Back in April Patterico caught Michael Hiltzik using sock puppets to defend himself. He's back with a post implying that Glenn Greenwald has sock puppets called Ellison, Sam Mathews, Wilson, Ryan and Thomas Ellers who all post from the same IP address and defend Greenwald. Patterico believes that this will bring "this douchebag down". Not so fast.
Greenwald has responded by stating that he only posts under his own name and implying that his partner had left the comments defending him. This seems likely to be true, since the writing style of Ellison and co is different from Greenwald's and Greenwald is forthright in defending himself with comments under his own name.
Greenwald's partner's use of multiple pseudonyms does not seem to be sock puppetry either. It would only be sock puppetry if Ellison, say, backed up Sam Mathews, but each pseudonym seems to have been used on a different blog.
Update:Patterico offers more evidence :
Greenwald (and nobody else) used one IP address to make five comments on my site on July 13. He (and nobody else) used the same one to make 2 comments on Villainous Company. "Ryan" used that IP address to post 3 comments at Riehl World View. And "Ellison" posted a comment using that IP address at Ace's. And "Thomas Ellers" posted numerous comments using that IP address at Q&O.
Greenwald (and nobody else) used a second IP address to post 3 comments on my site on July 12. He used the same IP address to post as himself at Confederate Yankee. And that same IP address was used by "Wilson" at Jeff Goldstein's site.
Greenwald's defense makes things interesting. But there are at least two separate IP addresses that were shared by him and his sycophants. That makes it trickier for him to explain.
This isn't even slightly hard to explain. Ryan, Ellison and Ellers posted on July 13 or later. Wilson posted on July 12. The two IP addresses are dynamic ones from the same ISP in Rio. All that happened was that the IP address for Greenwald's household changed on July 13, as sometimes happens with dynamic IP addresses.
Greenwald's partner defended him using several different pseudonyms (not sock puppets). This is not going bring Greenwald down, no matter how much Patterico wishes.
More Update Patterico has a long post where he tries to make up for the weakness of his argument by including lots of pictures of sockpuppets. Needless to say, despite being well aware of them, Patterico avoids mentioning Greenwald's partner's posts as Ellison and Wilson supporting Greenwald on Greenwald's blog. Tellingly, he does mention that Ellers didn't comment at Greenwald's:
It's the weirdest thing; Ellers has an amazing familiarity with Greenwald's blog and with David S.'s history as a commenter . . . yet if Ellers ever commented on Greenwald's blog, I can't find any evidence of it. I assume that if any of his defenders can, they'll let me know.
So the best case scenario is that his partner rushes to various blog sites in order to 'take up' for Greenwald and uses pseudonyms in order to try to cover up the fact that many of the comments are identical and parrot what Greenwald says.
Duly noted.
I hate it when my wife does that for me.
Oh, and I forgot that it explains that his partner pretended not to know Greenwald and posted that he e-mailed Greenwald in order to get the information that his partner had already been posted in various sites while using another name.
THAT'S part of the 'best case' scenario.
Not that it's a big story or that there's anything unethical on the part of Greenwald, but to say that there's not a good bit of this that's smelly (and, a mixture of funny and sad) would be disengenuous).
It is possible for multiple computers to show up with the same IP address. This would happen in the case of a firewall with Native Address Translation (NAT). It's also possible for multiple people to share one computer.
It is possible to post under multiple identities without using them as sock puppets. I may or may not do this myself for reasons I do not wish to discuss.
It's also amusing and instructive to note the subject of the Greenwald post that led Patterico to level these accusations -- Greenwald quoted and called attention to death wishes against US Supreme Court Justices posted and cross-linked by Patterico and his friends.
The 'sock puppetry' accusations, in addition to apparently being baseless, appear in place of any response addressing the substance of Greenwald's claims, along with numerous posts calling Greenwald 'a douche' and 'gay'.
Now that's investigative journalism at its finest!
Feh, I use different nyms on different blogs. My SO wouldn't recognize any of them. Our IPs would be exactly the same, as we are behind a NAT.
Oh, hell, we could be flaming each other and never know it.....
Graculus :
Did you pick your stuff off the floor yet?
The "partner" explanation works only if you accept Greenwald's denial as credible. Given his serial mendacity in other areas, I see no particular reason to extend to him the benefit of the doubt.
However, even accepting the denial for the sake of argument, how does the "partner" explanation reflect particularly well on him? It means that he's shacked up with a psycho who's stalking his blog-critics under multiple pseudonyms, and that Greenwald's too much of a dope to realize it despite the facts that (a) Greenwald was provably, contemporaneously, reading and/or commenting in the very same blog comment sections, and (b) that at least one of the psycho's posts quoted directly from emails sent to him by Greenwald.
Either he's a liar or he's a fool. Pick one.
Just a quick note to mention that BC is pretty typical of the quality of the "critiques" of Greenwald: accusations without evidence and name calling.
As for the psycho comment, wow, imagine, someone upset enough at people who called their SO a douchebag and a liar to react angrily to those people. BC is right -- that is just so foreign to history of human relations as to be amazing in its unprecedented-ness.
Umm, you don't think Brazilians can spell??
Yes, it could be his partner but my hunch is that it's not, on the grounds that Glenn would have said so. I admit that I can't prove that.
Golly, kevin, I wasn't aware that I needed to list Greenwald's prevarications in excruciating detail in order to note that we have only his word to go on, and so the Greenwald Is Lying Out His Ass Theory is at least as plausible as the Magic Boyfriend Theory (and possibly moreso, if you have reason to believe that Greenwald is something less than a poster child for honesty and integrity).
As far as my description of the boyfriend in question as a "psycho", I stand by that. Being upset or angry on a significant other's behalf is one thing; stalking one's significant other's critics under multiple pseudonyms is another.
So, er, what would you call Dan Riehl? A superultraplussocionutcasepsycho?
I'd call Dan Riehl a tool, but YMMV.
Fair enough BC!
>... to note that we have only his word to go on, and so the Greenwald Is Lying Out His Ass Theory is at least as plausible as the Magic Boyfriend Theory (and possibly moreso, if you have reason to believe that Greenwald is something less than a poster child for honesty and integrity).
1) When accusing someone of lying the burden of proof is on you.
2) You were the one who called Greenwald a serial liar as evidence that he should be assumed to be lying now. So unless you can give some evidence for this, you've exposed yourself as someone throwing pigshit in hopes sojme of it will stick.
Duly noted
In reality, that should be dully noted for the edification it brings us all.
Sadly, Ricky Lee West is all over blogoland hyping this non-story. But, hey, things are always slow in North Jawjaw.
We hate it when Ricky Lee's wife does that, too.
