Saturday, April 2, 2011

April Tools: Another Libelous Attack From The Right

On Thursday evening, I noticed that Peter DiGaudio, owner and author of the blogsite "The Underground Conservative", had written an attack post on me.  The gist of the post is that I had allegedly left two profane and inappropriate comments on another post of his, and that these two posts were left during what is normally considered business hours.

To be honest, I didn't first think too much about it.  You see, I've been harangued by an imposter or group of imposters for over a year and a half now.  Said imposter(s) have a long history of impersonating me, Zach Wisniewski, Jim Arndt and others in all corners of the Cheddarsphere.  Some of the bloggers and blogs that have encountered this fool include Zach, Jim and myself as well as Cindy Kilkenny, Badger Blogger, folkbum, Jason Haas, Owen Robinson at Boots and Sabers, Real Debate Wisconsin, Charlie Sykes and who knows where else. The comments range from those experienced by Peter to threats of violence and other horrendous things.

In fact, as you can see at Peter's post, commenters including Cindy Kilkenny, Jim Arndt and Jim Spice, point out to this ongoing issue. Furthermore, there are some other minor points that would indicate that it's not me, including the fact that I have a different sign in for WordPress sites.

The sock puppets' mission is obviously to try to discredit me by making me appear as some sort of asocial lunatic.  Fortunately for me, I've been blogging for long enough that most people, even those that don't agree with my political views (like Cindy and Owen, for example), recognize that this isn't my style of writing and/or that it's not my IP.  (In fact, said troll most often uses some proxy server to help disguise their true identity.)  Said troll was even becoming so bold as threatening me at my sites, hence the need for comment moderation. But don't worry, I still have all those comments in storage.

Another reason that I was not overly concerned about it was the fact that Peter himself has a history of questionable writings (which caused him to blow up at least one or two previous sites he had operated). I also know that there are some people that will believe the worst of me no matter what, so they will automatically presume my guilt in anything.  Others just don't know me and don't bother doing their homework*.  Either way, I realize that there is nothing that I can do about that, and thus tend not to worry about it.

That feeling on laissez-faire changed earlier today when I was tipped off that some Republican operatives were taking Peter's allegations of me leaving those comments on county time and trying to run with them.   My thoughts immediately went to the attempted smear job that Citizens for Responsible Government pulled last year, much akin to the Republican attempt to discredit Professor Cronon.

This suspicion was reinforced when Aaron Rodriguez, a known Walker blogger, who doesn't follow me on Twitter, still responded to an off-hand comment I made about wanting a drink after a week of seeing so many of my friends retiring from work this week:


Rodriguez, when I challenged him on this, made some odd comment about seeing me posting on Fox6Milwaukee, which would be really new, since I've almost never gone to that site, much less posted a comment there.  I'm not even registered to that site, presuming they have that requirement to comment on their site in the first place.

But I am still not too worried about this whole thing since I know that I didn't leave those comments on Peter's site or anywhere else.  I know that whatever they throw at me will eventually prove to be nothing. Odds are that they know this as well.

However, I can see them trying to roil the waters sometime between now and Tuesday to try to influence the elections.  The scenario I could foresee would be that CRG or some such group of groupies come out with these fresh allegations and use that to attempt to discredit me and to try to distract the people's attention from the fact that Scott Walker and the Republicans have overreached themselves (again).  So far, one Republican Senator is going to have to fight to keep his seat and there may be as many as five more before long.  Furthermore, from everything I hear, neither Stone nor Prosser are looking to well in the polls and they need to do something if they are going to have a chance.

So if you see "me" posting some obnoxious garbage around the blogosphere, know it's not me.  And if you see someone or some group making these false allegations against me, share the truth so that they cannot keep hijacking this great state of ours.

*Peter, if you really do read this blog, please note that it is Cognitive Dissidence, not Cognitive Dissonance.  I do cognitive dissidence, while your post shows cognitive dissonance.

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