Oh C’mon.

You got punked on April fools. Just admit it and move on. Where did Michelle Malkin say he was innocent of all charges? I have read it twice and see nothing of the sort. Liberals have no sense of humor.

Sadly the fake photo will get hundreds of more wingnut blog entries about how “moonbats will believe anything about Rove” than the original three blogs or so that found it interesting if true. The noise machine resonates a million times more than anyone asking about what is up with Rove’s private servers.

I feel bad that I was taken by this. I thought I had check the photo dates and looked into all the right caches. In a stroke of very slick disinformation tactics, by only changing an existing photo, it is nearly impossible to prove what was originally there. By taking an existing 2 month old blog post and only changing the photo, there is no way to verify. I should have found this cache of the other coptix trickery. Google let me down.. but you can see here that sometime after 3/26, Josiah put his extra disinformation (linking to the photo) to put the hoax over the top.

I think people would have been more skeptical of the photo, except it just showed what is already TRUE, Rove has a private email server, and his buddies in Chattanooga run it for him. And the interesting thing, at the very time people are asking question about his email server, he was in Chattanooga! This was all known BEFORE the photo. And now we know Coptix employees took photos with Bush and maybe even talked with Rove.

We also know Coptix is willing to go to great lengths to trick people into proving they are connected to Rove, just to make it seem like they are not. We know Coptix fakes photos and then hints around to see if anyone will take the bait. First of all everyone should remember Coptix didn’t like being associated with gwb43.com, so they planned and executed this whole thing, and posted their victory in the newspaper, their client, having redesigned the Times Free Press website.

—-

From an “Anonymous” Sleestak:

Jesus Christ! You were had. So what? Why make a goddamn federal case out of a joke?

Oh irony.. It was a Federal Case before your little SSSSSSSS-silly prank. (Hint: You are trying to make a joke out of a Federal Case)

you are such a coward

The point that seems to be missed is that EVEN IF THAT PHOTO WASN’T FAKE, there would be no excuse for jumping to the conclusion that it was hard proof of that company’s involvement in Rove’s email. Nobody was “Rathered” here. The folder had a company logo on it, not “secret email business folder”

As we’ve consistently said:

Coptix runs a nameserver for gwb43.com, which is owned by the RNC. Therefore, Coptix is RNC’s vendor for this service. Rove uses gwb43.com for 90% of his mail. This all in the public record, and has nothign to do with the photo.

And as we’ve consistently said:

The faked photo would have been the first proof of Rove’s personal involvement. But the company, no matter what, is involved, because of their business relationships.

So, no jumping to conclusions was involved. Sorry.

No authoritarians were tortured in the writing of this post.

Faking a photo proves your company is innocent? Man, somebody should have photoshopped Ken Lay juggling stacks of $100 bills marked “Grandma Millie”. He wouldn’t even have had to fake his death…

But I still believe
And I will rise up with fists!!

I want to write something smart and sharp and cut Malkin down but I really busy right now hugging Lambert. Maybe later.

Blog against Theocracy starts tomorrow, btw.

Blue Gal
http://bgalrstate.blogspot.com

That seems like the sort of line of reasoning by which you could say that the delivery company subcontracted by the company that supplies toilet paper to Rove’s office is responsible for any shit generated there. There is a connection; it’s just not a particularly useful one.

I don’t see that it’s any big deal. As lambert noted, Coptix is involved in a violation of the Presidential Records Act. I expect the photo was a joke, rather than a deliberate setup, and as things fell out the wingers are now using the classic “We Meant To Do That!” technique to construe an accident as a victory.

Whatever.

Mr. Rove has violated laws against the United States. It may be difficult to *convict* him of same because the evidence has been (purposely) covered. It is always amusing how supposed “law and order” types are so gleeful when laws have been circumvented.

While it may be “liberals have no sense of humor”, it certainly appears conservatives have no principles.

…on a totally unrelated topic, can be found here. Hey, pass on a lie, promote an untruth about historical events AND make a buck at the same time! What’s not to love? I havent’ had time to read the whole paper but it contains some useful lessons and advice.

Hold your fire for a minute, and stop trying so hard to tie everything into a neat bundle that makes this mess someone else’s fault while “proving” that everyone who challenges your analysis is part of the greater RNC ratfucking operation.

