Oh, I enjoy a troll thread as much as the next FReeper :^D
I was referring more to questionable posts or even posters that I recognize but who have become a detriment to the thread through personal attacks for instance. I hand it off to the mods and let them decide. Because even that sort of thing can reflect negatively on FR.
Just my little part to help keep FR litter-free.
http://newsbusters.org/node/2628
Democrat Official Outed as 'Sleaze' Source on Mayor O'Malley: Washington Post Ignored Story It Had
Posted by John Armor on November 1, 2005 - 19:04.
Thanks to the efforts of investigative reporters for WBAL in Baltimore, which has just broken the story, the former third-ranked official for the Democrat Party in Maryland has been outed as the original source for sexual slanders against Baltimore’s Democrat Mayor, Martin O’Malley, who is currently running for Governor.
The original stories in February in the Washington Post blamed the kerfuffel on Joseph Stefan, then an aide to Republican Governor Robert Ehrlich, Jr. The aide was terminated from his position as a result of his name (but not the Democrat’s name) coming out at the time.
Source: www.wbal.com/shows/Smith/ Transcript should be up, shortly.
Personal note: much of the back story on this subject occurred on FreeRepublic.com, known as FR. I have written on that website, and been a speaker at several rallies in D.C., for that website and its founder, Jim Robinson. My association with the website has lasted over seven years.
Steffan was a participant in that website a year ago, under a screen name. He got into a PRIVATE conversation by “Freepmail,” a person to person communication system on that website, with someone whose screen name was MD4Bush. This person represented that he was a staunch Republican, in a state where Republicans are in a distinct minority. MD4Bush, in this private exchange, made several salacious sexual charges against the Mayor of Baltimore. MD4Bush, it now turns out, was Communications Director for the Maryland Democrats when he signed up on FR and as his first participation began pushing rumors that “O’Malley was cheating on his wife.”
Steffan did not rise to the bait on most of the charges. But he responded (shades of the Libby investigation) “I heard that, too,” with respect to one.
Within minutes of the last private communication, two reporters for the Washington Post wrote a story outing Steffan by name as an aide to Governor Ehrlich (a Republican) for dealing in rumors about O’Malley. Subsequently, Democrats in the state legislature asked for a full investigation of the Governor’s staff.
The speed with which the Post had the story suggests that they used MD4Bush as their source. And they must have had some reason for believing that their source was reliable. In short, it is highly likely that the Post knew they were getting information from a then-Democrat staffer in order to attack a Republican staffer and the Governor he worked for.
The understanding of the story would have been much better, and the story would have been far more honest, if the Post had reported that part of the story. But they did not. That suggests that the Post story was deliberately slanted to harm the Republicans and protect the Democrats, when they knew from the get-go that this was a set-up by a Democrat.
John_Armor@aya.yale.edu
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