[conservative in nyc]

Here is what the Washington Post had to say about how they identified NCPAC in a correction to their big NCPAC piece last Monday:

Between the first and second March 21 editions, a paragraph was dropped from a Style article on Joseph F. Steffen Jr., a former political aide to Maryland Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. The story described e-mails posted on the Web site FreeRepublic.com under the name NCPAC, which is short for National Conservative Political Action Committee. The paragraph that should have appeared said:

"Steffen confirmed to The Washington Post last month that he is NCPAC (pronounced 'nik-pak'). He canceled a meeting scheduled for this article and did not respond to further requests for comment. No one else could post messages as NCPAC without NCPAC sharing his password, according to a spokesman for FreeRepublic.com. NCPAC posted about a thousand messages between January 2004 and early last month. They were sprinkled with autobiographical asides that a reporter independently verified as facts of Steffen's life."

Sounds like they lurked here to prove NCPAC was Mr. Steffen and called him to confirm.

[advance_copy]

Sounds like they lurked here to prove NCPAC was Mr. Steffen and called him to confirm.

The important fact here is that direct quotes from private FReepmail between NCPAC and MD4Bush got published in the Washington Post. There is no way WaPo could have gotten that from lurking, despite the fact that MD4Bush published the quoted FReepmail in public threads. Timestamps showed MD4Bush posted it at precisely the same moment, not before the WaPo published its article quoting the FReepmail. WaPo was working in cahoots with MD4Bush, either that or MD4Bush works for WaPo.

[Anti-Bubba182]

""Steffen confirmed to The Washington Post last month that he is NCPAC (pronounced 'nik-pak'). He canceled a meeting scheduled for this article and did not respond to further requests for comment. No one else could post messages as NCPAC without NCPAC sharing his password, according to a spokesman for FreeRepublic.com. NCPAC posted about a thousand messages between January 2004 and early last month. They were sprinkled with autobiographical asides that a reporter independently verified as facts of Steffen's life.""

We are to believe from the bold that they originally divined the identity of NCPAC from these minor clues. Baloney! This would only serve as confirmation IF you already knew who you were looking at.