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I've been trying to follow this story, and it is a little complicated. What I understand is that a democrat baited a high-profile Republican into responding with information that the democrat published to use against the republican, against FR--right?

The republican thought that a FR identity and FReepmail were safe, but he didn't know who he was giving information to, is that right?

I'm so confused...:-(

All we know for a fact is that someone under the screen name MD4Bush baited NCPAC, who worked for Maryland Governor Ehrlich (R), into a FReepmail conversation, excerpts of which were later partially reprinted in the Washington Post and Baltimore Sun. The underlying rumors were posted on Free Republic on 7/19/04, but also appeared in dcrtv.com's Mailbag in June and Early July, and in USENET postings in early July BEFORE they were posted here. MD4Bush posted NCPAC's FReepmails to him three times on two long dormant Free Republic threads shortly before the Washington Post story was posted here (on 2/8, IIRC), and (likely) at the same time as the Washington Post published its story on the Internet. The first post was of just the FReepmails; he or she underlined what I'd characterize as the portions of the FReepmails most damaging to NCPAC in the other 2 posts.

Am I missing any relevant facts? If I haven't, everything else you see posted here are probably educated guesses on the part of FReepers (some of whom know more than me) as to who MD4Bush is and how the Washington Post and Baltimore Sun got their hands on the FReepmails.

The Washington Post and Baltimore Sun don't seem to care to get to the bottom of showing who was actually spreading the rumors first. They're content in hanging the rumor-mongering on Governor Ehrlich to tarnish his nice guy reputation. The Baltimore Sun has a particular axe to grind with the Governor and is actually suing him because he refuses to let anyone in his administration speak with one of their reporters and one of their very liberal political columnists. I'm not sure why we haven't seen more out of the Washington Post (even a statement that they've tried to ascertain the original source of the rumors, but can't).

Hint to Lurking MSM: Try Googling "O'Malley Baderinwa". It's not rocket science.

it was NCPAC ... he made a comment in one of his posts that he worked in politics .. I'm not sure if he mentioned that he worked in the Gov office

Well .. there apparently has been a rumor about the Mayor of Baltimore floating around.

We aren't sure who exactly MD4Bush is .. but s/he's first post was to NCPAC regarding this rumor. MD4Bushthen proceeded to freepmail NCPAC and talk about this rumor

From what we can tell MD4Bush started this .. not NCPAC

Some time later .. up pops this WP article about the Private Freepmails and they printed them .. also shortly before the article came out .. MD4Bush posted these private freepmails on an old thread .. which then makes them not private anymore since they are on an public board

NCPAC resigned from his job because of it

Jim traced the IP and says it's from a dirty tricksters but he's not giving any other info out about who it is

So either this was a set up by the 2 authors from the WP .. or it's a set up from a Dem trickster .. or both

We haven't figured that part out yet