probably by day two, That was when McAuliffe popped up with the Rove thing. The silence coming out of the WH was deafening... Heh...So in a perverse way he's right...but it was still Mapes and company who spawned this little foot nuking party...

Arguments that steel is useful in industry and manufacturing have been found to originate from - you guessed it - steel companies. These arguments may therefore be safely ignored.

First, I don't think they were trying to smear Buckhead by outing him as a Republican, they were trying to smear him by outing him as a lawyer (might work).

Second, isn't there anyone else in the Republican party they can blame for dirty tricks? I mean at the rate the dem conspiracy theorists are running Rove must be seriously busy. Couldn't they blame someone, anyone, else for one or two of their huge problems?

Third, if it was Rove it was truly genius of him to use the anti-Bush wacko Burkett (allegedly) to do it.

Look you are all missing the point.

First off what's in the memos is true.

Second the memos are only alleged fakes according to Chris Matthews. So its not like there aren't dueling experts.

Third the only reason you think they are bad forgeries is because of Carl Rove's powers of mind control. When Carl Rove was created through advanced alien bio-engineering they gave him vast mental powers.

This from the story:

"who helped draft the petition urging the Arkansas Supreme Court to disbar President Clinton"

Wonder if that petition was done on Microsoft Word in Times New Roman font?

"OH MY SWEET BABY JESUS, HOW HAVE I BEEN SO NAIVE?"

Had to wipe of the 'ol LCD monitor when I read that. Laughed so hard I expectorated all over it.

Actually is this whole Carl Rove thing pure spin or are they, on some level, really scared of him?

- Mapes has been working on this angle for 5 years, and its sure the WH was well aware of it. The town is small, and everyone would be aware of Burkette and his issues. Around two weeks before this broke he posted a number of statements to the effect that he had absolutely no first hand knowledge of any Bush wrong doing's in the TANG. A sympathetic Rep. Kinkos insider who knew of the back and forth between Burkette and all manner of Dem contacts. A trip down to Blair and a week in a nearby motel posing as Burkette in the Faxes. But that takes a major major leap in Macavelian mischief. If its true whole books will be written on the strategy. Imagine the call from Mapes to Burkette when the forgery stuff started breaking. But its doubtful....

Walter Isaacson ex president of CNN talking about Rather's 'mistake' on First Up, on PBS.
CBS and Rather are 'innocent', and if they made a mistake will own up to it.
Downplaying blogs.
This guy certainly is not in touch!

- mshyde - I'm sure the last Roman Emporer was busy reassuring the populace that the invading hordes were just a pack of harmless, ineffective fighters, and not to pay any attention to them. In fact I'm absolutely positive.... heh

- On Allah - PR week gives credit where credit is due....

Someone at CBS had to know they were had prior to the initial broadcast. Well, had to know authenticating the documents would be iffy. The handwriting experts didn't claim originality - just that the signatures were similar to the reference. The two original document experts claimed 'quoted out of context' and otherwise indicated that they'd put up strong objections.

Mary Mapes is 38, and she's alledged to be 'the' producer for all this. At 38, she's used a typewriter before. She's in the 'well, it is _accurate_' camp. So she took the available commentary by the experts and spliced and diced until it sounded good. No one said "This is FAKE" necessarily - experts don't make definitive statements unless they're asked/paid to - and and someone was more focused on 'What sorts of nice things can you say about these documents?'

I have no idea where the TXANG investigation will lead - but the reporting, producing, and editing leading up to that first broadcast is a problem in and of itself. 5 years and didn't contact a whole host of the people actually involved? Or quote more than half the ones she did contact?

If conspiracy theories are open for discussion, who benefits most from this entire scenario? Hillary Clinton. Bush gets mud thrown on him, the Democrats, and Kerry by association, look crooked and petty and are assumed to be responsible or at least trying to benefit from this decades old food fight, and the Clintons sit atop the fray and "triangulate" as they look with anticipation toward Hillary's 2008 run for an empty White House, having been recently vacated by 2nd (still can't get it to superscript) term President GB Bush.

...note that Jane Fonda has even emerged regurgitating the old Women's Rights mantra...like a "voice in the wilderness" preceeding the future Queen.

I dunno I just can't get behind the coventional wisdom that Hilary has a chance for the Presidency.
She's no Bill Clinton. When he first ran when I was a senior in HS I thought he was a buffoon, but everyone else seemed to like him. Whatever you may think of him he's got some kinda magic for alota people. Hilary has none of that. And she's way more left.

If we just apply CBS' logic to this, then Burkett must be the source because he hasn't raised any issues regarding the legitimacy of the memos.

Oh yeah, Karl Rove's evil mind control just made me inform the manager of the local CBS affiliate that since I've already tuned out their channel and CBS is still stonewalling, I've had no choice but to boycott the advertisers products and stores. I also included a list of the products I'm boycotting and explained that it will be easier to buy substitutes than it was to write the letter.

That evil Rove has powers, man....

Vanshalar, it's called "ad hominem circumstantial," I think.

".It fits pretty much everything else the RNC/Rove camp has done this election....basically wire the dynamite to the track and then sit back and let the DNC deal with the trainwreck...punch and pivet...."

