Rathergate anniversary - 5 days and counting - the double digit lead

Salt asked me to publish this today.

One year ago today, another domino fell that pushed CBS into using its "October surprise" early. After the RNC 2004 convention, Time Magazine released a poll showing that Bush had opened up a double digit lead. As I commented 4 days ago:

Bush would walk away from this convention holding (by some accounts) a double digit lead (BTW - I still hate polls). That lead prompted CBS to broadcast the phony ANG documents more than a month-and-a-half ahead of schedule. The Swift Boat Vets and the GOP convention forced the MSM/DNC to run its October surprise in September. As the blogosphere proved in 2004, an October surprise doesn't work unless it is used in October. CBS' premature surprise attack left plenty of time for Powerline and Little Green Footballs to nullify the attack.

While the Time poll lead proved to be temporary, the damage was done. CBS was forced into an early lie that could be disproved (and with plenty of time for the blogosphere to do the disproving).

I can remember cautiously celebrating the news of the Time poll at the time, but none of us knew that the real cause for celebration would soon follow.
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update. 9-07-05 - I have fixed the links for this post. The Blogger program sometimes severely limits what one can accomplish with a blog. In this case, Blogger would not allow me to transfer a post to a guest blogger for subsequent posting without destroying the links and screwing up the format of the blog. Please remember, the link garbling was Blogger's fault, not Sue Bob's. Sue Bob did an excellent job guest blogging for me over the past few days.