Reply #27: What reporting and what evidence?

[Blue in the face]

I've asked about supporting documentation and got nothing, KO did the same thing in his blog:

"For weeks, say sources at various levels of the formal investigations into the voting irregularities, Mr. Curtis has promised them corroboration of his accusations — even if it was just the statement of someone to whom he said, in 2000, ‘hey, this guy just asked me to write a vote-switching program.’ These sources say they’ve received no such corroboration, and certainly none has been presented publicly.

One e-mailer complained that the denial by the politician accused by Mr. Curtis of soliciting the program seemed pretty tepid, and confined itself largely to his comment “I don’t remember meeting Mr. Curtis.” Well, the ambiguity of the denial is partially my fault. Much of the remarks were boilerplate and repetitive, but I did leave out a fairly salient one, in which he said these were: “some of the most ridiculous, fictional charges you could ever imagine.” I wouldn’t classify that as a ‘non-denial denial.’

Two readers asked why we didn’t simply put Mr. Curtis on 'Countdown' or otherwise interview him. Unfortunately, there is a question of the size of the platform here. If the details of his charges can be found on an innocuous website with limited readership, it doesn’t matter much in the grand scheme of things if the possibility that they are partially or totally untrue, turns out to be the correct one. But if that’s the case — if this is actually the story of a guy out to hurt a politician — and we put him on national television, I will have effectively recreated the Swift Boat Veterans fiasco. Under those circumstances, especially in the absence of corroboration, the truth becomes secondary, and the damage is the only verifiable thing.

Lastly (and, for my money, most entertainingly): I noted that an attorney for Curtis’s former employers, for whom he was working when he claims to have been asked to develop the nefarious program, described him to MSNBC as a ‘disgruntled former employee.’ However, an e-mailer writes, at the time of his departure from the firm, the company gave him a going-away card. I had to smile at this evidence. When I left ESPN in 1997, the company gave me a tape of my oddest moments on the air, a huge farewell banner, and a going-away party that lasted until sunrise and was so joyous that the authorities were summoned. Still, I have to be the first one to say it: if anybody has the right to call me a ‘disgruntled former employee,’ it’s ESPN."

And your response to this is that you have a "farewell card"??? Who cares about a "farewell card"? Does it show that he came up with a program to change votes?

What about the corroborating evidence that has been asked for about the program? It's been asked for, but apparently never received.

Why put someone on TV that still has questions about his credibility? I've seen nothing on your site that offers any proof of what this guy is talking about. So why should he or you be a spokesperson for fraud? If you could give me something that can be traced to Florida's voting systems or anything else, I'd believe. I want to believe, but a farewell card, an affadavit and promises of police reports are nothing. Since they don't prove anything. In fact, you brought up yourself earlier that there has been no sign of this mysterious police report.

In fact, of all the complaining about being smeared or hit pieces on Countdown, I don't see you offering any suppporting evidence that backs up anything that Curtis actually says.

Unless you consider this supporting evidence: