MD4Bush Incident
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The MD4Bush Incident refers to a Maryland political controversy involving Joseph Steffen, a former aide to the Republican Governor of Maryland Robert Ehrlich, and Maryland Democratic Party official Ryan O'Doherty. In October 2004, O'Doherty created an account named "MD4Bush" on the conservative web forum Free Republic to investigate the source of false rumors that Democratic Mayor of Baltimore Martin O'Malley had committed adultery. O'Malley was a likely (and eventual) opponent of Ehrlich in the 2006 gubernatorial race. Using this alias, O'Doherty contacted Steffen, brought up the rumors, and coaxed Steffen for information. O'Doherty was later linked to the MD4Bush account because he used his Maryland Democratic Party e-mail address to register for it.
Unaware that he was corresponding with a Democratic Party official, Steffen's responses appeared to take credit for spreading these rumors. Steffen wrote, "...lot of what everyone knows about MO'M is because of work that has occurred. It's been a wild ride," and "A few folks put in a lot of effort to ensure the MO'M story got some real float." When O'Doherty asked for advice on spreading the rumors further, ostensibly seeking to further entrap Steffen, he refused. Steffen wrote that he would not "offer suggestions that may be considered unethical concerning what you should do, campaign-wise. This is especially true concerning MO'M's personal life." [1]
Ehrlich fired Steffen when the contents of these messages were published in the Washington Post on February 9, 2005. The Post has since confirmed that O'Doherty gave reporter Matthew Mosk access to the MD4Bush account to verify the exchanges prior to publishing the story, though the paper claims to have been unaware of O'Doherty's identity. Some Republicans and Freepers have charged that Mosk's access of the MD4Bush account constitutes complicity to O'Doherty's alleged entrapment of Steffen, and a violation of the privacy of Free Republic users. [2]
The MD4Bush incident later became conflated with another controversy regarding Steffen's testimony that, before his dismissal, Ehrlich had instructed him to prepare a "hit list" of state employees who would be fired to make room for Ehrlich's political allies. [3]
[edit] Timeline
October 2004: An anonymous user going by the name "MD4Bush" registered for the Free Republic internet messageboard and began posting rumors about O'Malley. MD4Bush's first post on October 8th stated "Yeah, he cheats on his wife. I heard he is not allowed in the house and is living in some new high-rise near City Hall."[4]
October 15, 2004: MD4Bush made the first of several posts containing rumors about O'Malley directed at "NCPAC", the username of Ehrlich aide Joe Steffen. [5] The two began exchanging private messages to each other via Free Republic's internal webmail system. MD4Bush and NCPAC discussed potential dirt on O'Malley in conversations where MD4Bush "fueled the rumor." Steffen wrote, "A lot of what everyone knows about [O'Malley] is because of work that has occurred. It's been a wild ride." However, Steffen refused to provide advice on how to further spread this rumor, and, in fact, told MD4Bush "to stay away from the mayor's personal life." A complete reading of all Steffen's Free Republic postings shows he never once mentioned the contents of the rumor itself. [6]
October 27, 2004: MD4Bush attempted to draw NCPAC/Steffen into a conversation about Maryland's Democratic Senator Barbara Mikulski. [7] In this post MD4Bush circulated a rumor that Mikulski was a "lezbo." Steffen did not respond.
February 8, 2005: MD4Bush returned to the Free Republic site and published the contents of his webmail exchanges with Steffen onto the public section of the site [8][9] and alerted the Washington Post to their contents and NCPAC's identity as Steffen. A front page story by reporter Matthew Mosk appeared in the Post the next day announcing Steffen's resignation for spreading rumors about O'Malley on the Free Republic site.[10]
November, 2005: an investigation into the incident revealed that MD4Bush was posting using an email account connected to the Democratic Party of Maryland. Republicans responded by stating that the incident was a set-up by Democrats to embarrass Ehrlich. Some Republicans have also charged that the Washington Post was complicit in the incident, noting that the paper's reporters were given access passwords to the Free Republic site by MD4Bush to verify Steffen's webmail exchanges.[11][12].
December, 2005: officials with FreeRepublic.com turned over the email addresses used by MD4Bush to access the site. One of three addresses was linked to Ryan O'Doherty, the Communications Director for the Maryland Democratic Party in 2004.
[edit] References
- Uproar Brings Focus on Role Of Bloggers [13]
- Timeline Revealed For MD4BUSH, O'Malley Rumors [14]
- Ehrlich Firing Probe Advances - Parties Wrangle Over Whether to Investigate Internet Chat [15]
- Site condemns Post's log-on [16]
- Democrat's e-mail address tied to postings [17]
- Did the Washington Post Violate the Electronic Communications Privacy Act? (MD4Bush) [18]
