The Smear Boaters would have won the day if not for the Internet.

[trumad]

Make no mistake about it....If it wasn't for the blogs and forums like DU, the Smear assholes would have had their way. Most of the take down of these clowns came from folks on the net. There are thousands of us out there with the knowledge of how to use a search engine and we used it effectively!

We are the new free press and our power grows each day.

Props to us all who fight the battle.....

[blondeatlast]

1. Damn straight! I was damn proud of some intrepid DUers

this week.

The web really is the last hope for a truly free press.

[acmavm]

2. I never thought about it, but you're right. Without the power of the

internet, the media wouldn't have had to print the truth about the lies they're telling, they could have just printed and voiced the Rove/bush* campaign slanders and gotten away with it.

[goclark]

3. Congrats to all of us!

[wurzel]

4. You say true. It sure wasn't the media that exposed these frauds.

Take down the media!!!

[Fridays Child]

5. It's starting to look like the Internet is Al Gore's Trojan Horse.

Yeah!

[trumad]

7. Irony at it's finest Mary.... And I love it...

[sundancekid]

6. Here's another "AMEN" ... we will NEVER forgo or forget the FREE press

left to us on the internet ...

[Walt Starr]

8. I felt like a journalist yesterday.

What started out as a project to compare awards earned by John Kerry to awards won by George Bush evolved into the disscovery that George Bush was photographed wearing a ribbon he did not earn.

My original thinking is they were doing it to keep the comparison of awards from being made. Man, I had no idea as to the depth of what they've been covering up in plainview for so damn long!



In that picture, Bush is wearing an Air Force Outstanding Unit Award that is not documented as an authorized award in any documentation of Dubya's service, not even the "military biography" contrived by his campaign staff.

[trumad]

9. That's right Walt...You were a journalist....

And that's what our journalists should be doing...but they sit and drink martini's in Nantucket rubbing elbows with the Rich and Powerful....

[vetwife]

21. I sent those pics of Alacua county to Helen Thomas and today

on one of the Sunday shows Gainesville and that stuff was mentioned !

[fknobbit]

29. As long as he is assigned

to a unit that has earned the ribbon he can wear it without docs..

[grasswire]

10. yesterday...

...was better than any day I've spent in a newsroom.

I caught a glimpse of the stunning possibilities for the future. Tens of thousands of fingers searching for information, with a direct conduit to television. That's what happened yesterday. Bloggers and posters dug out the info. Television picked it up from the Net and transmitted it. Within hours.

We (all) forced a Bush team member to resign yesterday.

We (all) found EVIDENCE that has turned the tide on SBV.

Be very afraid, politicians and news tycoons. The people are going around the entrenched press. The people are BECOMING the press.

[Mad As Hell]

11. YES!

The * cabal didn't anticipate us DID THEY?

[annabanana]

12. feels good, duzzn't it!

[blondeatlast]

14. Democracy topples the corporate media.

I thought that one of the greatest principles of US Democracy, a truly free press, was dead in the water, and it was dismal indeed.

If I hadn't been in the thick of it yesterday, I wouldn't have believed the stories. It happened, though, and I was a miniscule part of it.

Democracy still works. Believe it.

[blondeatlast]

13. If a bunch of untrained, inexperienced political junkies

can accomplish what's been accomplished here the past few days; WHY CAN'T THE FREAKIN' PRESS DO IT'S JOB?

And the answer comes in gentle waves of insight: becuase WE have become the press, and they have become obsolete.

[stevedeshazer]

17. Boy Howdy!

The press seems to need us to do their legwork for them. And we ain't gettin' paid.

[noahmijo]

15. Got that right

I always said that the neo-cons may dominate talk radio but we have the most influence and knowledge of the most powerful communication tool: The Internet.

[arwalden]

16. They Are "Old Skool" Mud Slingers

Back in the day, (as you pointed out,) this might have worked for them.

-- Allen

[Lefty48197]

18. I agree

let's bury them under the truth.

