Power Line has been making a big deal about errors in the memo, and the fact that there's an alternate version of the memo where certain typos are corrected. They've been ignoring the very simple and obvious explanation: the three typos that were fixed are exactly the errors that Word is able to find. Three other errors, which appear in both versions of the document, are errors that Word can't find.
In other words, it seems the document's author typed it very quickly, creating six errors. Then he (or she) checked it with Word, and fixed only the three errors that Word found. Somehow both of these versions (pre-correction and post-correction) got into circulation.
Given that pasting text into Word was a major part of how Rathergate developed, it's bizarre that PL overlooked this. Instead, they've tried to conjure a scenario where a Democratic trickster created a fake document, and then made corrections to it as a result of noticing certain errors that were highlighted by ABC. However, the facts don't support this theory. So what did PL do? They altered the facts, and virtually no one noticed. Here's how they did it.
Let's start at the beginning
Power Line (also know as Powerline or powerlineblog) was a lead player in Rathergate. Their contribution to Rathergate was a major factor in Time honoring them as Blog of the Year. Soon after news first started to appear about the so-called GOP-Schiavo talking points memo, Power Line began a nonstop effort to try to repeat history, i.e., to claim the memo is fake, a "political dirty trick" created by Democrats.
In the last 10 days, PL has posted 11 articles on this subject. Most of these articles were written by PL's John Hinderaker. Also, a Hinderaker piece on this subject recently appeared in the Weekly Standard.
Here's a chronological summary of these 12 articles:
"Is this the biggest hoax since the sixty minutes story?" 3/21 (link)
"So: where did it come from?" 3/22 (link)
"Show us the source" 3/23 (link)
"A fishy story gets fishier" 3/23 (link)
"'Talking points' story imploding?" 3/23 (link)
"ABC checks out" 3/23 (link)
"Slow learners" 3/24 (link)
"Kurtz swings, misses" 3/25, (link)
"Whose talking points?" 3/27, (link)
"Fake but Accurate Again?" 3/28 (Weekly Standard)
"Talking points story goes up in smoke" 3/30 (link)
"Confusion and its sources" 3/30 (link)
Early on, PL noticed that two different versions of the document have appeared (ABC News and Raw Story). They also noticed there are various typos in the documents, and also that there are some slight differences between the two versions. PL has twisted itself into knots trying to assert that these differences represent some kind of proof that the document is fake. In the process, they've demonstrated that they're literally blinded by zeal: they can't see the truth even when the facts are right in front of them.
They've also demonstrated how easily lies and misstatements go unnoticed, and are passed along as if they're established facts. There's a dominant mythology which claims the blogosphere is self-correcting, that obvious errors are quickly dealt with. Newsday columnist James Pinkerton said "if the bloggers have power, it's because they form a robust intellectual marketplace, in which assertions must prove themselves before a jury of cyber-peers." This episode proves how wrong Pinkerton is. In this instance, the jury was either fast asleep, or it was ignored.
Launching a bogus theory
On 3/23, PL said: "three of the four typographical errors have been corrected ... The document was apparently corrected in three respects between the time it was given to ABC and when it was leaked to a left-wing web site. If the document was a genuine Republican memo, would the Democrat who leaked it onto the web take the trouble to re-create it, correcting typos? No. The leaker would only correct errors if he himself was the source of the memo."
Let's sort out what's true, versus what's made up, in that statement. The original document (as posted by ABC) has six typos. ABC pointed out four of those typos (the fact that ABC apparently didn't notice the two others is not particularly relevant or meaningful). Three of these four typos (noted by ABC) were corrected in the alternate version (as posted on Raw Story). Therefore the statement "three of the four typographical errors have been corrected" is partially true, but also misleading by omission, because it glosses over the fact that the original document contains six typos, not four (and the alternate document contains three typos, not one).
What's also important at this point is that PL makes a wholly unwarranted assumption about sequencing. PL says "the document was apparently corrected in three respects between the time it was given to ABC and when it was leaked to a left-wing web site." Note that PL doesn't know this; it's entirely made up. (Later on PL will admit this, but very quietly.) PL only knows that there are two versions, which somehow found their way to two different media outlets (ABC and Raw Story). It does not know that the second version was created after the first version "was given to ABC." Nevertheless, they make that claim because the claim is essential to their conspiracy theory, that "the leaker," a Democrat, was "the source of the memo," and he apparently created a corrected version only after he noticed that ABC pointed out certain errors in his first version.
