.

Rather, who spent 24 years in the anchor chair, closed the news program
with these words:  “To our soldiers in dangerous places. To those who have endured the
tsunami and to all who have suffered natural disasters, and who must
find the will to rebuild. To the oppressed and to those whose lot it is
to struggle, in financial hardship or in failing health. To my fellow
journalists in places where reporting the truth means risking all. And
to each of you: 'Courage.'” 

(The Crowd claps)

Following the broadcast, Mitch Pearlstein addressed the crowd, detailing the Time magazine article which showcased weblog writers, or “bloggers” as the are referred to.  Pearlstein noted how prior to 2004, blogs were described as being comprised of “nuts” and “insignificant” players, yet Powerline was different in that it broke through with solid investigative reporting and attention to detail.  Pearlstein described the affect as being illustrative “of the power of the Internet as a medium of information and the foiling of the dinosaurs of Big Media.

Pearlstein went on to provide the background information on John H. Hinderaker and Scott W. Johnson of
”Power Line“:

John H. Hinderaker is a lawyer with the Minneapolis law firm Faegre &
Benson. For more than ten years Hinderaker has written with his former
law partner Scott Johnson on public policy issues including income
inequality, income taxes, campaign finance reform, affirmative action,
welfare reform, and race in the criminal justice system. Both
Hinderaker and Johnson are fellows of the Claremont Institute. Their
articles have appeared in National Review, The American Enterprise,
American Experiment Quarterly, and newspapers from Florida to
California.

Scott W. Johnson is an attorney and senior vice president of TCF
National Bank in Minneapolis. For more than ten years Johnson has
written with his former law partner John H. Hinderaker on public policy
issues including income inequality, income taxes, campaign finance
reform, affirmative action, welfare reform, and race in the criminal
justice system. Both Johnson and Hinderaker are fellows of the
Claremont Institute. Their articles have appeared in National Review,
The American Enterprise, American Experiment Quarterly, and newspapers
from Florida to California.

Paul Mirengoff is an attorney in Washington, D.C. He is a 1971 graduate
of Dartmouth College and a 1974 graduate of Stanford Law School. He has
two daughters and lives with his family in Bethesda, Maryland. Paul supports Everton FC of the English Premier Soccer League, as well as the Washington Redskins, the Washington Wizards, and the University
of Maryland basketball team. 

John & Scott have both been involved with The Center for the American
Experiment, in several ways on the board, contributors, and other
means.   

At that point, John Hinderaker began to describe how Power Line came into being.  Hinderaker and Johnson initially began writing articles for the Pioneer Press and
other publications about 10 years ago. At a later date they ”cold-called“ Mitch Pearlstein, after which the three men met and discussed the work of Hinderaker and Johnson. Pearlstein liked what he saw and began publishing the duo's writings. In 2002, Johnson and Hinderaker began at Blogger.com.  Hinderaker's daughter, Laura,
and her friend who were both 13 at
the time, were with John while he set himself up at Blogger.com. Upon asking
their opinion for a name, Laura's friend asked what it would be about.
Her friend thought for a few moments and came up with ”Powerline“ and
that's the way it has been ever since.  John called up his friend Scott
whom he told about this and convinced him to help with this
venture.   Hinderaker remembers Johnson as saying,” It would be a nice experience but it would be a pathetic fantasy if we expected
anyone to actually read it.“ 

Hinderaker: What really put us on the map were the off-year elections concerning
the Wellstone-Coleman race, where basically people nationally,
including Hugh Hewitt, began noticing that we had a reliable source
of information.  We were able to recount history as we were at the right place at the
right time and the information came from readers of our site. 

Scott: We could only have done this because we had readers. Late 2003
and early 2004 Rathergate became a ”parade of succession of bogus Bush
administration scandals.“ Joseph Wilson You are a liar
http://powerlineblog.com/archives/2004_07.php#007135 & Niger: British
Report Confirms Niger Connection
http://powerlineblog.com/archives/2004_07.php#007161

 
The Kerry Campaign planned a political attack for September 8th 2004, called ”Fortunate
Son“ to trash President Bush, and coordinated with the 60 Minutes program describing Bush's 
service with the Texas Air National Guard. 

At this point, Johnson mentioned the 4 new documents that CBS had in PDF format online, and how
various things struck him funny - if this is true then its really
bad.  The authenticity was in question on September 9th, 2004 when at about
7:00 am, when emails began coming in discussing the documents.  By the time Johnson got to work at 8:30, he’d received
50 emails with comments,  including Charles Johnson of Little Green
Footballs. One of the emails contained a few paragraphs
dealing with a post on another website.  Charles Johnson
made an exact replica of the forged documents using a word processor
(Microsoft Word) and declared the documents forged. We were
inundated with info regarding the fraudulent documents.  Johnson needed help editing the material so he called up his partner. Johnson looked at DrudgeReport.com and with flashing police lights, an inverted 60
minutes clock, and text marked as an urgent message to click with a
link to ”powerlineblog.com“ He noticed the site was inaccessible since
the traffic was to the point no one could access the site for a
while.   He then went home to update the site. Powerline received emails from many experts
on 70s typewriters emailing him for update #10 on the story, who discussed kerning ( horizontal spacing of text), which was impossible on a 1970s military typewriter.  Powerline posted the real version of a
Texas Army National Guard document from an official site from the
1970's next to the CBS document from the CBS website.  

