The right-o-sphere was shocked, just shocked!, that I would point to them as a reason why a political candidate (Russ Feingold) might want to use a fake name ("Elizabeth Ackland") in an ad. They just could not believe, despite knowing well their history of libel and harassment, that someone would suggest that they might engage in, you know, libel and harassment of an innocent volunteer in a commercial.
Just shocked.
But here, ladies and gents, is a comment found floating freely on the comment boards of one of those who was shocked. I will not link to it (there are enough clues for you to know it's real) and I have fuzzied out the name of the target of the smear to protect him, but suffice it to say the target is a real person using his real name who disagrees politically, though respectfully, with the owner of that blog:
A caveat, but one which I think does not diminish the point: I am not a believer in "nutpicking," so please do not consider this to be my accusing the blog owner of believing this. I am sure he doesn't, and I hope that he removes the comment to prove that. (AFTERNOON UPDATE: It's gone now, though it was visible for more than eight hours.) However, I took this screenshot four hours after it was posted; maybe the blog owner hasn't had time to remove it, though four hours is a long time to leave something like that up. And no doubt it's plenty of time for the real target to have seen the comment.
But here's why that does not diminish the point: These people are out there, and they are reading the righty blogs in this state, and they are making these comments even though (if) they get deleted. Imagine that the "Anonymous" who made that comment hadn't been reading a post about Six Flags but instead had read a post about a real Elizabeth Ackland, posting perhaps information about where she works, or a link to her facebook profile page, or the city she lives in. What might "Anonymous" have said or done about "Elizabeth Ackland"?
That is my point. And the right just proved it, again.
UPDATE: And they're at it in Alaska, now--someone dared confront Ste. Sarah de Wasilla..
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