[LowerManhattanite]

19. Precisely, trumad!

Everybody shone through yesterday! Walt with his catch on the medals, and the scores who pored through the GOP sites for Sh*tVet links. I'm not afraid to say it--we hurt them yesterday--in Cheney's words, "Big Time!"

And THAT is the reason as some of you will note, why today and yesterday we saw soooo many trolls over here trying to disrupt, discredit and ultimately destroy this resource with outright stupidity and agent provacateur attacks. Don't let 'em! If they weren't on the run, they'd be elsewhere and a bit more secure in themselves.

Keep up the good work all and keep your eyes open! :)

[snippy]

20. True, but Bush is not done using the Smear Boat Liars.

At least according to this

However… in the famous words of Al Jolson: “You ain’t heard nothin’ yet.” The Swiftees have prepared an October Surprise for Hanoi John that is going to blow his candidacy out of the water. I can’t tell you what it is, but I can tell you the television and radio ads have already been taped, and they are going to have an impact like an elephant sitting on a donkey.

The Swiftees have three things in abundance: money, brains, and balls. They know exactly how to go for the jugular, they have the dough to do it, and they are saving their best shot for last. The Democrats will not know what hit them and will not know how to retaliate. Get set folks. The Kerry Train Wreck is not going to be a pretty sight.

http://www.tothepointnews.com/article.php?id=406&i=

I know nothing about this Wheeler guy or his website, but I am certain that Bush will not abandon his trademark signature of using newly formed groups funded by old drinking and doping buddies to spread smears and lies about his opponent.

[blondeatlast]

22. Subpoenas and lawyers. They'll watch VERY carefully what they

do.

They are obviously cowards and not likely to take the fall for Bunnypants, at least if it means criminal or civil liability. The media is on this too; there's hints they are itching to go after BP for the way he's pushed them around (of course, they LET him, the chickenpoops).

The media will be watching VERY carefully from here on in. Cordier has already resigned (yesterday, coincidentally!) from the Bush/Cheney campaign.

And if the BP cronies don't know that netizens set it in motion, their next misstep will tell them. If they don't learn form that, they are in serious trouble.

The stage is set, and for once, the Dems and their loyal supporters have set it.

BRING IT ON!

[trumad]

23. Oh yeah...sure they are...brains..LOL

We've seen their Brains in action and it's quite comical.

Within the last two days two vets who were there with Kerry broke their silence and back up everything Kerry and his crew have said. One (Rood) is an influential writer for the Chicago Tribune and just his account alone has caused serious waves in the media. By October the Smear Boys will be so discredited they might have to go into hiding. We're kicking their asses....

[snippy]

26. Agreed, but I have no idea what the next series of lies Bush plans to

spread through the Swift Boat group will be. Depending on what those lies are they may be easier or more difficult to expose. I do know that Bush has been successful using these tactics. I also know that the Swift Boat group will have access to unlimited funding regardless of any illegalities involved in that funding. They are not going away. They have just started and there is lots of time for them to continue their activities.

[sadiesworld]

24. Can 527s air ads that close to the election?

Assuming they mean OCTOBER surprise literally.

On edit: This does not appear to be the case re 527s

[snippy]

28. I don't know. But I can't see why Bush would follow the law anyway. n/t

[grasswire]

27. he sounds like a real nut

Claims to have defeated Putin and Putin's bodyguard in arm wrestling, among other oddities!

His take on Kerry and the Swifties is really off the wall.

[snippy]

30. LOL! I could not bring myself to read anything else on his site. n//t

[Philostopher]

25. Fortunately for us,

right-wingers are, at the bottom, mostly greedy bean counters who still see the Internet primarily as an instrument of fundraising. They don't understand how to get people to do what DUers did with this information. I didn't get involved in this one, but I've mucked WHOIS and tracked addresses on other snipe hunts around here, I know for a good many of us it's like an itch we can't resist scratching, finding this kind of information. Good for us -- it's intellectual curiosity that makes that possible, and you just plain can't buy either the curiosity or the ideological motivation required to make these things happen. When it's the real stuff, it happens almost instantly. Say what you will about DU when it's just an echo chamber for our doubts -- when we're onto something around here, somebody will eventually get it.