First off, I’m the “anonymous” who wrote three of the four such named comments on lambert’s blog about this last weekend — the ones framed as “Maybe…” I don’t work for Coptix. I do live in Chattanooga. I know a credible person who works at Coptix. That’s my entire connection to that business.

I have worked in publishing for 35 years, much of that time as an investigative reporter and editor. I have a wall full of awards for coverage of the far right and government corruption, as well as media criticism. I have a long, well-documented history as a community and anti-war organizer, and a couple of awards for that, as well.

I’m also the author of an April Fool satire about the failings of the national press that was posted in another lambert thread at Correntewire the same day and praised by xan. (Archived here. ) It should be clear from this piece alone where my sympathies lie.

I came here looking for posts about gwb43.com because I believe this is an extremely important issue not getting sufficient attention in the press. When I saw your post based on the Rove photo, I immediately contacted my friend at Coptix and was told what you were told by Jeffrey Cross. My friend is that rarest of treasures, an unimpeachable source, so I posted a warning to you, in a friendly way. I posted anonymously because a caution to ask deeper questions shouldn’t be judged on who said it.

I am not a “concern troll”. I am not a GOP operative. I am a skeptical reader, on record as being concerned about the lack of critical thinking skills among Americans that allows the flowering of conspiracist worldviews.

When I first drafted this comment yesterday, I had planned to out myself fully by posting my real name. Now, seeing the way Correntewire bloggers are still working overtime to convince yourselves that you didn’t do anything wrong, that the “prank” was too complicated to be only a prank, and that all the anonymous quotes are not only from one person but also are all from one GOP troll, I’ve decided that I don’t need friends like you. Activists who know me in Chattanooga (and many other cities) and my colleagues in journalism will recognize me from this post by my long-term concerns about critical thinking, my political perspective, and my distinctive writing voice. What you need to hear can come from any “anonymous”, if only you will open your minds and listen.

It’s simply not enough to say, as lambert does,

“…I fear that…the many questions about gwb43.com, and the research being done on the subject, will be discredited as well.”

That’s exactly what almost happened. If not for Henry Waxman, this sideshow could have sunk the entire issue, and will still have longterm negative consequences.

No one who bought into the doctored Rove photo after so many warnings should be consoling themselves with self-serving denials like this one: “…It’s hard to imagine that this is not the real object of the exercise, since all of the technical reasons for investigating the story remain.”

Why is it so hard to imagine that people can have mixed motives, friends who don’t necessarily share their politics, and a different sense of humor than you do?

Lambert added, “…If that happens, I will have hurt the country and helped the people are who destroying the Constitution.”

Yes. That’s why some of us tried to warn you. But you were, as suggested by Jeffrey Cross (whom I have never met), “more interested in digging up a scandal than finding the truth”.

Finally, lambert tried to justify what you all failed to do by saying, “…I’m an old-school, anonymous blogger…I don’t do phone calls.” Time to burn down the old school, don’t you think? There’s too much at stake.

The sort of thing that just happened here is also an inevitable product of trying to substitute instantaneous online communication and technical expertise for actual organizing on the ground. This could not have happened if you or any of the individuals who bought into it were familiar with live humans in grassroots leadership positions in Chattanooga, any one of whom could have told you this thing had gone down the rabbit hole several steps back.

That can’t be corrected overnight, because national networks — as opposed to scattered netroots — can’t be willed into being. But everyone can benefit from spending more time learning about how to think critically.

A good primer on the difference between real conspiracies and conspiracist thinking is available from Political Research Associates at Publiceye.org. They’ve been at this for more than three decades, and have a ton of material worth studying…collectively, wherever possible. Start: here.

Of course Rove and Co. are pursuing a real conspiracy, but what the prevalence of conpiracist thinking does is make it seem as though there are only two forces at work, and only one explanation. That’s when you wind up calling friends “concern trolls” and “GOP operatives” rather than considering the possibility that there might be some partial or inconvenient truths that even well-intentioned folks don’t want to acknowledge.

The world is far more complex than conspiracists want to believe. Maybe next time there’s a temptation to see what you expect to see, this incident will serve as a caution.

