Lee Siegel of TNR Canned For Sock-Puppetry; A Politician Cops To It, Too

In a bit of blogosphere scandal kismet, the Nate Noy, an independent write-in Congressional candidate (i.e., a fruitcake with no shot), got caught sock-puppeting in a post trashing his allegations that an opponent of his had been photoshopped into a newspaper picture showing her finishing a marathon. Making a false fauxtography claim, he got busted sock-puppetting. When worlds collide.

At least he admitted his sock-puppetry.

Lee Siegel, on the other hand, seems to have gone the Glenn Greenwald route. Confronted with evidence the sock-puppet posts originated from his IP address, he seems to have invoked the defense that he wasn't truly the author.

After an investigation, The New Republic has determined that the comments in our Talkback section defending Lee Siegel's articles and blog under the username "sprezzatura" were produced with Siegel's participation.

That sounds to me like Siegel made the Glenn Greenwald Magic Cabana Boy defense. Unable to prove that Siegel himself and not his own Magic Cabana Boy wrote the posts, TNR concluded, it seems, that at the very least the sock-puppet posts were done with Siegel's participation.

You'd think he'd've learned from Hiltzik and Glenn Ellison Wilson Ellensberg Ellers Greenwald. That bullshit just doesn't work. Except, of course, with Greenwald's Cultists, who are apparently prepared to believe just about anything as long as there's a "Bush Sucks" in there somewhere along the way. (And of course there always is.)

Here's a P-shop about Glenn Greenwald I missed the first time around.

I think there's a sickness of the ego in cases like this. To put oneself out into public discussion, one needs to have a pretty big ego in the first place. But it has to be the sort of ego that can accept a bit of bruising here and there without going all goofy. It seems strange that one could inject oneself into public debate and yet have the craving to post defenses of oneself under a different name intended to create the notion of wider-spread support.

The most egoistical people are also usually the most insecure. I'm pretty sure that's the case with me, or at least it was, until some bruising years knocked my ego down to size. (Now I'm just insecure.)

Thanks to Dan Riehl, who's pitching his own high-concept political project to the BBC.

(And that last tip, btw, is thanks to Larwyn.)

posted by Ace at 10:10 PM

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