Aside from the wholly unsubstantiated claim with regard to sequencing, there's a very obvious and major problem with this conspiracy theory. As PL clearly understood on 3/23, only "three of the four typographical errors [pointed out by ABC] have been corrected." A very prominent typo ("Teri") in a very prominent place (the first word in the body of the document) is prominently uncorrected in the alternate version of the document, even though ABC clearly highlighted this error (and it's the very first error they highlight). Therefore it makes no sense to suggest, as PL did, that a forger was prompted by ABC to issue a corrected document. Why do so, and miss this most obvious correction of all? Especially since "Terri" appears at the bottom of the original document, which tends to create the impression that "Teri" at the top was a hurried typo (a skipped key), rather than a willful misspelling (especially since two of the other five typos in the original document also are skipped-key errors).
Remember, also, that there's a very simple alternate explanation for the three corrections (that represent the difference between the two versions): they're exactly the corrections prompted by Word. In other words, the facts definitely do not suggest that the writer made corrections because errors were pointed out by ABC. The facts definitely do suggest that the writer made corrections because errors were pointed out by Word. Nevertheless, PL falsified the facts in order to promote the former explanation, and is still ignoring the latter explanation.
Calling James Pinkerton! Did any of PL's readers point out these various issues? If they did, they were ignored. Meanwhile, elsewhere in the right-wing noise machine, many were repeating PL's theme: not just that the memo was fake, but specifically that the pattern of corrections supported a sinister conspiracy theory (never mind about the inconvenient "Teri" as the first word, after the headline, of the ostensibly cleaned-up alternate version). For example, on 3/25 Fred Barnes of the Weekly Standard said "Powerline, the influential blog, found a version of the memo with typos cleaned up on left-wing websites." Barnes implied that this was evidence "of a dirty trick," although he acknowledged that it wasn't "much evidence."
Facts don't fit? Not to worry, we'll just make stuff up
Back to PL. So in the face of this very obvious problem with their conspiracy theory (the erroneous "Teri" persisted in the alternate version, even though this was the very first of the four errors highlighted by ABC), and given a very simple alternate explanation (for how it came to pass that these three particular corrections were made), what did PL do? Did they dispose of the conspiracy theory and embrace the obvious explanation (that the original author had simply made exactly the corrections prompted by Word)? No. PL chose to alter the facts to fit their conspiracy theory.
On 3/28, Hinderaker said in the Weekly Standard: "The print version of the memo, as posted on Raw Story, was identical to ABC's 'exact, full copy of the document,' except that the four typos that ABC had identified with a 'sic' were all corrected. Interestingly, however, the fifth typo--'applicably' instead of 'applicable' in the sixth paragraph--which ABC did not so identify, was not corrected in Raw Story's 'leaked' version of the document."
Hinderaker is repeating the conspiracy theory he first broached on 3/23, that "the leaker," a Democrat, was "the source of the memo," and he apparently created a corrected version only after he noticed that ABC pointed out certain errors in his first version. Here's how Hinderaker described this on 3/30, in an email to a Kos-reader: "If the corrections really were made on the basis of the errors pointed out by ABC--which, on the face of the evidence, seems to be the case--then the corrections were almost certainly made by the Democrats on the Hill who leaked the memo to Raw Story. Which would suggest that they were the ones who produced the memo in the first place." In other words, Hinderaker is indicating quite plainly that the false assertion ("the four typos ... were all corrected") is essential to his conspiracy theory.
Hey, wait a minute: what about the fact that the first error pointed out by ABC ("Teri"), prominently appearing as the first word in the body of the document, remains very noticeably uncorrected in the alternate version of the document? Obviously Hinderaker is aware of this, since on 3/23 he acknowledged that only "three of the four typographical errors have been corrected." But this fact is highly inconvenient for Hinderaker's conspiracy theory, so he simply wills it away, and says "the four typos that ABC had identified ... were all corrected." So in the course of five days, the inconvenient truth (only three of the four typos identified by ABC were corrected) turns into a convenient lie (all four were corrected).
Hinderaker's lie appeared in his Weekly Standard piece, and also a couple of days later, here: "No one [Kurtz] interviewed explained how or why the memo was revised to eliminate four typographical errors after it was first reported by ABC, but before it was leaked by Democrats on Capitol Hill to a liberal web site."
But the blogosphere is self-correcting, right?