Brazilian's our pour third world types who cannot afford spell Cecher's
Gar Lipow:
(1) This isn't a courtroom or a peer-reviewed scientific journal, *[No personal attacks on other commenters, please. Tim]* Concepts such as "burden of proof" have precisely zero relevance to the conversation.
(2) I said that given Greenwald's past serial dishonesty, I saw no reason to extend him the benefit of the doubt, which is altogether different from saying that he is, in fact, lying now. To put it another way, I don't see how the Greenwald Is Lying Out His Ass Theory can be dismissed out of hand -- as Tim seems to want to do -- purely on the basis of Greenwald's own self-serving denials. If he were an impeccably honest guy in all other respects, sure, I could see accepting his explanation as dispositive. But he's not, so I don't, especially since circumstantial evidence casting doubt on the plausibility of the Magic Boyfriend Theory continues to mount.
(3) I continue to fail to see the need to actually cite chapter and verse on Greenwald's aforementioned credibility problems in order to make that point. It's a fairly well-established fact that Greenwald is frequently guilty of rhetorical overreach bordering on -- if he's smart enough to know better, which he clearly is -- dissembling. Examples abound, from his ongoing efforts to brand Glenn Reynolds as some sort of deranged extremist to his self-evidently ludicrous claim of a few months back that modern conservatives habitually cast out as apostates and relabel as liberals anybody who questions Leader Bush. Greenwald has also, from time to time, peddled flat-out untruths: his recent accusation that Patterico was a defender of Ann Coulter, for example, which, even after it was pointed out to him that he was wrong, he has refused to acknowledge, much less apologize for. Bottom line, the guy's a hack, and it's not particularly controversial to say so except in the tiny minds of his sycophants.
If you want to insist that Greenwald is an impeccably honest guy, and that his critics have some sort of continuing obligation to document his dishonesty in excruciating detail every time they suggest otherwise, then may you continue to enjoy your volcanic technicolor Kool-Aid enema.
BC, coming up with a silly name like "Magic Boyfriend Theory" does not disprove the possibillity that Greenwald's partner made the posts. In what way do you think magic was involved in the posts? Or was this just rhetorical overreach on your part?
I don't dismiss the "Greenwald is lying" purely on the basis of his denials. You have not come up with an example of him lying. At best, you have an example of him making a mistake and not admitting to it. Nor is that the only evidence in favour of the partner theory. The writing style seems to be closer to that used by Greenwald's partner than that used by Greenwald.
High-quality English spelling and grammar isn't possible from a Brazilian? That really is a despicable comment.
Examples abound, from his ongoing efforts to brand Glenn Reynolds as some sort of deranged extremist
Reynolds routinely links approvingly to absurd posts on other blogs or absurd articles (e.g. Tammy Bruce screaming at Tony Blair for not being sufficiently gung-ho; loony fact-free screeds from loony fans of his, et cetera).
He genuinely seems to believe that the MSM and the Democrats (as well as a number of generals in despair over Iraq) want America to fail and be invaded and what-not because they're all traitors. This can fairly be described as an extremist position. Yes, other conservatives do see it as such.
to his self-evidently ludicrous claim of a few months back that modern conservatives habitually cast out as apostates and relabel as liberals anybody who questions Leader Bush.
Well, you could argue over what "habitually" means, but I have heard many conservatives say things like this long before he said it. This is a difference in opinion over what the climate of feeling is; it certainly isn't "mendacity". You admit yourself that rhetorical overreach isn't the same thing as flat-out lying.
Speaking of which: he said in passing that Patters had not condemned Coulter, when in fact he had condemned her on his blog on a number of occasions, several months ago. Okay, so Greenwald sloppily didn't check. The fact remains that Patters had not condemned Misha or Goldstein for some astonishing remarks they have made, and yet expects "The Left" to do so for anyone on their side -- which means he undeniably has double standards.
Greenwald writes thousands of words a day. Are all the lies on the level of this one?
High-quality English spelling and grammar isn't possible from a Brazilian? That really is a despicable comment.
My line of thought was that if he is Brazilian, his first language is probably Portuguese. I was (maybe unjustifiably) hazarding a guess as to what is most likely. I have no idea who he is. For all I know he is actually called Thomas Ellers.
How can Greenwald be a serial liar? BC, do you even read his blog? he makes arguments about Executive power a lot of the time, you either buy his arguments or you don't, I don't see where he "lies."
Tim, "Magic Boyfriend Theory" is shorthand. Remain calm.
If you don't dismiss the "Greenwald Is Lying Out His Ass" theory purely on the basis of his denials, on what basis do you weigh in so conclusively on the side of the Magic Boyfriend Theory? Writing style is pretty thin gruel.
If the partner is really out there filing those posts, wouldn't Greenwald know that the email was sent to him from his partner? Wouldn't he recognize his partners posting patterns? Is it really likely that his partner would post like that and not tell him?
jade:
In the first place, you, like Greenwald, dishonestly mischaracterize Reynolds' position vis-a-vis the left and the MSM. Reynolds has expressly and repeatedly stated that he does not believe the left and the media want the terrorists to win; rather, his position is that the left and the media have had their good judgement corrupted by hatred of Bush, to the point of doing things that have the effect of abetting the nation's enemies not out of desire to aid those enemies, but out of desire to harm Bush politically. I'm aware of Djerejian's critique; it (and Andrew Sullivan's -- I'll save you the trouble of linking) is predicated on approximately the same dishonest caricature of Reynolds' views. If you think Reynolds' actual views -- which are readily discoverable by anyone who reads at approximately a ninth-grade level, a category I can only assume Greenwald, Djerejian, Sullivan, and yourself all fall onto -- are "extremist", then I submit to you the substantively-similar leftist critique of Republican "Clinton-haters" during the 1990s, and the landmark precedent of Comes Around v. Goes Around.
With respect to Greenwald's claims about conservatives' cultish devotion to Bush, James Taranto, among others, demolished them back in February. Greenwald's own links didn't reveal a single example of a conservative relabelling as a liberal -- one of Greenwald's key accusations -- another who deviated from the party line. Far from identifying a culture of groupthink on the right, his "supporting evidence" showed only that conservatives criticize, sometimes vigorously, other conservatives with whom they have substantive disagreements (oh the horror). Greenwald is a smart guy. Presumably he read his own links before making wild claims. Yet he made those claims anyway. You can call it what you want; I call it, at best, a reckless misrepresentation of fact within the definition of the term "mendacity".
Speaking of which, it would be nice if you stopped lying about Patterico, who has most certainly not demanded that the Left condemn each and every one of its idiots. In point of fact he's said he thinks the Condemnation Game is rather pointless and dumb. With respect to Greenwald's accusations about Patterico vis-a-vis Coulter, using the search function on Patterico's blog for the term "Coulter" turned up two pages of posts that are almost uniformly criticism. So Greenwald either ran such a search and knew what he was saying was false, or didn't bother to do ten seconds worth of rudimentary checking and thus knew that he had no idea whether what he was saying was true or false. So we have another misrepresentation of fact, at least reckless if not intentional, within the definition of the term "mendacity".
