Given that information on this is so sketchy that you had to retract some of your information, might it not be too soon to call it "memogate"? You're implying wrongdoing right off the bat and setting yourself up for another retraction.

Might be better to go the Rathergate.com route and call it the "apparently bogus" memo.

No, I don't think it's too soon to call it memogate. It does remain unclear who authored the memo, but that's the point. It is certain the MSM overstated its initial claims, as evidenced from my own correspondance with ABC, and it has yet to run a correction. ABC is no longer certain it came from Republicans, when initially they reported otherwise. There is wrongdoing on the media's part. Given how widespread the meme was, that it must now be retracted is in fact a "-gate." If it turns out to be a plant, well, then it's an even bigger story with even more "wrongdoing."

I understand the arguments against prolonging Ms. Schaivo's life, however this has to be the most tasteless piece of "political commentary" I've ever seen.

Well, that's fair. I guess I'm skeptical because CBS's scandal actually deserved the "gate" - the forger used a dead man's identity in documents that implicated the president in a crime, and CBS didn't check with people who could have verified whether the dead man wrote the memo. This memo was always anonymous - the same issues don't apply.

Gary

Looks like the democrats learned something from raTHergate. Not to sign the "memo"

Joshua, what you call "the best summary of events" (Hinderaker's WS article) is based on a distinct and obvious error, which I pointed out elsewhere on your blog a couple of days ago.

In the interest of minimizing cross-posting, please see my comments here, here and here.

And Hinderaker responds here.

Seems like much ado about nothing to me. Scanning Malkins article seems pretty certain this was circulated amongst Repubs, not Dems. In any case the gambit failed on the Schaivo bill and not because of any memo. They simply overstepped the law in an unfortunate case. The Republicans are pandering to the far Right base on this issue. It is definitely a cheap way to give them some face time. Its not terribly damaging to the president unless he pushes (which he simply won't). The unfortunate side effect of course is that it helps give credence to the armed side of the right wing brigade. It will be sad when someone involved is murdered after Terri dies. If that happens the president and the right will suffer politically. The Right needs to mend its ways when playing politics with our homegrown terrorists.

Josh, um, maybe I'm doing something wrong here, but the link you gave doesn't actually go to any real post at Powerline. When I clicked on the link, it took me to their main page. When I looked through the addresses of their permalinks, I found a #010020, 19, 17, 16, but no 010018. Did the post disappear?

Balta, the referenced Powerline post is "Confusion and its Sources."
http://powerlineblog.com/archives/2005_03.php#010019

Jukeboxgrad, congrats on a minor victory in pointing out a minor error, and getting what appears to have been multiple responses out of a man who's home sick, but exactly how was the article "based on" it? I don't think the exact number of errors fixed in the 2nd draft was of the utmost importance, but perhaps you would be kind enough to explain why I'm wrong.

"getting ... multiple responses out of a man who's home sick"

You must be kidding. I guess you're under the impression someone held a gun to his head and insisted he answer them right away, even though his keyboard was covered with the blood he was coughing up. Since when is it someone else's problem that John Hinderaker has a cold and decides to answer his email anyway? I see you're quite impressed by the excuses he's making for himself.

"perhaps you would be kind enough to explain why I'm wrong"

I already did, here and here.

Perhaps you would be kind enough to explain why it is that apparently no one around these parts spoke up to let Hinderaker know his own lying eyes were making a fool of him, especially given I explained all this in a post on this blog on 3/28, two days before he was finally brought to his senses via other means.

It's a mystery to me that Hinderaker would think he could get away with saying something so obviously wrong. It's an even bigger mystery to me that he did get away with it, for quite some time. The exact same crowd that pontificated endlessly on superscripts and kerning couldn't be bothered to actually read the very first word of the memo about which Hinderaker (and his Power Line pals) wrote twelve articles.

I guess the point must that when you have leaders like Hinderaker, there's really no need to think for yourself.