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Kos Smears Maine Blogger, Gets Pwned

by Patrick Ruffini :: August 18th, 2007 1:07 am

One of the strangest episodes in the week that was involved Markos Moulitsas and his jihad against Lance Dutson, editor of the Maine Web Report and director of Internet operations for Senator Susan Collins’ re-election campaign.

It all began when Kos tried to tar Dutson, and by association, Collins, with an angry little comment left on the former’s blog:

Arthur Frain, Portland ME
Aug 14th, 2007 at 7:58 pm
You know what this country needs? Another terrorist attack. Take out SF or some other city full of dirty libs, and then the country will rally behind the GOP for protection.

Yeah, this makes a lot of sense… because every conservative I know talks like this! Smelling a rat, Dutson went and looked at his logs and found that “Arthur Frain” was actually a lefty sockpuppet troll, using the same IP address as the person who left this comment:

Name: Jason in Maine | E-mail: noone@nowhere.com | IP: 74.75.145.243
Wow, Collins must be getting desperate if she’s allying herself with such wackjob extremists and serial liars as Michelle Malkin and Bill O’Reilley.

Allen’s campaign hasnt even started yet, and she’s already this desperate!!

Too bad for Collins that Mainers have noticed her lockstep support for George W Bush. Not only does she support his failed policies, she oversees them via her role in DHS and its huge failures.

Silly stunts like this aren’t going to fool anyone, and they aren’t going to slow down Allen’s campaign. If anything, it will give it a boost.

Posted Jul 20, 1:02 PM | Edit Comment | Delete Comment | Edit Post “JetBlue dumps sponsorship of Tom Allen fundraiser blog” | View Post

As NewsBusters’ Matthew Sheffield points out,

In other words, Moulitsas is blaming Collins for a comment on a site she doesn’t own written by a person who is a left-wing Democrat.

This is laughable. I’d demand Kos issue Dutson an apology, if the underlying charge weren’t so transparently ridiculous, and Kos’ face wasn’t already caked in egg.

Not content to make a fool of himself once this week, Kos dug himself into an even bigger hole. Overrun by hateful, frothing at the mouth trolls, and egged on by Kos, FDL, and others, Dutson took the not unreasonable step of moderating comments on his personal blog. To which Kos responded with a post titled:

ME-Sen: Collins (R) limits access to her blog

Who gets to break the news to him that the Maine Web Report is not part of Susan Collins’ campaign?

As for the underlying issue, I’m not a fan of these guilt-by-association attacks. Candidates generally do enough stupid things that there’s no need to bring independent supporters into the mix. That applies on the right as well as the left. I think it’s lame when the right (or Harold Ford) tries to tar Kos with comments left on his blog. Why? Because Mr. Screw Them himself gives us so much material work with that bringing up third hand crap left on his site dilutes the power of the attack. And anyone with half a brain knows that a single commenter doesn’t reflect the opinion of the poster.

If Dutson is the only person around Collins that Kos can attack — and it backfires so badly when he does it — then Collins must be doing something right.

Tagged: kos lance dutson me sen netroots susan collins

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