Cheatgate hits Maddow!
Unbelievable, it's in the mainstream now!
= new reply since forum marked as read
I remember a few years back there was the "W" wearing an eyepiece in the debate conspiracy. 
and maybe contributing to starting the ball rolling, I would phrase it a little differently.
In that thread, it was presented as a question. Given what the video shows in the first 11 seconds, I don't think it was an unreasonable thing to ask. The rules suggest a candidate gets blank paper and a pen and what was on that video showed something other than a paper and pen. We didn't know what it was so we asked.
In that thread, I also expressed that we should be cautious to get it right and it was submitted to the Obama campaign "Truth team" to get the concern addressed if it needed to be addressed.
I happen to feel there's a big difference between that and what has transpired with the birthers or truthers.
A lot of concern with the video died down with the response of the Romney campaign and the photo of Romney using a handkerchief during the debate. And with folks in the media looking into it to get an answer.
I remain merely curious about what the three white things are in this photo
paper, handkerchief and ? (white corner at top of paper)
but a big part of my concern died with the handkerchief photo.
So I don't entirely agree with Rachel's categorization of this. Rachel suggests that this "conspiracy theory" attempts to explain why Romney won the debate. I haven't seen that. When Rachel's blog, "Mitt's Mendacity",
http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2012/10/05/14246577-chronicling-mitts-mendacity-vol-xxxvii?lite
exposed a lie last January in Volume I, did that exposure of a single lie explain why Romney may lose his campaign? Hardly. But it was a snippet of evidence on why he may well go on to lose it: people don't trust him because he lies. That conduct evidenced by a single lie revealed last January contributes to the case that he lacks character because he frequently lies. But the other 700 or so lies documented in that blog is what makes that case much more convincing - as opposed to the single lie.
If what Romney threw on the podium in the first 11 seconds of that video had been cheat notes, we may well have gone on to debate how that might have affected the outcome of debate. But I haven't seen that case really being made in the material I've seen on this. Like the lie(s) Rachel reported last January and beyond, it would have been first and foremost, another bit of evidence about his lack of character. Whether it changed the outcome of the debate would have been another question.
Given what that video showed, it was not an unreasonable question to ask. And given Romney's proven history of deception documented by people like Rachel, Romney's own conduct with the truth contributed to the level of distrust providing a foundation of suspicion for the question to be asked in the first place.
So I feel no shame nor regret for asking a question.
