House Aide Resigns Over Fake Blog Posts

[RamboLiberal]

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/news/archive/2006/09/26/politics/p104022D05.DTL

A top aide to U.S. Rep. Charles Bass resigned Tuesday after disclosures that he posed as a supporter of the Republican's opponent in blog messages intended to convince people that the race was not competitive.

Operators of two liberal blogs traced the postings to the House of Representatives' computer server. Bass' office traced the messages to his policy director, Tad Furtado, and issued a statement announcing Furtado's resignation Tuesday.

"Tad Furtado posted to political Web sites from my office without my knowledge or authorization and in violation of my office policy," said Bass, who apologized to the bloggers and said he referred the matter to the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct.

Posting as IndyNH and IndieNH, Furtado professed support for Democrat Paul Hodes but scoffed at a poll showing him tied with Bass and suggested Democrats should invest their time and money elsewhere.

[Anakin Skywalker]

1. Shame Shame!

[Roy]

2. It's great that he resigned....

Probably "RESIGNED" to a cabinet level position

[MadMaddie]

11. He will get promoted to another position...

the price of failure in the Repug Administration......Promotion!!!

[acmejack]

3. He posted to his opponents websites

"Without my knowledge or authorization and in violation of my office policy". Sure he did... Anyone in the market for a fine old barely used bridge?

[Journeyman]

4. Think this might explain the "antisemitism" and the like. . .

that some on the right have complained about recently as being on the Liberal blogs? As has been pointed out before, blogs don't have control over commentators who post (beyond deleting offensive posts and attempting to ban repeat offenders), but how little control indeed do they have when those intent on negative disruption come to the boards under false premises?

[Lerkfish]

5. possibly, however, there were many of us regulars accused of that

by other regulars for expressing outrage at the invasion of lebanon.

sometimes a cigar is just a cigar

[MGD]

13. sometimes a cigar is just a cigar

And sometimes it's a big brown dick.

[Cozumel]

17. Thank you Carlin...

...hanging out of some white upperclass businessman's mouth. a big brown dick indeed.

[Der Blaue Engel]

6. How many of Furtado's friends do you suppose we have right here on DU?

Take notice, fuckers. You're not as subtle or clever as you think.

[Gman]

20. Lots of people around these days with 500 or so posts, no star

and swimming upstream with their comments.

[badgervan]

23. Whoa

Are you trying to tell me that my comments are somehow less valid than someone else's on this site with 1000+? Then DU is no better than those right wing sites that over-control, or just plain ban, comments that they don't agree with, or want seen. That's no better than bush speaking to hand picked audiences and only taking approved questions.
We're losing enough of our freedoms under this crew - I do not want free speech to end up down the crapper too. Genuine free speech, genuine democracy, is just what it says it is: free and open. Once you introduce constraints, no matter how well intentioned, you're on that slippery slope. It's been happening bit by bit for the past 6 years under the Decider and his brain, mr. rove.
Not good, folks.

[sendero]

7. Trust me on this..

... this crap is happening all over the net, even on this board.

[BleedingHeartPatriot]

9. It's always happening on this board. The only problem for them is the

difficulty of administering psy-ops on us DU'ers.

We can smell B.S. a mile away and revel in tearing up facile statements that purport to represent the liberal point of view.

My favorite post threads are when they're called out to back up their arguments with objective facts and clarifications of their positions.

I'm guessing psy-ops would be lots easier at freeperland. MKJ

[Divine Discontent]

16. then why not do something like this.

Of course we have the link to say that a post is possibly objectionable and should be removed, but why not go a little further, and allow DU posters with over 1000 posts and a star to click a little icon on a poster's name that says "watch for submitted content" to mods, so mods can see if they're getting numerous different "watch for submitted content" warnings on varying subjects from a possible shill?

Of course there are issues all of us will be on the non-popular side on DU, we're not ROBOTS for goodness sakes, but like for me, I'm a firm supporter of my Christian belief, and even if someone clicked the warning for me, they could then see that I'm not against the general liberal mindset on the majority of issues that a true Democrat would be for. I don't know, maybe that's going too far?

I just know that I've had shill accounts over at FR to push information that they won't even touch, but I hope that just one of them will read the truth about a subject and realize they're being fed lies on fox, but it never works, I got banned twice. Apparently, relaying factual evidence that's not sugar coated with a Democratic comment is still too much for them to handle! lol...


www.cafepress.com/warisprofitable <<-- antibush prodem stickers/shirts

[Hosnon]

18. One conservative board I'm a member of allows members to pass out

"reputation" points. Newbies cannot give or take because a member must reach a certain level of repute before s/he can give or take reputation points.

That way, if a few highly reputable members spot something fishy, they can quickly let the whole board know that member is suspect.

[Divine Discontent]

21. interesting! ty n/t

[sendero]

22. I don't mind..

.... too much when a private unpaid citizen plays net games. But when you are on the payroll, playing sockpuppet is unethical at best, possibly immoral.

I occasionally go on a dissing lame-ass congressional Democrats rants. I'm a solid liberal, but I get frustrated at the Dem's inability to come out swinging sometimes.

It's tough to spot the folks who are not saying what they really mean/think. But you have to be on the lookout for them, because they are out there. The internet is the modern-day public square. Unfortunately, you can put on an act a lot easier on the net than in real life.

[Redneck Socialist]

8. LOL! What a tool. n/t

[Monkeyman]

10. They never learn they get caught in today's world

[ChairmanAgnostic]

12. Monk, that was too long. "They never learn" works better.

[alcibiades_mystery]

14. Let me be the first to add

[AlCzervik]

15. i wonder if he had anything to do with or any knowledge of the nh phone

jamming scandal?

[Gman]

19. He may have resigned but

he damn sure isn't out of a job. He probably already knows which RW nut or organization he's going to work for and will probably get a raise to boot