Talk:MD4Bush Incident

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[edit] Article Should Address Both Controversies

I have made substantial edits to this (rather obscure) article, because there two controversies surrounding this incident:

1. Steffen's appearing to claim credit for false rumors about O'Malley, or at least an admitting that he knew they had been deliberately engineered and spread.

2. O'Doherty's entrapment (in common, not legal parlance) of Steffen in registering the MD4Bush account and prodding Steffen to claim credit for the rumors, and whether the Post's actions constituted collusion with that entrapment.

The prior version of the article was POV because it addressed only the second controversy, without including the comments which got Steffen in trouble. Indeed, it left the impression that he had done nothing blameworthy and had been fired by the Governor merely for telling MD4Bush to stay away from O'Malley's personal life, which is inaccurate. I've tried to include both issues.

A possible third controversy is whether the Post violated the privacy of Free Republic posters by accessing the account, which I've mentioned.

I also changed the characterization of the incident from one involving Steffen and O'Malley to involving Steffen and O'Doherty. O'Malley was the subject of the rumors, but AFAIK his actions aren't disputed.

One issue which I can't figure out -- some articles clearly say O'Doherty was tied to the postings because he used his mddems.org email address to sign up for the account. The Freep post says this is wrong, but then say he used an account "from the mddems.org web domain." I don't know what this means -- maybe an IP address allocated to that network? Either way, it seems undisputed that O'Doherty was MD4Bush. Touchstone 21:04, 4 May 2006 (UTC)