Note that even though it's been more than 48 hours since he told this same lie in the Weekly Standard (and a full week since he introduced a conspiracy theory with a very prominent flaw), apparently no one has pointed any of this out to him (or if anyone did, they've been ignored). Note also that he repeats the same wholly unsubstantiated assertion about sequencing which he had made on 3/23. He is again claiming, as if it's a clear and proven fact, that "the memo was revised ... after it was first reported by ABC, but before it was leaked by Democrats ... to a liberal web site." PL has no basis whatsoever to claim this sequence of events, but it's essential to their conspiracy theory, so they make it up.
Calling James Pinkerton again! What about the vigilant "jury of cyber-peers?" What about the "robust intellectual marketplace?" Surely Hinderaker's readers would notice the obvious error in his 3/28 article ("the four typos that ABC had identified ... were all corrected"), especially since Hinderaker is contradicting his own statement from just five days earlier ("three of the four typographical errors have been corrected"), and especially since the relevant documents are readily available on the web for all to see. And especially since one only has to read as far as the very first word of the document (after the headline) in order to notice Hinderaker's glaring error. And especially since this issue is the cornerstone of Hinderaker's elaborate conspiracy theory.
Oh goody, even WaPo likes our Kool-Aid!
But apparently no one spoke up (or if they did, Hinderaker ignored them). On the contrary. On 3/30, WaPo's Howard Kurtz wrote ("Doubts Raised on Schiavo Memo"): "In his Weekly Standard article, Hinderaker, who writes for the blog Powerline, pointed out some of the memo's other oddities. It contained several typographical errors, such as misspelling Schiavo's first name as 'Teri,' and identified the Senate measure by the wrong bill number. The typos somehow vanished in a copy of the memo leaked to the liberal Web site Raw Story, whose editor said he posted the version obtained by the site."
Kurtz's statement "the typos somehow vanished" seems to be an uncritical restatement of Hinderaker's fallacious assertion "the four typos that ABC had identified ... were all corrected." What's perhaps even worse is that the two errors Kurtz cites as examples are two of the three errors that were distinctly uncorrected in the alternate version. In other words, the very examples cited by Kurtz are examples of typos that most definitely didn't vanish. Nevertheless, Kurtz presents them as examples of proof for the assertion "the typos somehow vanished."
So far from noticing the obvious major flaw in Hinderaker's conspiracy theory, a flaw that was evident since the first moment the theory was broached (3/23), Kurtz instead helps Hinderaker to move the theory along. And Kurtz seems to wholeheartedly adopt a notion that exists nowhere except in Hinderaker's imagination, that "Teri" was corrected in the alternate version.
Oddly enough, some truth-loving party-pooper did finally call for sobriety
Finally on 3/30 Hinderaker was brought to his senses, sort of. A Kos-reader brought these issues to his attention via email, and Hinderaker posted an article acknowledging, sort of, that he made a mistake. He essentially said that his eyes tricked him ("the memo said 'Teri,' but my eyes saw 'Terri' ... I guess the moral of the story is that we middle-aged lawyers have spent too many years poring over law books, and can no longer trust our eyesight!").
He doesn't explain how he managed to forget what he already knew just five days prior: that there were only three corrections, not four. He also doesn't explain how it is that none of his ostensibly eagle-eyes readers noticed any of this over the course of a full week (since the obvious flaw in his conspiracy theory was evident on 3/23, when he first described the theory).
It's also important to note that while acknowledging the error, he does this quite weakly. The admission he ekes out is "for what it's worth, the fact that not all of the ABC-designated errors were corrected makes it less likely that whoever corrected the memo did so on the basis of having seen the ABC post." That's lame, and shows a lack of intellectual honesty. An honest statement would be "the fact that perhaps the most prominent error ('Teri') went uncorrected, even though this was the very first of the ABC-designated errors, and the very first word of the memo (after the headline), makes it extremely unlikely that whoever corrected the memo did so on the basis of having seen the ABC post."
He also bends over backward to pretend all this is not important (this is the "rowback" part). He says: "Does this have any significance? Not much ... this is obviously a minor point, at best ... the errors are a minor part of the story." Never mind that over the course of a week, on several occasions, he and others had suggested that the pattern of corrections was a direct clue to a conspiracy. Some "minor point."
He does finally admit that he has no knowledge of the sequence of events: "we don't know who created either version, or when, or why; we don't know when or why the corrections were made." However, of course he doesn't mention that this didn't stop him from making, on other occasions, various unsubstantiated statements about the sequence of events, and he doesn't take responsibility for those statements or retract them.