I'm not sure how big Greenwald's lies have to be before they demonstrate that he's not precisely Captain Integrity, and that we therefore might reasonably look askance at his denials of the allegations of sockpuppetry. Care to provide me with a metric?
If the partner is posing as different people to hide his identity, he would have to fib about e-mailing Glenn as well. FWIW, I have in the past occasionally left comments on friends' blogs, defending them, without identifying myself or telling them what I have done. There isn't anything particularly outlandish about G's version. But who the hell knows (or cares at this stage).
What is "the partner's name"? Has he/she come forward to admit to this and corrobarate Glenwald's claim? Has Glenwald given her name (seems appropriate given the behavior)?
Reynolds has expressly and repeatedly stated that he does not believe the left and the media want the terrorists to win; rather, his position is that the left and the media have had their good judgement corrupted by hatred of Bush, to the point of doing things that have the effect of abetting the nation's enemies not out of desire to aid those enemies, but out of desire to harm Bush politically.
Yes, I'm quite aware of Reynolds' patented, passive-aggressive, focus-group-tested style of weaselling. His words say one thing, his amazing links say another. Link to Hugh Hewitt's huffing, fill your own column with sweet reason. Because the Left has had its judgment so affected by its Bush-hatred that it ended up being right all along.
Greenwald's own links didn't reveal a single example of a conservative relabelling as a liberal -- one of Greenwald's key accusations -- another who deviated from the party line
Taranto is not exactly an oracle. I'm sorry. The Republican Party keeps its more prominent members in line pretty well, but the rank and file and the proud citizens of Blogtopia aren't fooled:
Voinovich is a liberal.
Bob Barr is a liberal.
John McCain is a liberal. And again.
John Sununu is a liberal.
Chuck Hagel is a liberal.
Speaking of which, it would be nice if you stopped lying about Patterico, who has most certainly not demanded that the Left condemn each and every one of its idiots. In point of fact he's said he thinks the Condemnation Game is rather pointless and dumb.
Oh really? Is he going to stop lying about the SadlyNo T-shirts? I suppose the Condemnation Game is so pointless and dumb he can't help but plunge right in repeatedly?
No, TCO, Greenwald seems unaccountably to be too preoccupied with some kind of court case to resolve this burning issue.
BC: So Sullivan and Djerejian are liars but the right doesn't cast out those who disagree with the party line. OK. The trouble with calling a disagreement on a matter of opinion a "lie" is that you making it hard to distinguish that from when someone makes a statement that he knows to be false. A "lie" isn't just something you disagree with, and it isn't just a false statement -- you must believe that statement to be false when you make it. You don't have anything like that from Greenwald. So Greenwald's denial is significant.
So even though there is no magic involved, "Magic Boyfriend" is "shorthand", rather than, say, a lie? Is that correct?
Greenwald's partner posted under pseudonyms, so it would be bad form for me to give out his real name. I doubt that a statement from Greenwald's partner would persuade the Greenwald haters of anything.
I think it's absolutely essential. And it's outrageous to sheild someone that has already been lying like that. (The "email" and all.) Tim, I'm not asking you to produce this person. That is up to GG. But if he is going to come up with this story, he needs to substantiate it. It sure smells shaggy dog...
Let me ask you. Putting aside "possibilities", what's your betting odds that GG did (or approved or knew of) the socking?
TCO, did you read my post? Posting under more than one pseudonym is not the same as sock puppetry. And I don't think it is a crime if [your partner posts a comment on your blog](http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2006/03/why_does_miranda_devine_hate_s…).
Greenwald: Plagiarist or Puppetmaster?
Take your pick:
http://ace.mu.nu/archives/187248.php
Also:
http://ace.mu.nu/archives/187283.php
http://ace.mu.nu/archives/187312.php
Are you kidding me mike? Someone posting from a **different** IP in Brazil makes the exceedingly obvious point that Sullivan agrees with Greenwald. If Greenwald makes the same point it must be plagiarism or sock puppetry? Is this a joke?
But thanks for point ing me to Ace, because he has about ten posts offering various ludicrous arguments that Greenwald used socks. I think some serious mocking is in order.
Maybe your right Lambert.
Maybe it was all just a coincidence.
The poster, who made his point before Greenwald, and who uses nearly identical language and style and just happens to be yet another highly competent English speaker from the same city in Brazil.
Can I get some odds on that, please Lambert?
Mocking is definitely in order. But not of Ace, but rather of people such as yourself who, in spite of a scientific background, refuse to apply Occam's razor to come up with the obvious conclusion.
Greenwald is a liar.
>This isn't a courtroom or a peer-reviewed scientific journal, Concepts such as "burden of proof" have precisely zero relevance to the conversation.
Oh really? If something is in dispute, who has the burden proof is always important, especially if what is in dispute is an accusation against somebody. Of course this only applies to arguments based on reason, rather than ones based on mud flinging.
"Death wishes against US Supreme Court Justices posted and cross-linked by Patterico and his friends."
Surely, "Patterico" Patrick Frey's boss should be made aware of this? I don't know what the code of conduct is for a Deputy District Attorney, but public conduct upholding the rule of law must be somewhere on the list...
I'll give Wikipedia's definition of Sockpuppet rather than Lambert's unique definition:
Sockpuppet (sometimes known also as a mule, or a glove puppet) is an additional account created by an existing member of an Internet community pretending to be a separate person. This is done so as to manufacture the illusion of support in a vote or argument or to act without social effect on one's "main" account stay away from the issue. This behaviour is often seen as dishonest by online communities and as a result these individuals are often labeled as trolls.
It comes down to intent and function. Glenn Greenwald intended to mislead others into believing that
So if you accept the argument that Greenwald is indeed using the monikers that have been mentioned, this sounds like sockpuppetry to me. He used different identities to defend himself dishonestly pretending to be somebody other than Glenn Greenwald.
Then, of course, he lied about doing it and offered up a lame and incredible explanation....
Unless you still buy the idea that it was just (a) his boyfriend in several instances and (b) in another instance he just happened to make the same point as some poster who writes in an identical style and who's comments he had read a day earlier and unbelievably, remarkably, amazingly, that poster was a competent English speaker from the same city in Brazil.
But then, we would have to call you Lambert, wouldn't we?
I apologize for the copying and pasting in my last post. A portion was deleted. I'm sure everyone can figure it out, though.
mike, "nearly identical language"? I don't think so. Apart from the quotes from Sullivan, nearly every word is different.
Oh, come on Lambert. I don't think you're a dummy and I don't think you buy Greenwald's story either. The only point I raised that you challenged was whether or not the poster in question used exactly the same words as Greenwald's post a day later. Fine, he used a substantial amount of synonymous language. Happy now?