Except that this time he let CBS wire the explosives to Kerry's train tracks. Talk about mind control. Scary...

"I dunno I just can't get behind the coventional wisdom that Hilary has a chance for the Presidency."

That's the "conventional wisdom" around here?!?!?

(looks down) Toto, I don't think we're in Kansas anymore.

--Rick Taylor

"OH MY SWEET BABY JESUS, HOW HAVE I BEEN SO NAIVE?"
Bill, too very funny.

- The more believable senario is that Rove had inside feedback even as the plot unrolled, tracking every move of the entire magilla. The early silence from the WH must have had McAuliffe vibrating like a lazyboy recliner. I can just imagine the melting phone lines between Mapes and Terry after his outburst. As too Kerry's camp and the DNC's awareness in all of this, the best chance we have of knowing the truth is when the GOP camp starts tying Kerry to it in ernest. He has no choice but to deny, deny, deny. If Mapes feels she's being thrown to the dogs she may roll over...It will be interesting to watch for the next week or two.....

This is all starting to remind me of a really bad Oliver Stone movie. hehe, maybe the news should start showing footage at odd angles and sometimes in black and white, really grainy as well, just for effect. Sometimes they can run clips shown through a TV, why I don't know. Then you can show clips of Karl Roves mouth in a menacing grin, almost a laugh, in said footage. Pentagon briefings with Rumsfeld could have Rummy a bit off center, almost off the screen, but the camera shakes and wiggles around, making it seem as though what you are seeing is through someones eyes. Always expecting something terrible to happen. Then he could switch to some sweaty nervous staffer, leaving to think that this man or woman may know something about this terriblness. Hold camera onto staffer as long as humanly possible. Then switch back to Rumsfeld after a question from a reporter for a conspiritorial grin, or a blank stare.

Give em 10 years or so, Stone WILL make a movie about the Bush presidency.

Or maybe I just put too much energy into this. heh

John

Allah links to Ace, Ace says Burkett allegedly talked to Cleland by cell phone.

Cleland - the unimpeachable source?

Or the DNC?

- I've been wondering how long CBS would hold off before they tried this as a last ditch defense... They are getting painfully predictable....

- http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-cbs18sep18,1,1428308.story?coll=la-home-headlines

- Hard to know what the WH was telling CBS behind the scenes...Unfortunately for Kerry and company hat bcomes he said/he said....

- But publicly the White house simply stated over and over again...most particularly at the WH morning gaggles... "[That] they had no way of confirming or denying the validity of the documents"....

- So this defense is doomed to failure also... someones going to have to take gas for any hope to stem the bleeding at CBS...

Obsessed with the LAT??? Me????

Hey, I've been picking on CBS a hell of a lot lately, with small swipes at the NYT and even WaPo. But yeah, the LAT is my bread and butter. I mean, where else are you gonna find a paper that says Arizona is "in play" for Kerry because he's only trailing by 16 points??

North Korea?

56 posts and everyone has missed the big story here;

The LA times has discovered that a guy posting on Free Republic is
*A Republican*!!

Oh, the shock... Oh, the humanity!
Who knows, if they really investigate, they might even find that some other freepers are Republicans....

=======================================
Burkett is simply one of Rove's many disguises. Have you ever seen a picture of Rove together with Burkett? I don't think so.
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LOLOLOL, Rick!

But if Karl Rove were truly a genius, The Stupid Party (aka GOP) would not have been smart enough to hire him.

Now, the late lamented Lee Atwater -- there's a guy who could have handled such a deception between riffs on his guitar.

Mona, thank you for verifying that, in fact, TankerKC was the first to question the veracity of the CBS documents (to the best of your knowledge). :) I appreciate your response - I thought I was going goofy in my head as Buckhead is getting all the attention.

totally redundant to point this out, but if Rove had bben smart he'd have passed off less obvious forgeries.

If anyone "elevated Buckhead to folk hero status" it was the MSM with their marvel at the speed of the Internet in breaking the story.

Tee Hee Hee Corner - thes best post of all.
The entire story in four words. Great!

"their longtime efforts to paint the mainstream media as politically biased"

WTF?

"paint"?

The word "paint" implies an effort to cover rather than uncover.

Hell, I could write better copy than that.

"their longtime efforts to uncover mainstream media political bias"

My version doesn't mislead the reader and is 7 letters and 2 spaces shorter.

The incompetence of the LAT writers and copy editors is just appalling.

Of course Karl Rove is behind this. He has no alibi explaining his whereabouts, just like he has no alibi for when JFK was assassinated, the Lindbergh baby was kidnapped, or the assassination of Franz Ferdinand. OOPS, I said too much and the black helicopters are circling my house now...

Hey John, you aren't keeping up.

Oly Stone is making a movie about Bush, it's called Alexander.

Watch the trailers. It's about a dumb, charismatic dictator, handed everything by a conspiratorial Ice Queen mother, guided by conniving comrades who manipulate his inner desires, who conquors the East claiming to be doing it for Freedom when really he is doing it for personal gain and glory.

Who am I?