What's especially noteworthy is that even though it's been pointed out to him, Hinderaker still can't bring himself to make even the slightest mention of the fact that there's a very simple explanation for the three corrections: they're exactly the errors pointed out by Word.
After going to great lengths to spin a convoluted conspiracy theory that is utterly unsupported by the facts (and therefore he falsified the facts to fit his theory), Hinderaker can't admit that a very simple explanation was readily available all along.
Various other details on all this can be found in my earlier diary here.
Update (4/7): I just noticed that my list above omits one of the early Power Line articles on this subject. On 3/22 they posted an article called "Show Us the Missing Memo." Accordingly, all my counts of numbers of articles need to be incremented by one.
Update (4/8): I just realized I have missed several more of the PL articles (some of them very brief) on this subject. So for the sake of clarity and completeness, here's the whole list. Below are 24 citations, covering a period of 17 days (3/21 to 4/6). This includes the 23 PL articles on this topic, up until the time that Darling issued his confession. Also on the list is a highly relevant Weekly Standard article.
Note that in a stunning bit of hypocritical backpedaling, Kaus is now claiming that the memo means nothing: "The whole 'memo' fuss, as played up by WaPo and ABC ... was wildly overdone even if the memo was a GOP leadership document--as if senators never consider what is a good political issue, as if that's a no-no in a democracy ... The memo wasn't close to being worth the play it got in WaPo ... What's the crime--politicians considering politics?"
If the memo wasn't "worth the play," why did PL et al give wall-to-wall coverage to a bogus conspiracy theory? Why didn't they just say there's nothing wrong with "politicians considering politics?"
"Is this the biggest hoax since the sixty minutes story?" 3/21 (link)
"Show Us the Memo" 3/22 (link)
"So: where did it come from?" 3/22 (link)
"Show us the source" 3/23 (link)
"A fishy story gets fishier" 3/23 (link)
"'Talking points' story imploding?" 3/23 (link)
"Factor This" 3/23 (link)
"ABC checks out" 3/23 (link)
"Slow learners" 3/24 (link)
"Kurtz swings, misses" 3/25, (link)
"Fishy and Fishier" 3/26 (link)
"Whose talking points?" 3/27, (link)
"Fake but Accurate Again?" 3/28 (Weekly Standard)
"Mr. Kurtz, Call Your Office" 3/28 (link)
"Media Alert" 3/28 (link)
"Talking points story goes up in smoke" 3/30 (link)
"Confusion and its sources" 3/30 (link)
"What's Going On" 3/31 (link)
"Is the Post Ducking Responsibility" 3/31 (link)
"Media Un-Alert" 4/1 (link)
"Another Brick in the Stonewall" 4/4 (link)
"The Post Explains, Sort of" 4/4 (link)
"Answer: Yes" 4/6 (link)
"The Gang That Couldn't Talk Straight" 4/6 (link)
Update (4/10): Power Line now claims "we did not report as a fact that the memo was a fake."
What nonsense. Once a liar, always a liar. On the same day Darling confessed, Power Line posted an article called "Answer: Yes." Here's the first sentence of that article: "Brian DeBose and Stephen Dinan ask in today's Washington Times; 'Was the Schiavo memo a fake?'"
Power Line made at least six other statements asserting the memo was fake, as if they understood that to be a proven fact. Here they said:
"We have written extensively about the fake 'talking points memo'"
"the Republican party has taken a giant PR hit as a result of ... news reports on the fake memo"
"the Post's original story on the fake memo"
"Someone at the Post swallowed the fake memo hook, line, and sinker"
And here they said:
"Howard Kurtz follows up on the bogus 'GOP talking points memo'"
"the many columnists that picked up on the fake story"
It's true that in many places they took the trouble to use phrases like "apparently fake." But it's a lie to claim they never went beyond that.
Update (4/18): Kurtz is has now found another opportunity to help Hinderaker lie.
Here Kurtz quotes Hinderaker saying "we were guessing or drawing an inference or expressing an opinion [when we called the memo a fake]." Hinderaker is again promoting the idea that they never reported as a fact that the memo was a fake. But that's false. They did, on multiple occasions, as I document above ("Update 4/10"). Instead of challenging Hinderaker's false assertion, Kurtz uncritically repeats its, lending it support it doesn't merit.
I meant to mention this earlier: thank you to Eric Boehlert of Salon for citing this diary in his recent article.