Call it sockpuppetry plain and simple; call it de facto sock puppetry; call it self-aggrandizement under pseudonyms; whatever it was, it was mildly dishonest. No, I don't think it is going to bring him down either, but lying about it afterwards doesn't help his case.
Like I said earlier, what are the odds Lambert? The evidence against Greenwald is undeniably strong.
Come on, admit it. I think even you find Greenwald's explanation dubious, but because he is on your side of the aisle politically, you just don't want to 'fess up. You will give him every benefit of the doubt regardless of how much circumstantial evidence accumulates. I suppose that is natural, but I seriously doubt that you would extend the same courtesy to a conservative in Greenwald's shoes.
You know that I know that you know that Greenwald is a liar.
Come on. Admit it.
Let me repeat, as it didn't seem to sink in the first time... using different nyms on different blogs is ABSOLUTELY NOT SOCK PUPPETRY.
Gawd, you 'wingers are thick.
Graculus,
What part of the definition of sock puppetry I provided earlier didn't you understand? The part of attempting to pretend you are somebody else under a handle or the part of defending yourself while pretending to be somebody else?
If you can't admit he has been using sock puppets, that is fine by me. Call it something else. It was dishonest in any event and he has compounded the situation further by denying he did any such thing. I don't give a damn about the semantics, but can you at least admit that he is a liar for later denying he posted under anything but his own name? Or do you want to debate the definition of liar also?
Whatever you want to call it, yet more evidence suggesting Rick Ellensburg (our fluent English-speaking Glenn Greenwald defender from the same South American city as Glenn Greenwald and who happens to write similarly to Glenn Greenwald and made a comment very similar to the comment Glenn Greenwald would make a day before Glenn Greenwald himself made it on a blog that Glenn Greenwald had read the day the comment was posted) may (surprise!) indeed be Glenn Greenwald.
Greenwald was employing the same ISP as Rick Ellensburg within a month of the Rick Ellensburg post:
http://ace.mu.nu/archives/187393.php
Just a coincidence, I suppose. A bizarre coincidence....
Here is a timeline for everyone, courtesy of Hot Air:
http://hotair.com/archives/the-blog/2006/07/21/greenwalds-defense-music…
Funniest bit from mike's timeline link:
>If he has more than one computer attached to a single IP (most people who have broadband and more than one computer in their house get onto the internet through a router, so all of the machines will have the same IP going out) he can claim simultaneous posts on his site and others without playing musical chairs. It's just multiple writers on multiple computers. It strains credulity, but it's possible.
The possibility that the Greenwald household has *two* computers "strains credibility". Oy.
Graculus,
What part of the definition of sock puppetry I provided earlier didn't you understand?
What part of "The same IP does not automatically indicate the same person or computer" do *you* not understand?
It's a pretty weak case, isn't it.
I just want to say that I'm Brazilian, English is my 3rd language, and I speak and write it more competently than most native Brits, Americans and Aussies I know. Brazil has a massive ex-pat population all over the globe, anywhere you go on our little planet you will likely run into a Brazilian without looking very hard. Brazilians can and do learn English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Chinese, Japanese and countless other languages, especially if they've lived or travelled extensively outside of Brazil. To imply we somehow cannot wrap our brains around one of the most pathetically easy languages to learn in the world is insulting.
Lambert,
Don't be silly. You can't be that stupid. Hot Air's point wasn't that it was improbable that Greenwald might have multiple computers, but rather that it was unlikely that this explanation for Greenwald's suspected sock puppets was a likely one.
Gracculus,
What part of "The same IP does not automatically indicate the same person or computer" do you not understand?
What part of 'what are the odds' don't you understand?
Still, looking back over the definition of sockpuppet, I can see where you might be confused:
Sockpuppet (sometimes known also as a mule, or a glove puppet) is an additional account created by an existing member of an Internet community pretending to be a separate person. This is done so as to manufacture the illusion of support in a vote or argument or to act without social effect on one's "main" account stay away from the issue. This behaviour is often seen as dishonest by online communities and as a result these individuals are often labeled as trolls.
It is the is's that have you confused, isn't it? I forgot that the moonbats still aren't in agreement on what the definition of is is yet. Sorry about that. I didn't realize that you guys hadn't resolved that issue, in spite of vigorous debate, at the Fifth International (i.e. the last YearlyKos convention).
jade,
It's a pretty weak case, isn't it.
No. It is a strong case. The only thing weak is Greenwald's excuse.
elohite,
If somebody was indeed implying that Brazilians are too stupid to learn English, you would have a valid reason to be insulted. That wasn't what I was implying. I was stating that the vast majority of Brazilians do not speak English fluently. An even lower number write in English at the level that Greenwald's puppets do That is a fact. Having a friend who's mother is Brazilian and who has many Brazilian relatives living in the United States who I have encountered, even most Brazilians that had been in the United States for a decade would not be able to write like Greenwald's boyfriend (or sock puppet rather).
Here are a few comments from people familiar with Brazil:
http://www.vernonjohns.org/plcooney/brsucess.html
http://www.paulabel.org/faq.html
And this is more typical of the way that Brazilians who have a moderate degree of fluency in English tend to write:
http://www.shoujoai.com/forum/topic_show.pl?pid=2665
I'm going against my better judgment by commenting here at all, but ...
Tim:
Actually, it's a lot "better" (worse) than that. When Patterico confronted him with that lie/misstatement, he didn't just fail to admit the error, he doubled down with another falsehood, which, at this stage, had been pointed out to him as false. Add to that the fact that Patterico was not the only blogger he libeled in that post; his libel of Dean Esmay was far worse. He knows about that one, too, having linked to the same Poor Man post that lists Dean's objections front and center, but did so only to whine about how uncivilized everyone else is.
Then there's my grand fisking, where I fact-checked the entire post to determine how many of his verifiably true vs. false assertions held up. Results: almost none. Any one of these misstatements alone could easily be chalked up to simple carelessness on his part, but I have a hard time believing that anyone can screw up that consistently unless he's making crap up on purpose. At worst, this adds up to a pattern of lying. At best, it adds up to a pattern of never admitting anything. Either way, it makes his denial of the current charge predictable, and not evidence of actual innocence.
Finally, I don't think I need to remind you how reluctant you've been to even consider the possiblity that certain other alleged sock puppets of other individuals could have been family members trying to "help." Goose, gander, etc.
mndean:
Despicable indeed. Right up there with the equally despicable notion that few Americans can pass themselves off as native speakers of Portugues or any other foreign language - even after you control for the fact that most Americans don't speak a foreign language at all, and limit your sampling to the minority who do. Next we'll be hearing from racists who think blacks have darker skin than whites (they usually do, but not always) and the sexists who think that women have bigger breasts than men (they usually do, but not always).