 This was reconstructed live at the event before the crowd, and one
spectator noted,” Wow that is a very clear difference.“ It was also
clear to others that modern editing had taken place. Hinderaker stated that there
were three important points that were out of line with the CBS document:

1) Kerning had been clearly performed on the document in question as
demonstrated by the comparison.

2) Military protocol - it was pointed out that several people involved
in the military noted that the proper punctuation and letter format weren't
used. Although, this was something Powerline didn't know but their readers did,
which demonstrates the power of the internet and blogs. 

3) The Content - which the mainstream media chose to ignore and the
supporters including the New York Times called the CBS story ”fake but
accurate“. On Sept. 9th 2004, Powerline received an article from the NY Times on the
Jerry Killian story pertaining to Bush’s commanding
Officer, Buck Stout, in a letter purported to have been written in 1973. They also received older information indicating
Buck Stout had retired in 1972! The two bloggers eventually gained access to actual documents Buck Stout had written about Bush, describing Bush as an
”exceptional young pilot“ with great growth potential.

The truth in this is that the Internet is a powerful tool that can
bring together many pieces of information by many experts and/or witnesses, and put together into  a complete story. Over the course of the day
greater then 500 sites linked to powerlineblog.com and by 7:30 pm on Sept
9th 2004, less then 12 hours after Scott launched his initial report,
CBS executives were investigating whether a scandal has ensued. The story trickled out into the
mainstream media on Sept 10th. 

Johnson stated that he was wondering ”if there was any adult corporate supervision at CBS.“
CBS was informed the documents were fakes and Dan Rather made phone calls to other mainstream media types trying to
attest to the accuracy of the CBS story. In 12 days Dan Rather assured us
it was an ”accurate story“ from an ”unimpeachable source“. The Rathergate cover-up included over 60 pages from
CBS, and everyone up to Andrew Hayward of CBS was informed that the documents were phony.  

Scott: CBS & Dan Rather owe President Bush an apology for attempting to trash his military service
Record, And CBS 60 Minutes producer Mary Mapes knew the documents were fakes but chose to have the story produced anyway.  

A question and answer session followed, begun by Mitch Pearlstein who asked, ”How do you find the time to keep up you
Blog?“

John: Scott gets up at 5Am and starts, I myself use a laptop while I
shave in the morning.

 
David Strom of the Taxpayers League of Minnesota brought his own thoughts concerning blogging,  and indicated that while Nick Coleman of the Star Tribune and others try to
undermine bloggers, he and the Powerline duo all have law degrees and Coleman does not.  

Hinderaker answered by saying that they were always careful since they began writing
and they only started being questioned after appearing on internet. You can link online where you can't do that in print and if someone like Paul Krugman of the NY Times were online, he’d be challenged for his continuous false statements and he’d no longer be employed by the ‘Times.  

 
Other questions followed and then it was my turn to interview John Hinderaker. 
__________________________________________________________________________ 

1) Question: Italian Journalist (rewrite)

John: He assumed the facts will come out and confident in the Armies
ability to investigate itself, and stated we covered that and the
answer is 'no'.

2) UN regulating the Net and ICANN

John: the NET is overwhelmingly a US institution and about 80% of the
net is in English, from and for the United states so he believes the UN
will have no real effect on regulating it.

3) What should we do about the UN?

John: he called it an obsolete organization, spoke briefly about in its
formation the only way to go through post WWII was to give the US and
the USSR both Veto power no one cared what France thought. It was the
”Bi-polar Era“, an artifact, he further stated when in he was in school
about the weekly reader but it talked about how hopeful the UN was for
the future Global society. Described the UN with many ”hellhole nations
on the human rights committee', International organizations can be good
and are needed. 

4) Tsunami relief

John: The US navy was on the scene they were only ones who had the
wherewithal, ability, or means to handle the situation. The US has all
the power diminishing the UN's role.  in conclusion, it would be good
to have an international body of free countries with no grandiose ideas
for world government.

5) Law of the Seas Treaty

John: I'm aware of it, don't know much about it, and appeared uncertain
how to answer.

6) can we link to your site?

John: yes, you can link to anything and everything on that.

Ideas for logo:

See B.S.

(the C has fallen off leaving) B.S. News