Charles Foster Johnson (born April 13, 1953) is an American blogger, software developer, and former jazz guitarist.[1] He has played on 30 albums, sometimes credited as Icarus Johnson. He started the political blog Little Green Footballs in 2001.
Johnson was born in New York and raised in Hawaii. He launched his first career (as a jazz guitarist) in the mid-1970s. Extensive recording credits include at least three albums that went gold: Reach For It by George Duke, School Days by Stanley Clarke, and Live in London by Al Jarreau. He was a member of Richard Page and Steve George's pre-Mr. Mister band, Pages and played on the band's biggest hit, "I Do Believe in You."
He later co-founded CodeHead Technologies,[2] which marketed productivity and desktop publishing software (mostly written in assembly language) for the Atari ST personal computer. In 2001, Johnson founded a web design firm called "Little Green Footballs" with his brother Michael. Little Green Footballs began as a testbed on the company's website.
Johnson was raised Roman Catholic but now considers himself an agnostic.[3]
Johnson is a co-founder of Pajamas Media, selling his stake in 2007.[4] [5]
Johnson, and other bloggers, gained attention during the 2004 U.S. presidential election for their role in questioning the authenticity of several memos purporting to document irregularities in George W. Bush's National Guard service record. (See Killian documents and Killian documents authenticity issues.) CBS news anchor Dan Rather presented the memos as authentic in a September 8, 2004 report on 60 Minutes Wednesday, two months before the vote. Days after the broadcast, Johnson alleged the documents, supposedly typewritten in 1973, could have been created easily on a modern computer using Microsoft Word.[6]