Jade:
If by "several months ago" you mean "several times over the years, and most recently several months ago," you're almost there. If by "months" you mean "weeks" and by "several" you mean "more than two," you're there.
Seems like he's not alone.
No, it doesn't. All it means is that you undeniably are talking out of your butt. If you had bothered to familiarize yourself with Patterico's blog before posting that comment, you'd know that he doesn't expect anybody to condemn anything, and in recent months has been increasinly critical of the few ("few" being English for "virtually all" in in Glennspeak) bloggers who do.
Ah, xlrq. Speaking of a pattern of never admitting anything, do you still maintain your claim that Kevin Donoghue is my sock puppet?
Also, Ace has a post "The silence of the Left" demanding condemnation of Greenwald from the Left. Patterico doesn't seem to have criticized this and has endorsed Ace's "Magic boyfriend" silliness.
Mike, I don't know why you're so attached to that grammatically incoherent Wikipedia definition of "sock puppet," but it still doesn't help your case. There's of course no convincing evidence that Greenwald was making or coordinating these posts himself. And it's a strain to argue that the various separate blogs at which the various separate pseudonyms were used somehow, collectively, constitute "an Internet community," or that the scattered pseudonyms created "the illusion of support."
I'll also point you to the "Examples" section of that Wikipedia page, which argues that Abraham Lincoln's use of pen names "is not an example of sock-puppetry, as he did not write under pen names in praise or support of his own work."
Your logical leap from "the vast majority of Brazilians" to "all Brazilians" is similarly amusing, and you continue to ignore the possibility of an expatriate.
"This seems likely to be true, since the writing style of Ellison and co is different from Greenwald's and Greenwald is forthright in defending himself with comments under his own name."
Hiltzik was forthright in defending himself with comments under his own name. And if you think Thomas Ellers, Rick Ellensburg, Ellison, and Wilson have different writing styles from Greenwald's, you're not paying attention.
Whoever the sock puppet is, he is remarkably like Greenwald himself in obsessiveness, writing style, verbal tics, subject matter, knowledge of the Internet, encyclopedic knowledge of Greenwald's site, commenters, posts, updates, etc.
Is the boyfriend like Greenwald? I don't know and neither do you. Is Greenwald like Greenwald?
For some strange reason 1) Greenwald hasn't come out and said his boyfriend did the comments (Insinuated? yes. Claimed? no.), and 2) Greenwald's boyfriend, so obsessive about his boyfriend's rep, is letting him twist in the wind at this key moment.
Telling.
And with that, as WuzzaDem's sock puppets say, I bid you GOOD DAY, sir!
Oh yes writing style. Faced with [this Ellison quote](http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2006/06/lessons-drawn-from-zengerlet…)
>The problem, David is that everything you are saying that Glen should address, he already has. He explained clearly that Markos cannot and does not exert leverage over a single word he writes or doesn't write, and already explained what Townhouse is: [quote deleted]
>I cant speak for him, but I wouldnt answer you either, you keep ignoring the answers he gave, which suggest that youre interested in accusing, not in learning.
>Finally, you want a negative proven. What evidence could exist to show this conspiracy doesnt exist?
Ace [says](http://ace.mu.nu/archives/187307.php) that it doesn't read as "if written by a native speaker of English". To any normal person this would suggest that all the Ellison comments were written by Greenwald's partner. Ace, however, concluded that Greenwald stole the nym "Ellison" for his sock puppetry. So Greenwald was so superdevious that he used that name to disguise his dastardly trick. But not so devious that he thought of throwing in a grammatical error to really disguise it. Right.
Let's go through your list of similarities:
obsessiveness: Greenwald's partner has more comments under his own name supporting Greenwald at Greenwald's site than the alleged sock puppet posts. Why wouldn't he post an occasional comment supporting Greenwald at another site?
writing style: Sorry. See, for example, the comment above.
verbal tics: He reads Greenwald's blog and picked up a couple of expressions from there.
subject matter: if he defends Greenwald then it's going to be on the subjects Greenwald is interested in.
knowledge of the Internet: you've got to be kidding
encyclopedic knowledge of Greenwald's site etc: he reads Greenwald's blog. Duh.
Look, it's *possible* Greenwald stole the nym of his partner for a bit of sock puppetry. But it's more likely that his partner defended him on other blogs just as he defended him on Greenwald's blog.
As for the lack of further comment from Greenwald or his partner I don't agree that it is telling. If my wife was caught defending me on blogs without saying who she was, it would be embarrassing but I would never criticise her in public for it. In private, however, I would ask her to stop. How do you know something like that hasn't happened here?
"writing style: Sorry. See, for example, the comment above."
Hey, how's about looking at the writing style of the SOCK PUPPET comments. Wouldn't that be a little more relevant?
This whole thing got started because someone unfamiliar with the IP addresses asked for them to be checked -- because they thought the content and style of the comments was similar to that of Greenwald.
"If my wife was caught defending me on blogs without saying who she was, it would be embarrassing but I would never criticise her in public for it."
If your wife were as obsessive about your reputation as the sock-puppeteer is about Greenwald's, and YOU were getting blamed for HER comments, I'd think SHE, being obsessive about YOUR reputation, would want to stand up and say what she did.
"Look, it's possible Greenwald stole the nym of his partner for a bit of sock puppetry. But it's more likely that his partner defended him on other blogs just as he defended him on Greenwald's blog."
Where on God's Green Earth do you get "more likely"? I show that all of these factors fit Greenwald. You point out that they COULD fit someone else, although we have no idea whether that's true, and the lack of anyone stepping forward suggests it's not. The conclusion is simple that it's MORE LIKELY to be Greenwald than some unknown quantity.
If I see a guy in a Batman suit together with Robin, and he goes around speaking in Batman's voice and punching Penguin and Joker with BIFF! signs going off around his head, and then he hops into the Batmobile and drives into the Bat Cave, I can't prove beyond a reasonable doubt it's Bruce Wayne. Hey, he had a mask on. Maybe Bruce Wayne's biggest fan picked up all of Batman's costumery, way of speaking, actions, etc.
But if we don't know a damned thing about Bruce Wayne's biggest fan, other than that he's staying with Bruce Wayne at times, it would be the height of illogic to conclude that the fellow in the mask and costume was MORE LIKELY the fan, rather than Wayne himself.
You're stretching badly.
One more data point: although Greenwald regularly charges into comment sections of posts criticizing him, he has stayed serenely above the fray in threads where the suspected sock-puppets are active. People supporting him isn't enough to keep him out; only the excellent defense provided by the sock puppets is sufficient to keep Greenwald from participating.
Funny when you get caught at something - you tend to lay off till the heat dies down.
