"The Dan Rather imbroglio, sparked by revelations that CBS’ '60 Minutes II' trumpeted forged documents about President Bush’s National Guard duty, has been billed as a victory for the 'new media'—specifically Web logs, or blogs. Among prominent blogs that have drawn attention to the phony documents and heaped criticism on Rather for how he’s handled the controversy is www.rathergate.com, a website that gets its muscle from a local company.

Right Internet Inc., a Web application developer based on the Downtown Mall, was crucial in getting rathergate.com up and running, says Mike Krempasky, 29, the blog’s author and a Northern Virginia resident. Rathergate.com’s key feature is that it allows visitors to use their credit cards to pay a small fee for a blast fax or e-mail to CBS affiliates, a process enabled by GrassWave, one of Right Internet’s Web products.

'The whole Rathergate thing is really the coming out party for GrassWave,' Krempasky says. 'GrassWave lets us literally, in a couple minutes, set up a website.'

In his day job, Krempasky works for American Target Advertising, a direct mail company specializing in conservative causes. Krempasky’s boss, Richard A. Viguerie, has been called the 'funding father of the Right.'

Krempasky says he conceived of rathergate.com on his way home from work on Friday, September 10. Through his employer, Krempasky had collaborated with Right Internet Inc. for about a year, and Krempasky says he’s known Chris Tyrrell, one of two partners in Right Internet and a UVA law student, for even longer.

Working with Tyrrell and co., Krempasky’s rathergate.com was live by the following Monday. Within days Krempasky was cited in the Chicago Tribune, USA Today and in an article by Washington Post media reporter Howard Kurtz headlined, 'The Bloggers’ Moment.'

Rather and CBS are under fire for allegedly allowing their zealous pursuit of Bush to trump journalistic standards. In a similar vein, is it fair for Krempasky—a paid political operative specializing in the mass dissemination of Right Wing material—to pose as an outraged member of the blogosphere?

Krempasky insists that he is indeed an authentic blogger, and that his boss did not even learn of rathergate.com’s existence until it was up and running.

'I’ve been blogging for three years now,' Krempasky says. 'I’ve probably built seven different blogs.'

Indeed, Krempasky runs a personal blog with deep archives and varied subject matter, including mentions of Tyrrell and Right Internet. Tyrrell, for his part, purchased the domain for pavefrance.com at the request of Krempasky, who runs the French-bashing blog.

Chris Broomall, 28, Tyrrell’s partner at Right Internet, describes the Web development firm as a small shop that deals in open-source software to help 15 to 20 clients with 'grassroots mobilization.' Right Internet runs out of an office above the restaurant Zocalo.

'We cater to conservative clients,' Broomall says, a business niche and a personal commitment that he says 'makes it easier to go to work in the morning.'

Krempasky, no neophyte when it comes to grassroots activism or Web design, raves about Right Internet’s market potential. He says the company’s software 'tracks everything' for clients, including which people on an e-mail distribution list—the voluntary type, not spam—actually open messages and to whom they make online donations.

'It’s the most comprehensive software I’ve ever seen,' Krempasky says. 'I haven’t seen anybody else doing this kind of stuff.'

Local computer pros haven’t seen Right Internet doing their thing either. Debra Weiss, who heads the Neon Guild, Charlottesville’s informal techie worker’s association, says she’s never heard of Tyrrell, Bloomall or their company. Neither have local liberal Web mavens George Loper and Waldo Jacquith.

Jacquith thinks the media might be overstating 'Rathergate' as a watershed moment for blogs, claiming the blogosphere’s grand entrance as a player in the political world came in December 2002 with the blog-fueled frenzy over Sen. Trent Lott’s birthday tribute to Strom Thurmond. But Jacquith admits that the incident proves that 'Right Wing bloggers can hold their own.'

Krempasky, however, thinks Rathergate has launched a new era for blogs.

'It took 12 hours to destroy five months of research,' Krempasky says of bloggers’ assault on the CBS story. 'The mainstream media has no idea what they’re up against.'" (Paul Fain, C-Ville Weekly, September 28, 2004)