Scandal Puts Focus On Role of Bloggers (WaPo on FR, NCPAC and MD4Bush)

Washington Post ^ | 02/11/05 | David Snyder and Matthew Mosk

[conservative in nyc]

The Web site began as a sort of Internet boutique for like-minded conservatives and libertarians, suspicious of federal power and angry at President Bill Clinton.

Started in 1997 by a reclusive California conservative, freerepublic.com saw its membership blossom with Clinton's impeachment and the election of George W. Bush. Attention to the site reached a zenith last fall, when a "freeper" -- the group's moniker for its bloggers -- first discussed flaws in documents CBS News used in a report critical of Bush's National Guard service.

---Snip---

One participant working under the handle MD4BUSH, whose identity is unknown, drew Steffen into a private conversation and appeared to coax him to share more details about his role in spreading the rumor. Copies of those chat room e-mails were later provided to The Washington Post.

The Oct. 18 conversation began with MD4BUSH complimenting Steffen and saying how obvious it was that the rumors about the mayor were true. Steffen, writing under the name NCPAC, replied:

"I don't look for the MO'M [O'Malley] story to hit for a little bit yet. . . . However, a lot of what everyone knows about MO'M is because of work that has occurred. It's been a wild ride."

MD4BUSH later probed further:

"Your saying that my dentist knows [about the rumors] because of work you did? Wow, I must say, I'm impressed. I mean really, everyone knows -- how did that happen?"

[John Lenin]

I don't know this story real well but it seems to be following the same pattern in other places. They are so desperate that they will make things up and thats where you nail them at.

[alnick]

Copies of those chat room e-mails were later provided to The Washington Post.

It's entirely possible that MD4BUSH is with WaPo.

[leadhead]

On reflection, I'm unsure if that's the Sun or the Post,

Don't you think there's some connection between the two? Not financially, but it is weird how the same message comes from both on the same day regularly in their columns, not the AP feed.

Maybe there is a DNC talking points fax everyday.

Whoda thunk it. LOL

[Jet Jaguar]

That would ruin some of the fun of FR. I enjoy the smell of Zot in the morning.

[HowlinglyMind-BendingAbsurdity]

Well, few of the liberal kooks at The Sun are used to having to play two-party politics. The paper is a total rag and hardly represents the multi-county metropolitan area of central Maryland. They should be more worried about what will happen when O'Malley abandons the city for these absurd higher office career ambitions he is nurturing.

Supposedly, he supported Gary Hart's ill-fated presidential campaign. So maybe he is a little sensitive about exposures of extracurricular activities.

[advance_copy]

The only possible excuse he might have is that someone got access to his FreeRepublic account and did things without him knowing. If that is true, it should be possible to track from where his last posts were made.

Well, he did say his wife was a liberal in one of the exchanges that we saw and if you're not careful with the security, anyone who used the computer can log on and read the exchange....

We're missing the obvious here. The NSA is in MD, at Ft. Meade near Odenton. It's clear, they're the ones who fed this story to the WaPo. In fact, they've been monitoring all of my e-mails, phone calls, automobile GPS, cable TV, and radio receivers since I signed on to FR. I have to go adjust my tinfoil hat now.

[kcvl]

Additionally hilarious and comic nonsense news is in Baltimore.

Here, lawyers for the Tribune Company in Chicago, which own the Baltimore Sun, have charged the Republican governor of Maryland, Robert Ehrlich, with violating what they termed "free speech protections that guarantee equal treatment for members of the news media."

This was occasioned because Gov. Ehrlich, after two years of what he recalled as repeatedly hostile, inaccurate or made-up writing by Sun political reporter David Nitkin and columnist Michael Olesker, took action. He directed all of his administration's press officers to cut off all relations with Nitkin and Olesker (though not with other Sun reporters).

Ehrlich's press secretary, Greg Massoni, explained:

"This action in no way denies Olesker and Nitkin any freedom to write what they please. But there is no constitutional requirement that we help them!"

If the Tribune Company is so asinine as to sue the governor – and such lawsuit is not immediately hurled out of court in summary judgment – I believe that I should surely go to that same court and file suit against President George W. Bush. For four years he has only once recognized me for a question. (His answer evoked ridicule in Newsweek).

Moreover, when I attended last December's White House Christmas Party for White House correspondents, Mr. Bush welcomed me by saying:

"Here comes the troublemaker!"

The fact that I was secretly delighted, and the fact that his press secretary, Scott McClellan, always recognizes me for questions at his daily news briefings, I confess, would inhibit me from suing the president.

There is also my great desire not to resemble in any way this latest legal idiocy of the Tribune Company and its property in Baltimore.