I mean really - if it was no big deal, and just Glenny's housemates going to bat for him - you'd think:
a) Ellison would be all over the sphere - pumpin ole Glenny up to magnificient proportions.
b) Ryan - Ditto
c) Ellers - ditto
Because you see, the "supporters" have no need to hide now that they've been busted. Yet hide they do.
As Patterico mentioned "There's Doin's Afoot."
We have dozens of pro-Greenwald comments on Greenwald's blog from David, Wilson and Ellison. These seem to have been written by Greenwald's partner (whose name is David). There are a few comments on other blogs supporting Greenwald under the names Wilson, Ellison and others. The most straightforward explanation is that David wrote those ones as well. Why would Greenwald use the same nym as his partner for the comments?
As for Greenwald not commenting on those threads, if his partner had done an adequate job of defending him, why would he need to?
I think your obvious desire to bring "this douchebag down" is clouding your judgement.
Tim - I'm curious to know what your take is on Jason Leoplold and his sock puppetry - take a long look at what sock puppetry has morphed into over Seixon Blog. Is there no reason to believe Leopold would sock puppet - using your arguement that Glenn did not?
And BTW- If Glenn's mate was making the comments, hows about he come out and state it? Or maybe Glenn can say - hey "David did it cuz he hates people ripping on me". maybe that would clear things up instead of Glenn's ambiguous statement that others in his house use the same IP.
Otherwise, there is no reason to assume it was not Greenwald doing sock puppetry. Since you can't prove in any possible way that David (other) was home when the incidents ocurred.
Tim Lambert in the post:
Greenwald's partner's use of multiple pseudonyms does not seem to be sock puppetry either. It would only be sock puppetry if Ellison, say, backed up Sam Mathews, but each pseudonym seems to have been used on a different blog.
Tim Lambert in comment on July 26:
We have dozens of pro-Greenwald comments on Greenwald's blog from David, Wilson and Ellison. These seem to have been written by Greenwald's partner (whose name is David).
...
So which is it?
"We have dozens of pro-Greenwald comments on Greenwald's blog from David, Wilson and Ellison. These seem to have been written by Greenwald's partner (whose name is David). There are a few comments on other blogs supporting Greenwald under the names Wilson, Ellison and others. The most straightforward explanation is that David wrote those ones as well. Why would Greenwald use the same nym as his partner for the comments?
As for Greenwald not commenting on those threads, if his partner had done an adequate job of defending him, why would he need to?
I think your obvious desire to bring "this douchebag down" is clouding your judgement."
You didn't address all my arguments, nor did you address all the sock puppets (Rick Ellers and Ellensburg, e.g.). Instead you shifted to trying to analyze my psychology. That's an ad hominem that fails to persuade.
Let me know if you ever feel like actually addressing my points.
I don't think that Greenwald's partner made the comments. I think Greenwald did. And then lied when confronted. I think Tim Lambert thinks this to be the case also.
P.s. Tim, the "partner" is at a minimum guilty of lying about the email. So Greenwald should expose him for that. But of course the partner is a shaggy dog story, so it's irrelevant.
Patterico, you failed to address **any** of my arguments. I did not shift to trying to analyse your psychology -- that's in addition to my other arguments, you know, the ones you didn't address. Nor is it an "ad hominem". An ad hominem would be "Don't believe Patterico -- he hates Greenwald". I was offering an explanation for why you won't admit that your case is weak.
As for Ellers and Ellensburg I thought it would be obvious that if David is Ellison, he is almost certainly Ellers and Ellensburg as well.
Let me know if you ever feel like actually addressing my points.
TCO: How nice of you to accuse me of lying. Go away.
"Patterico, you failed to address any of my arguments."
Yuh-huh. I haven't addressed a one!
I'm done here. Not only do you have a poor grasp of the facts, but you're avoiding arguments, and saying things that are patently untrue.
Waste of time.
If anyone is still interested Patterico has a [long post](http://patterico.com/2006/07/27/4900/annotated-wuzzadem-the-facts-behin…) where he tries to make up for the weakness of his argument by including lots of pictures of sockpuppets. Needless to say, Patterico avoids mentioning Greenwald's partner's posts supporting Greenwald on Greenwald's blog.
Lambert,
I notice you are more than willing to ignore every bit of coincidental evidence point to Greenwald, yet you are more than willing to assume that any and all posts by a guy named "David" on Greenwald's blog are attributable to Greenwald's boyfriend.
David? Is that really an uncommon name?
mike, they were posted under what looks like David's full name and link to his own blog (which is in Portuguese). I didn't post his full name to protect his privacy. Nor did I ignore the coincidental evidence. It all fits someone who reads Greenwald's blog and is loyal to him.
In an earlier thread you accuse a commenter of sock-puppetry for using a pseudonym. Here you say use of a pseudonym is not sock-puppetry. Which is it?
*[I guess it's appropriate to have a sock puppet appear in this thread. No prizes for guessing who it really is. Tim]*
You don't provide (that I see) 1) proof that any comments from Ellison or Wilson on his site were posted by his boyfriend (no, I'm not taking your word for it); 2) links to any such comments (other than one Ellison comment, which, unlike the sock-puppet comments, eliminates all use of apostrophes, and indeed -- unlike the sock-puppet comments -- doesn't sound like a native speaker); or 3) any explanation as to what the hell any this has to do with the issue of whether the SOCK-PUPPET COMMENTS are Greenwald's.
You make a big deal out of my ignoring this "evidence" when it appears to prove nothing -- other than, perhaps, that his boyfriend cannot write in fluent English, which only bolsters my point.
Try a little less dancing over the fact that I'm not paying attention to your "evidence" (which is long on assertion and short on links), and a little more explaining what relevance it has. Because I don't see it, at all.
Then, you might try responding to one of the main points I made: you ridiculously claim it's MORE LIKELY that it's the boyfriend, when numerous data points to Greenwald, and we have NO IDEA whether it also points to the boyfriend (other than the data you have provided, which tends to suggest it does not). I ask again: how on God's Green Earth can you possibly conclude that it's MORE LIKELY the boyfriend?
I refer you to the Bruce Wayne analogy you ignored.
I'll take a page from the Tim Lambert style of argumentation now, and abandon logic for a Lambert-style ad hominem that I believe to be true: you, Tim Lambert, don't WANT Greenwald to be a sock-puppet, so you twist and ignore logic to make it so. Why this is, I have no idea. You want to be considered the premier sock-puppet guy on the Internet? Fine, go ahead. The title is yours. But try a little logic and reason.
Patterico, you seem to concede that the Ellison comment on Greenwld's blog wasn't written by Greenwald. It most likely that all the Ellison comments were written by the same person -- why would Greenwald steal his partner's nym to leave a comment? You just can't come up with a reason for this, can you?
