Factoids

Posted at 1:12 PM on April 11, 2006 by Bob Collins (1 Comments)

Looks like a pretty slow day today, so far. A couple of things have floated by starship politics.

Backbone MN has a post that it says came from a blog called NW Minnesota that explains the Molligator situation. But there's no link to the original blog so here's one to the repeating blog. Bottom line? The person behind the short-lived blog, Molligator, who wrote some posts critical of gubernatorial candidate Becky Lourey, was a paid employee of the Steve Kelley campaign.

She insists the campaign and the candidate didn't know anything about it. The candidate part may be true but when you're a paid member of the campaign, the campaign does know something about it.

Now, let's not mince words, here. In the old days, we called these "dirty tricks," and they reflect poorly on the offending campaign, regardless of whether the candidate knew about it or not.

That's why I asked the three questions a few weeks ago that caused such an uproar among, oddly enough, mostly Republican bloggers who thought it was aimed at them. Surprise, eh fellas? Perhaps they know something I don't. But a dirty trick is a dirty trick regardless of party and unless one advocates the use of dirty tricks in campaigns, three simple questions should cause no angst.

The offending party calls for an end to the controversy and maybe that's enough to make it go away.

Can and will more of this happen in the future? Yes. What will prevent it? People in the blogging community who think it shouldn't. While some bloggers were lambasting me for raising the possibility it could, others were rooting this particular incident out. Good job by them.

* * *

Johnsongate update.

The Office of Lawyers Professional Responsibility today rejected Greg Wersal's call for an investigation in the Supreme Court justices and any communication they may have had with Sen. Dean Johnson. According to the AP..

Betty Shaw, acting director of the Professional Responsibility office, wrote to Wersal that there wasn't grounds to investigate Blatz since it was unclear if the comments - if they were made at all - happened before or after (Kathleen) Blatz left the court.

Wersal says he may appeal.

* * * *

Press release file: Jerome Armstrong and Markos Moulitsas Zuniga will be speaking and signing copies of their new book, Crashing the Gate: Netroots, Grassroots, and the Rise of People-Powered Politics, on Tuesday, May 2nd at noon at Arise Bookstore. Markos is the founder and editor of The Daily Kos (www.dailykos.com), the largest progressive blog in the country, with about 5 million unique visits each week. Wired magazine recently called it, " the most popular political blog anywhere on the political spectrum."

2441 Lyndale Ave S., Minneapolis, MN 55405.

Comments (1)

Markos and Jerome will also be signing books later that evening from 6-8 at the 331 Club, in conjuction with Drinking Liberally, for those who can't make it out during the day.

Posted by rew | April 11, 2006 3:24 PM

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