Both the Sun and its fellow left-wing daily, the Washington Post, published furiously self-serving editorials "SHOOTING MESSENGERS" and "MR. EHRLICH'S GAG ORDER."

But Gov. Ehrlich admits, enthusiastically, that he no longer reads either of these papers – like a growing number of his constituents, as evidenced in their current circulation losses.

Instead, the governor regularly appears on talk radio, which, with the Internet, are the New Media, as distinct from the Old Big Media – which gives one 1 percent of its product to public expression, while we give 40 percent.


Les Kinsolving hosts a daily talk show for WCBM in Baltimore.

******

Judge Hears Sun's Arguments Against Governor's Ban
Gov. Likely Has Right To Prohibit Officials Talking To Sun, Judge Says

POSTED: 3:48 pm EST January 28, 2005

BALTIMORE -- A federal judge on Friday suggested that Gov. Robert Ehrlich likely has a right to prohibit his staff from talking to two writers for The (Baltimore) Sun.

The judge told the newspaper's attorneys that the governor has the same right any citizen has -- to stop "associating with citizens he doesn't want to associate with."

[endthematrix]

Leftist journalists claim a willingness to die over the First Amendment, but are so willing to kill off the Second...

[HowlinglyMind-BendingAbsurdity]

The Sun actually has a sort of slumlord mentality. Landlord on vacation, periodically checking on the latest repair needs which are filed away somewhere.

[MeekOneGOP]

The Washington Post calls you "a reclusive California conservative", Jim [Robinson].

What a bunch of morons the Washington ComPost is! JimRob is quite an activist. Almost every Friday he is out in Fresno supporting the Troops and lots of other stuff. He went to the inaugural last month. Last June, he made a tour and I met him with other Texas Freepers for supper at a local Mexican food restaurant (see my profile page).

Of course, these idiots also wrongly call FR a "blog" and .....

The blogosphere "is the international waters of the Internet age -- a lawless area where anything goes," said Matthew Felling, media director for the nonpartisan Center for Media and Public Affairs. "Sometimes that means information the quote-unquote mainstream media are keeping you from, and sometimes that means rumors the mainstream media responsibly ignores."

Ah! There you go! So when the Washington ComPost buries a story, they are being "responsible".

A-holes!

[Dr.Zoidberg]

Wait, thats the one that reads....

"The exclusive right of the press to keep and bear forked tongues shall not be infringed."

Right?

[HowlinglyMind-BendingAbsurdity]

reclusive

I think "reclusive" here refers to anyone who does not frequent the same liberal Georgetown and Manhattan cocktail parties as they do.

[kcvl]

Baltimore Sun columnist Michael Olesker, a reliable booster of Democrats, contrasted the backgrounds of Ehrlich and Townsend in a March 24 column. The Congressman, who grew up in working-class Arbutus, won scholarships to Gilman-Baltimore's most prestigious prep school-and then Princeton, where he captained the football team and held down a construction job as well.

Olesker wrote: "[W]e hear the name Kennedy, and it also evokes summers on a sailboat off the coast of Hyannis Port or pony rides across Virginia's Hickory Hill countryside, and not stickball games in the middle of Dolores Avenue in Arbutus... With a different maiden name, [Townsend] might still be a midlevel attorney for some government bureaucracy-and not Parris Glendening's former runningmate and campaign financier-and therefore not Ehrlich's possible opponent for governor of Maryland."

[MeekOneGOP]

One other thing (afterthought). I have no idea for sure, but I bet there's a good chance that that Center for Media and Public Affairs is anything but "nonpartisan", too.

[MeekOneGOP]

I think "reclusive" here refers to anyone who does not frequent the same liberal Georgetown and Manhattan cocktail parties as they do.

ha! Something like that, I bet! :^D

The Washington Post really is showing their bias here.

[endthematrix]

*GAG*

[HowlinglyMind-BendingAbsurdity]

Well, as for the liberal writers of The Baltimore Sun, maybe they need to stop spending so much time with their buddies who run the numbers rackets and strip clubs on "The Block" (the red light district)and get out into the "red states" areas of the surrounding counties. They might learn some things about Maryland.

[HowlinglyMind-BendingAbsurdity]

Maybe O'Malley took to styling himself in the Kennedy mold a little too literally.

[BigSkyFreeper]

MD4Bush could have been several people

It could even be the 2 who wrote the story and the 2 who contributed to it.

[leadhead]

Jordan admitted that CNN purposely spun a pro-Saddam line in their reports from Iraq before he was toppled, they said they did this for the access.

Yep. And all prostitutes and strippers are only doing it for college tuition.

The greater good!