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September 17, 2004

Buckhead Revealed...Hello Memogate!

So What's the Deal With the Rather Memos?

As everyone knows, Dan Rather presented memos which are clearly forgeries on CBS' 60 Minutes II last week. Within only 4 hours, an unidentified blogger named "Buckhead" posted the following detailed analysis of the memos:

Howlin, 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.

Buckhead is anonymous no longer, thanks to the work of the LA Times' Peter Wallsten. Wallsten somehow determined that "Buckhead" graduated from Brown University sometime near the late '70's (actually 1980) and then the University of Georgia law school (in 1985). With this information Wallsten was able to determine that Buckhead is actually a man named Harry W. MacDougald, who is an Atlanta area lawyer that is well connected to state and national Republican and conservative causes.

MacDougald now says he isn't commenting and won't answer any questions from reporters. So Rather's refusal to come clean is starting to make more sense. MacDougald, by the way, is hardly an anonymous hero of the rightwing blogosphere.

Among other things, MacDougald is a member of the Federalist Society and the Southeastern Legal Foundation, which is closely associated to both Bob Barr and Ralph Reed. Reed was the chairman of the Georgia Republican Party during the last election cycle, and now works for the Bush campaign. MacDougald donated money to the Georgia GOP Unity fund during that cycle. He is also the GOP designee to the Fulton County Board of Elections in Georgia. Additionally, he represented Mitch McConnell in his lawsuit against the McCain-Feingold bill and the state of Utah when they sued North Carolina in an attempt to get an extra Congressional District after reapportionment.

MacDougald also brags that he drafted the petition to disbar William Jefferson Clinton filed by L. Lynn Hogue in his law firm bio page found here.

Here's what probably happened...this is textbook Rove btw:

Ben Barnes is set to appear on CBS to reveal that he pulled strings to get George W. Bush in the past. For some reason, the White House decides that they don't want to attack Barnes's credibility. Maybe they feel his story will stand up or maybe there is something else in his background that is also unfavorable to Bush, when he was governor Barnes was a top capitol lobbyist in Texas. For whatever reason, the White House decides that they need to make the story Rather's credibility.

So, someone connected to the Bush campaign drafts these forged memos, and then either they gave them to CBS or they gave them to a third party and the memos found their way to CBS, possibly through the DNC.

At the same time, the people who did the forgeries are looking for a well connected Republican activist who, upon CBS showing the documents, can come forward with some specific criticisms to raise doubts about the validity of the documents. MacDougald fits that profile to a T.

The media picks up on the story of the forgery. MacDougald's original claims about proportional fonts may or may not hold up, but it's a very detailed complaint that it would be unlikely for someone with MacDougald's background to notice, and it isn't likely a professional document guy would notice it either since it turns out that typewriters could do proportional fonts back then. But "Buckhead" gets the ball rolling.

Then the media picks up on it, there are doubts about the validity of the memos, no one is talking about Barnes and everyone is talking about how Rather is going down the tubes. A victory for the blogosphere!

Or it would be -- if the person who first raised questions about the memos wasn't the EXACT SAME GUY who tried to get Clinton disbarred, a member of the Federalist Society and Southeastern Legal Foundation with ties to Ralph Reed.

Think about it this way, if you caught Bush (or Kerry) in the middle of a huge scandal, you'd come forward. You wouldn't hide in the shadows. And the only reason to stay anonymous is because you are part of the scandal. This is what MacDougald nows says:

"You can ask the questions but I'm not going to answer them," he told The Times. "I'm just going to stick to doing no interviews."

SCANDAL SCANDAL SCANDAL!!!

Posted by Chris at September 17, 2004 07:28 PM

Comments

He was also on the GOP Fulton County Registration & Election Board,
http://www.fultongop.org/committee_2001.asp

Posted by: Jimmy Dare [TypeKey Profile Page] at September 20, 2004 12:57 AM

Not true that it would be unlikely for someone with MacDougald's background to notice that the fonts looked fishy. I worked in a law office, and believe me, producing reams of paper with words on them is what they do. Not to mention having to read sheafs of briefs submitted by opposing attorneys.

The fact that his first guess was Palatino shows that he does, indeed, know a thing or two about fonts and his mention that the Wang systems which were common in the 80s used monospaced fonts. This guy was definitely around word processing, unlike reporters; thus their clueless ruminations on the subject.

Had earlier poster TankerKC not noted during the 60 Minutes broadcast that the documents didn't look like those produced when he was in the USAF and sent up the first red flag, Buckhead may not have checked them out as he did. But somebody would have; there were too many formatting, terminology and factual errors not to have been noticed by others. In fact, two of CBS' own document examiners warned CBS there were problems with the memos.

What is odd is that Burkett himself wouldn't have noticed the flaws. One guy who said he's no expert said as soon as he saw 01 August 1972 flash on the screen, he knew it was wrong, because in those days the military never used an "0" in a date. It would have been 1 Aug 1972. And the signature block should have been on the left. What was Burkett thinking???

Posted by: DianaM [TypeKey Profile Page] at September 26, 2004 04:47 AM

Re: your theory that Karl Rove dreamed up the idea after hearing that Ben Barnes was speaking out, Burkett's own attorney gives a different timeline, saying CBS tried all summer to pressure and coax his client:

"David Van Os said that it was CBS’ intention from the outset to cast Bill Burkett in an unfavorable light. “Dan Rather and CBS were intending all along to use the interview to dump on (Burkett),” Van Os said. “What we got was a bunch of mealy-mouthed bull****.”

Van Os said that Burkett had to think long and hard about what to do with the documents in his possession. “Bill was very reluctant to give CBS the documents; because he did not want to become caught up in what he knew would be created if he did,” Van Os said.

“Bill did not go to CBS, CBS came to him. CBS spent all summer trying to pressure and coax Bill into letting them have copies of the documents that they believed he had.”

Here's the link: CBS Source's Attorney: "Bill Burkett Just Got Burnt by Dan Rather"

Posted by: DianaM [TypeKey Profile Page] at September 26, 2004 05:01 AM

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