Finally, for the next time, here’s a link to a recent article about new technologies for detecting photo manipulation:

here.

Let’s all read more carefully out there.
—————————————————————-
P.S. Regarding the Chattanooga Times Free Press, a tiny bit of ordinary research — even a phone call to any progressive activist in Chattanooga — would have turned up the fact that this paper’s current problem isn’t that its website is hosted by Coptix, a recent and extremely minor development. The TFP’s problem is that its publisher and editor is Tom Griscom, who was once Ronald Reagan’s communications director and is now known for spiking any story unfavorable to Chattanooga’s business development prospects, writing the most amazingly clueless heds in the business, and failing to back up reporters who ask tough questions. The paper also shows its roots as the mutant product of a forced merger between an Ochs-owned paper, the Chattanooga Times, and an outright segregationist paper, the Free Press. And it’s now owned by Wheco, a small Arkansas chain that has perfected the art of sitting on important political stories that might hurt local business interests. The primary linkage to the right is longterm class interest, not conscious partisan intent.

It—the Porker/Rove picture—was pure distraction from the core story. It had to be investigated by *somebody* and we were (in large part) the ones who did it.

As I posted in another comment, no one at CorrenteWire has anything to be ashamed of. You provided a forum for what some would call a blogswarm or cooperative investigation.

You drew the initial fire, and you ain’t dead yet.

And that’s enough to know that you are on the right track in chasing down the connections between Coptix, Smartech, Cogentco, Performance Systems International, Govtech Solutions, New Media Communications, Technomania, DCI, Connell-Donatelli, Campaign Solutions, and the whole IT backbone of the VRWC.

Focus on that. Shine a bright, bright light on that. And count at least one more person out there who will have your back.

1. Xan can’t be expected to take personal responsibility for a mistake I made. See here if you’re concerned about fault.

2. I’m not sure how a series of anonymous, mysterious poems are to be distinquished from the kind of routine taunting we get from the Cheetohs-eaters on this blog every hour of every day. Let’s assume that you’d posted the following on March 30, when it might have made a difference, instead of the “Maybe” poems. I’ll take the words right out of your comment today:

I have worked in publishing for 35 years, much of that time as an investigative reporter and editor. I have a wall full of awards for coverage of the far right and government corruption, as well as media criticism. I have a long, well-documented history as a community and anti-war organizer, and a couple of awards for that, as well. Here’s a link to a recent article about new technologies for detecting photo manipulation.

Now that would have been a warning, and maybe in time to stop the issue from metastatizing. Even if you had identified yourself as “Angela Motorman,” that might have made a difference. Were you thinking that posting anonymously would somehow have made your message more credible?

Caveat to what follows: The responsibilty for the errors is mine alone.

Now: To your remark that “maybe it’s time to burn the old school down,” we of the old school spend endless hours doing real work that our famously free press has conspicuously failed to do for many years—and from where I sit, you, with your 35 years of experience and many awards, have failed just as conspicuously as many of your colleagues.

Look at the record: Seeing that your first “Maybe” poem didn’t get the response you wanted, on what you yourself admit is a “very important issue,” what do you do?

You write a second “Maybe” poem. And then, when that doesn’t work, a third. WTF? In my book, that’s “doing the same thing and expecting a different result.” Eh?

As to conspiracist thinking: As you are, I am sure, well aware from your many years of investigative journalism, the Republican party is excellent at disinformation campaigns. The careful reading that you so eloquently advocate will reveal the frequent use of the word “Rovian” (Rove-style). At no point did I, at least, imply that Rove picked up the phone and told RNC-vendor Coptix “do this.”

I forgot to mention the irony of three sites being involved in faking photos to disprove the idea of conspiracy theories. Too much.

P.S. I don’t know what your “P.S.” has to do with anything. At no time did we imply that the FP was part of the disinformation ploy. Although the article, the Op-Ed by one of the fakers, the editorial cartoon, and the rapid transmission to Malkin’s site are… interesting.

P.S.S. I turned your long URLs into HTML.

[Thought that Angela had an account. No, she simply had a recognizable name.]

No authoritarians were tortured in the writing of this post.

That was amusing, Angela.