To put it in terms of your Batman analogy. David has been observed putting on the Batman costume and driving around. We see somebody driving around in the Batman costume. It is *possible* that it someone else, but it is likely to be David and we certainly cannot rule David out:
Here is a comment [posted under the name David](http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=18169267&postID=113691976107632…)
>I love how Kevin says he agrees with you but then says it can't be done. What does Kevin ever think can be done?
>Having said that, I think the issue here needs to focus on Bush, not Alito. Alito is not a monster, at least he doesnt' come off as one. But Bush does, and Alito is his tool. That's the point.
Notice how he uses the phrase "I love how"? The phrase that you say proves that other comments were written by Greenwald? Are you going to tell us that comment was written by Greenwald as well?
Tim Lambert in your post you first say:
but then in more update you say:
This is not consistent.
It seems pretty obvious that all of the sock puppets are G. Greenwald, just from the manner of speech. Doesn't someone know the boyfriend's website? Taking a look at his writing style might refute the "second shooter" theory. I mean it's clearly refuted, but another bullet hole in the theory couldn't hurt.
James, when I wrote the post, I didn't know about the other posts on Greenwald's blog. However, they still don't amount to sock puppetry, since they were used at different times -- there weren't multiple ids being used at the same time to create the illusion of more support than there really was. He just seems to have changed nyms a couple of times.
Tim, please don't misstate my arguments.
You say:
"Notice how he uses the phrase "I love how"? The phrase that you say proves that other comments were written by Greenwald?"
That's a silly misrepresentation of my argument. I never say that phrase alone proves other comments were written by Greenwald. I cite dozens of pieces of circumstantial evidence, of which that is only one.
I'll say this again, Tim, since you have ignored me when I said it before:
You don't provide (that I see) 1) proof that any comments from Ellison or Wilson on his site were posted by his boyfriend (no, I'm not taking your word for it); 2) links to any such comments (other than one Ellison comment, which, unlike the sock-puppet comments, eliminates all use of apostrophes, and indeed -- unlike the sock-puppet comments -- doesn't sound like a native speaker); or 3) any explanation as to what the hell any this has to do with the issue of whether the SOCK-PUPPET COMMENTS are Greenwald's.
You say:
"mike, they were posted under what looks like David's full name and link to his own blog (which is in Portuguese). I didn't post his full name to protect his privacy."
Can you show your work? I see one comment from someone named Ellison. I see one from someone named David.
Show the evidence. I'm actually interested in this, though I think it shows the opposite of what you seem to think it shows.
"Patterico, you seem to concede that the Ellison comment on Greenwld's blog wasn't written by Greenwald. It most likely that all the Ellison comments were written by the same person -- why would Greenwald steal his partner's nym to leave a comment? You just can't come up with a reason for this, can you?"
You just can't come up with proof of who it was written by, can you?
"To put it in terms of your Batman analogy. David has been observed putting on the Batman costume and driving around. We see somebody driving around in the Batman costume. It is possible that it someone else, but it is likely to be David and we certainly cannot rule David out."
That was not my analogy. My analogy encompassed many pieces of circumstantial evidence, most of which you ignore -- just as you do when you isolate the single data point that the sock-puppets and Greenwald like to say "I love how . . ." For example, I say that the masked man speaks in Batman's voice. And there's much more to that than the "I love how . . ." tic. I demonstrate the similarities I have seen in my post.
Now please. Answer the questions I have asked more than once. I am actually showing *interest* in your evidence. No bald assertions. Show your work.
Right, besides the "I love how" usage you also had: "Ellensburg and Greenwald both love to set off phrases with hyphens". Like [this post](http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=18169267&postID=113708744514870…) from David:
>Even for Republicans - they have kids, jobs, businesses - here's your chance to ask the fucking President of the United States a question.
>Isn't there ANYTHING they think he's doing wrong? Aren't there any concerns they have? All the can think to do is stand up and tell him how he is so wonderful and great and a strong leader and thank you for protecting us, Daddy?
>Seriously, what the fuck is wrong with these people? It seems so un-American. Our leaders work for us. They are not the fucking military King who must be praised.
You also reckon that using "super-important" is a give away. Here's [Wilson on Greenwald's blog](http://glenngreenwald.blogspot.com/2006/05/various-items.html#c11465246…):
>You are mentally ill. And what's worse, you are a stupid hypocrite.
>You keep complaining about other people who don't discuss the "socio-economic" issues that you think are so important.
>And yet you yourself never discuss any of those issues - not once. We have been subjected to your babbling trash on a daily basis about how Jane and the "faux advertise liberally" crowd (of whihc Glenn isn't even a part) never discusses all of these ovearching, super-important economic issues that you think should be discussed. But with all of the chances you have to talk about htem here, you never do. You use your time instead to complain about Jane. SO YOU DO EXACTLY WHAT YOU CRITICIZE THEM FOR DOING - overlooking these issues.
>If you think that these economic issues are so important, why don't you go write about them yourself, instead of complaining that others don't? It's because you don't really care about those issues. You don't want to do the work to have a blog about them. You just want to complain about others.
>You're a lazy, stupid, obsessive hypocrite and just about everyone here, at one time or another, has told you that.
Doesn't sound like Greenwald wrote that, does it?
You make much of Ellensburg's references to a "cult", but that was in the Greenwald post he was defending.
The thing you emphasise most as a tell is the "four pillars", but here's Sam Mathews [hitting them all](http://www.riehlworldview.com/carnivorous_conservative/2006/07/the_new_…)
>Greenwald's book has been on the N.Y. Times Best Seller List for 6 weeks now or more. He is a graduate of a top 5 law school and worked at the most prestigious law firm in the country. In 9 months, he's managed to become one of the most cited and heavily-trafficked bloggers on the internets. His posts have led to front page news articles and are read by U.S. Senators during Senate hearings.
>You-by your own account are a marketing and sales manager. And your favorite movie is Something About Mary.
>Can't you just admit that you(and Patterico and Reynolds & Goldstein and the rest of your bitter insult-spewing irrelevant losers) are drowning in jealousy? It isn't pretty to watch. But it sure is obvious.
I believe you conceded that Mathews was not Greenwald.
You asked for 1) proof that Greenwald's partner posted the Ellison and Wilson comments at Greenwald's. I can't prove he wrote them any more than you can prove Greenwald made the alleged sock puppet comments. But it is most likely the same person wrote all the Ellison comments and the same person wrote all the Wilson comments. You've conceded that the Ellison at Greenwald comment doesn't sound like Greenwald, so that leaves Greenwald's partner.
2) links to David's comments. I did link to David's comment. The link is right before the comment. If you follow the link and then click on his name you get to his blog (which is in Portuguese).
