Comments on: Bush’s sudden February visit to Chattanooga — UPDATED

By: Thomas Nephew

Thomas Nephew — Sun, 08 Apr 2007 23:09:34 +0000

Things like “failure to cover” are hard to quantify. But I think you’re right there was a failure, and that’s really more important than this side story about the little hoax in Chattanooga.

By: Swan

Swan — Sun, 08 Apr 2007 22:48:30 +0000

OT-
I hope you don’t mind an off-topic comment, but I think this is important: There is a great post on The Carpetbagger Report from a few days ago about the mainstream media’s (specifically Time magazine’s) ignoring the prosecutor purge scandal.
http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/10367.html
What explains the failure of the mainstream media to cover the purge scandal for so long, and so many other scandals? Do you think somebody just set up newspaper editors to cheat on their wives, and threatened to tell if the editors wouldnÂ?t play ball when they come back some day and ask for something?
It wouldnÂ?t be that hard to do, when you think about it. People wouldnÂ?t talk about it.

By: Thomas Nephew

Thomas Nephew — Fri, 06 Apr 2007 17:30:55 +0000

…we don’t need a photo of Rove with a Coptix brochure…
No, we don’t. But in the court of public opinion, this story may help discredit that one; Britt Hume at FOX has mentioned it, as has Michelle Malkin. It looks very much like a Rovian dirty trick.
Maybe these guys did it to keep the page private (or maybe this is what happens automatically [i.e., “innocently,”
Maybe. Or maybe that was as convenient as the alleged (but arguable) “April Fools” timing. For my part, I’d say that in the case of an ongoing hoax, the default assumption is not “innocence”, but “more hoax.”

By: WorldWideWeber

WorldWideWeber — Fri, 06 Apr 2007 17:18:55 +0000

Anyway, we don’t need a photo of Rove with a Coptix brochure to know that White House staff used nongovernmental e-mail servers (probably illegally) to do their dirty work, do we?

By: WorldWideWeber

WorldWideWeber — Fri, 06 Apr 2007 17:12:32 +0000

Have you seen any other “referring URLs” in your Site Meter reports that aren’t valid URLs? I don’t know much about spoofing referring URLs–never had the urge (or the need) to do it. Maybe these guys did it to keep the page private (or maybe this is what happens automatically [i.e., "innocently," by the server autonomically] when the referring page is in a protected intra- or extranet).

By: Thomas Nephew

Thomas Nephew — Fri, 06 Apr 2007 16:48:27 +0000

I don’t know about how domains can be made to work or disguised; all I know that I got the visits I documented. Take a look at the image: “coptix2.iago/rove,” plain as day. When I tried to visit that site, I got the “can’t find the server” message I also mentioned.
You’re quite right — as I have already acknowledged in the post — that the public coptix.com/rove site is what you say, and (at least on its face) has nothing to do with Karl Rove per se.
But my point is not about that, but about the visits from the “dark” coptix2.iago/rove site — and at a time when most were still under the impression the “Coptix folder photo” was real. At that point it was plausible that this was a Rove homepage or directory of some kind. I even asked around about it — always suggesting that there was clearly nothing definitive about it, but wondering if there was some way to learn more about the site and/or visit.

By: WorldWideWeber

WorldWideWeber — Fri, 06 Apr 2007 16:31:56 +0000

I’m missing something here: coptix2.iago isn’t even a proper domain (unless someone has gone and made a bunch of top-level domains named after Shakespeare characters). Where the hell is that coming from?
Okay, then there’s coptix.com/rove. The “rove” part is just a directory (or “folder” in the newfangled [i.e., post-1990] Windows lingo) on the web server. I could put a directory called “rove” (or “nephew” ) on my server. Has nothing to do with the flesh-and-blood Turd Blossom. Just a place to put a Rove hoax. All in all, a pretty good one, unless you were the one punk’d!
My guess is that the Coptix goofballs had a web page that linked to the punk’d blogs. I think what you’re seeing is a hit on your blog coming from a page on the Coptix server (probably meant for internal consumption and amusement).
Anyway, let us all renew our resolve to be skeptical of any photo we didn’t take ourselves, especially if it looks too good to be true!
[I didn't read the Wonkette entry you linked to. But here's the word from the horse's mouth.]

By: Thomas Nephew

Thomas Nephew — Fri, 06 Apr 2007 15:34:48 +0000

I think you’re right about the photo. I wasn’t referring to that, though, but to the visits from the “coptix2.iago/rove” web site in furtherance of the hoax.

By: jsmdlawyer

jsmdlawyer — Fri, 06 Apr 2007 03:34:38 +0000

I don’t think this was a crime (of course, I’m a criminal defense lawyer, I don’t think anything is a crime!).
Here’s the language of the statute:
“Whoever falsely assumes or pretends to be an officer or employee acting under the authority of the United States or any department, agency or officer thereof, and acts as such, or in such pretended character demands or obtains any money, paper, document, or thing of value, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both.”
Did anyone “falsely assume or pretend to be” Karl Rove? No — what they did was falsely portray the actual Karl Rove as doing something he didn’t actually do — namely, carrying a Coptix file folder. If they had dressed someone up to look like Rove and done everything else that they did, that might be a crime, but this almost assuredly was not within the bounds of the statute.