“I came here looking for posts about gwb43.com because I believe this is an extremely important issue not getting sufficient attention in the press.”

So instead of clarifying Coptix relationship to gwb43.com, or saying it was a fake photo, or even putting an end to it at midnight on the 1st… you did what again?

“this sideshow could have sunk the entire issue, and will still have longterm negative consequences”

Passive-aggressive much? It seems like you were the only non-prankster who knew better. Why not step in and lead by example. Share your journalistic wisdom. Add your political perspective and distinctive writing voice to the gwb43.com story. It certainly seems that you being in Chattanooga and knowing some of the key players means you should be helping out with this story, contacting Waxman with details, getting more attention to this story in the press.

But, hey, haikus and Buddhist monk sayings *could* help.

(For the record, this isn’t dkos or Wonkette or some moonbat collective, but rather a small handful of concerned citizens trying to discover the truth. You may find it funny that I was tricked and couldn’t find the truth from a doorknob, and no one is more upset about that than me. You would be amazed at how massive the web of corrupt conservative nutjobs is, and to those of us who have been doing it for awhile, a picture of Rove doing something naughty (even with lizards) is more credible than a picture of Rove NOT being pictured with any lizards)

“Now, seeing the way Correntewire bloggers are still working overtime to convince yourselves that you didn’t do anything wrong, that the “prank” was too complicated to be only a prank, and that all the anonymous quotes are not only from one person but also are all from one GOP troll, I’ve decided that I don’t need friends like you.”

Whatever, drama queen. What is Correntewire supposed to have done ’wrong’? Be tricked by some people (say, the Gidcums) with very dubious motives? Given your wounded and defensive tone, I’d say that you are chummy with some of the principals in this incident, and want to defend them from criticism for a very sleazy and not easily explained prank. That’s childish and sad.

“Activists who know me in Chattanooga (and many other cities) and my colleagues in journalism will recognize me from this post by my long-term concerns about critical thinking, my political perspective, and my distinctive writing voice. What you need to hear can come from any “anonymous”, if only you will open your minds and listen.”

In such a manner that it comes too late and too opaquely, then followed up by vituperation and further that local activism is really the only way to go, and screw you bloggers? Seems like you’re working way to hard to polish your bonafides and talk up your cred here to be much more than a concern troll, and a pretty thin-skinned one at that.

I didn’t answer this point from Angela:

This could not have happened if you or any of the individuals who bought into it were familiar with live humans in grassroots leadership positions in Chattanooga, any one of whom could have told you this thing had gone down the rabbit hole several steps back.

I agree in theory, and think that this would be great.

In practice, and for the forseeable future, we’re going to be relying on Internet communication a lot.

In particular, we rely on people of good will helping out in the comments sections. That’s why we have comment sections, and are willing to put up with the spam, and the trolls, and the Cheetohs-eaters, unlike, say sluttish* Michelle Malkin over at Pantloads media, who is blissfully comment-free, and very well paid for it, thanks very much.

And so, in this particular episode, the one non-Coptix commenter who claims to have local knowledge, who claims to understand that the issue is “very important,” who claims to be “on our side,” who claims great expertise in investigative journalism, calls her “unimpeachable” [Oh?] friend at Coptix, gets the story and does what:

Writes one, two, three Zen-like poems.

As “anonymous.”

When she [I assume “she”] knows that we know and respect her writing, under another name.

Fuck.

I stand in awe.

That’s real courage.

Shit, I’d rather be wrong the way that I was, than be like that.

If comments had departments, this one would be under The Department of All The Damn Gall. And then the lecture: “The sort of thing that just happened here is also an inevitable product of blah blah blah.” Not this this case. Not at all.

* Did I call Michelle Malkin a slut? I’m sorry. I meant to say “pouty-lipped, sluttish, concentration-camp advocate” Michelle Malkin. Sorry. Hey, where’s your sense of humor?

No authoritarians were tortured in the writing of this post.

I reread this post, and I agree—not only did you deke Jeffrey, you deked Anonymous, the artist formerly known as Angela “Please Don’t Call Me A Concern Troll” Motorman, as well.

You had Corrente’s back. Have a Seething Webb, on the house—tell Geoffroi, the bartender, that the guy under the stairs sent you. He’s new.

No authoritarians were tortured in the writing of this post.

This was the best punk’ing I saw was “Your comments about our portfolio were especially stinging to me”. It was a small consolation.

Before choosing a feast day, Angela, you should consider applying some “critical thought” to your own actions. You had an option about what to do with that 35 years of publishing experience: teach some real people how to focus their energies, as they seek — perhaps for the first time — to participate in self-governance; or post a few vague warnings to satisfy your conscience, watch as those real people are humiliated, and then come back to say “I told you so.”

You are NOT here to “burn down…old school” blogging, but to hold yourself up as an “old school” journalist and engage in self-adoration. Put aside the hauteur for a moment and ask yourself why it is you prefer letting someone trip over an obstacle and then berating them for it, as opposed to alerting them and teaching that person to avoid it.

Because that was the choice you made.

Critical thought is not innate; it is a skill that one acquires. And in this country, billions of dollars are spent each year to discourage critical thought so that consumers will rack up debt to buy inferior products they don’t really need. The average person has little hope of competing with the science of marketing, which is effectively psychology without a canon of ethics.

So I find it compelling that you wrote:

“I have worked in publishing for 35 years, much of that time as an investigative reporter and editor. I have a wall full of awards for coverage of the far right and government corruption, as well as media criticism. I have a long, well-documented history as a community and anti-war organizer, and a couple of awards for that, as well.

when you could have opted for the simple elegance of:

“I have worked in publishing for 35 years, much of that time as an investigative reporter and editor covering far right and government corruption, as well as media criticism. I also have a long, well-documented history as a community and anti-war organizer.

My critical analysis is that hubris gave you up. Many so-called journalists are attracted as much by “celebrity” as any real sense of obligation to maintaining an informed electorate. And those who seek celebrity need excessive approbation — they just can’t resist the compulsion to display their awards.

Many members of the mainstream media — pardon the alliteration — are threatened by the idea that maybe they aren’t so “special.” It really bothers them to think that with enough training and practice, almost anyone could do their job, and that they could lose their celebrity, lose that thrill of being ushered past the velvet rope in public.

All these “old school” journalists still refuse to acknowledge they failed the American people. DC beat reporters still refuse to admit that by becoming so completely dependent on anonymous and “unimpeachable sources,” it was laziness and arrogance that made them so easy to manipulate.

So do me a favor, Angela: don’t come here to stroke your ego under the false pretense of rescuing the Coptix story from bloggers, and teaching the little people a valuable lesson about critical thought. Your pedantry accomplishes nothing but tainting hours of hard work with shame, simply because you had the luxury of sitting on your ass and calling a friend who works at Coptix. The effort here may have been misdirected but at least it was honest, which is more than you can claim.

“Everyone can benefit from spending more time learning about how to think critically.”

Indeed. Is there any better way to increase your knowledge about a subject than by teaching it? But this was no lesson; it was petty, punitive, and self-congratulatory. And “rewards and punishments are the lowest form of education.”

After all, it was E.M. Forster who said:

If I had to choose between betraying my country and betraying my friend, I hope I should have the guts to betray my country.

So that was Forster’s moral choice, and Angela’s.

Too bad.

Because I do have some sympathy for people in a smaller city, who may know each other, work on projects together, and don’t have a lot to do with “politics.” The way things used to be…. For people held captive by that picture, see Orcinus—now there is a real journalist—in his post, the political and the personal:

I remember rather vividly, like the day JFK was shot, where I was and what I was doing, the evening [Bush v. Gore] came down. I was in a small harbor town in western Washington, staying with the parents of some close friends (who are themselves good friends) while I covered a manslaughter trial in a nearby town. He is an accountant, she a homemaker, good moderate churchgoing Democrats. We all sat together and watched the bulletins come over the newscasts (I think we were tuned to MSNBC).

And I remember she turned to me and said: “I feel sad. Because I can’t vote a mixed ticket anymore.” He nodded.

So did I. I knew exactly what she meant.

Angela essentially voted a split ticket on this thread. Unfortunately for all of us in this case, her choice had consequences..

No authoritarians were tortured in the writing of this post.