3) an explanation of what this had to do with the sock puppet claims. I already explained it. Your case that the comments were written by Greenwald rather than his partner rests on characteristics like familiarity with Greenwald's blog and use of phrases like "I love how". But Greenwald's partner also has the characteristics as the posts under his own name show.
The most likely explanation for what has happened is that Greenwald's partner wrote those comments. You are unalbe to offer any credible argument against this.
"Doesn't sound like Greenwald wrote that, does it?"
Yes, it does. Not so much that the similarity of styles alone would convict the commenter of being Greenwald. But it sounds plenty like him to me. There are a couple of misspellings, but Greenwald makes lots of mistakes in the comments left under his own name -- spelling mistakes, typos, awkward phrasing, and subject-verb agreement problems.
"I believe you conceded that Mathews was not Greenwald."
You believe wrong. I have no idea whether he is Greenwald or not. I think he sounds a hell of a lot like Greenwald. But he doesn't have the same IP address (his is AOL) so the style and content similarities mean less.
"I can't prove he wrote them any more than you can prove Greenwald made the alleged sock puppet comments. But it is most likely the same person wrote all the Ellison comments and the same person wrote all the Wilson comments. You've conceded that the Ellison at Greenwald comment doesn't sound like Greenwald, so that leaves Greenwald's partner."
Do you know that the Ellison at Greenwald comment was left from Greenwald's IP address????
Really, your arguments are so obtuse that your point gets lost. If you're not going to explain your arguments in a way people can understand them, I'm beginning to think this is a waste of time again.
"I did link to David's comment. The link is right before the comment. If you follow the link and then click on his name you get to his blog (which is in Portuguese)."
Ergo, he is Greenwald's partner???? Because his name is David and he has a blog in Portuguese????
"Your case that the comments were written by Greenwald rather than his partner rests on characteristics like familiarity with Greenwald's blog and use of phrases like "I love how". But Greenwald's partner also has the characteristics as the posts under his own name show."
My case is based on dozens of pieces of circumstantial evidence, and you have addressed only a handful, in confusing ways that pick comments from Greenwald's blog and appear to assert, without evidence, that they were made by Greenwald's partner. Honestly, you're making very little sense at all to the extent you address any of my points -- and you have left dozens unaddressed.
Please try to make some sense.
Patterico hates the LA Times even though the place has been sprinkled with winger columnists. Still, he isn't happy. Really he should be happy the County hired him. I tried to find "his points" and couldn't. Nothing new there in my experience.
Yet yet yet again: Ellison left pro-Greenwald comments at Greenwald's and at Ace's. If you want to claim that they were left by different people then you need to come up with some sort of argument. No doubt you will evade this point again.
So you declare Ellensburg a sock because the post came from Brazil and the name is similar to Ellison, but a Brazilian with the same name as Greenwald's partner posting lots of comments on Greenwald's blog (and nowhere else) isn't likely to be Greenwld's partner?
Dozens of pieces of circumstantial evidence? Must be the new math. What evidence do you have that points to Greenwald rather than his partner making the posts in question? Not much. You offer things like use of phrases such as "I love how", which the partner also used; familiarity with Greenwald's blog, which the partner read and commented on; strong support for Greenwald, which a loyal partner is likely to do; interest in US politics, which David's posts demonstrate; and so on.
As far as I can tell, the *only* argument you have left on this point is that GG's partner would have stepped forward to defend him if that were the case. As if you wouldn't have accused Greenwald of making the post if that had happened.
Just trying to nail down the evidence that you're citing in support of the theory that your David is Greenwald's partner. As I understand it, it's that his name is David, he is from Brazil, and he comments on Greenwald's site.
It's interesting that this evidence, and this evidence alone, is *conclusive* for you that it is the boyfriend himself. Yet the evidence I provided in my post that the sock-puppets are Greenwald himself (dozens of pieces of circumstantial evidence that you haven't come close to addressing) is not.
But OK, let's run with your assumption, and we'll include the Ellison commenting on Greenwald's site as conclusively established to be the boyfriend as well -- just for the sake of argument. In that case, it suggests that Greenwald's boyfriend is actually not that conversant in idiomatic English. Let's look at again at an Ellison quote that you provided -- a quote from a comment whose IP address is wholly unknown:
As you noted, Ace has said this does not appear to be from a native English speaker, and I agree. The guy doesn't even know how to use an apostrophe. If this is David the boyfriend, he's not a fluent idiomatic English speaker.
Yet the sock-puppet comments coming from Greenwald's IP address are from someone who is.
(Oh, and the boyfriend doesn't know how to spell his own boyfriend's name. Two n's in "Glenn," David. Remember that next time you give him a birthday card.)
This supports my argument and contradicts yours. Can you not see this?
John Lott's sock puppetry followed a massive pattern of shadiness and apparent dishonesty, the possibility that Greenwald engaged in it, while a let down, essentially has no meaning. I of course condemn him for the tactic, if true. It is totally stupid all the way around. And I think those playing stupid games with it, well I think they could possibly need to eat it. Under a doctor's supervision of course.
Oddly enough, I've looked through dozens of posts in different months and I can't see any comments on Glenn Greenwald's site anymore. Does anybody have an idea of when this might have occurred? I checked his site just a few days ago and they were there.
Apparently, he has decided he doesn't want anybody checking too deeply into it anymore. They are all gone! He didn't simply suspend comments, he erased them.
My own suspicion is that some or all of the English comments left by "David" are, in fact, Greenwald himself.
The cover-up continues.
Jeez, the right wing circle jerk continues.
I can't believe this is still going on. What is it, two weeks after the "controversy" began? But I guess Ace and Patterico can't give up, after each writing 50000 words accusing Glenn of Sock puppetry.
Ace, Patterico, take your manuscripts and get in line at Regnery for your wingnut welfare checks.
And stop clogging up the tubes.
And Patterico, go do something useful with your forensic skills. We're paying you to convict criminals. You might try that for a change.
Well, Tim my boy, I was really interested in your evidence of all the comments at Greenwald's site.
I was starting to think they supported my theory.
I was enjoying the debate and looking forward to investigating the comments more.
But it's the weirdest thing. They're now gone.
All of 'em. Gone.
Oh well. So much for that evidence.
I'm sure he's not trying to cover anything up, though.
And if it were John Lott, and we were debating the meaning of his comments, and they all suddenly disappeared -- well, you wouldn't think anything odd of that.
mike:
It is the is's that have you confused, isn't it? I forgot that the moonbats still aren't in agreement on what the definition of is is yet. Sorry about that. I didn't realize that you guys hadn't resolved that issue, in spite of vigorous debate, at the Fifth International (i.e. the last YearlyKos convention).
For future reference I'm a non-USian pinko-hippie-commie-tree-hugger, and I have no idea what you are babbling about. The minutae of your obsessions are of no interest to me.
What I do know is how IPs work, and what significance they have... IPs are not THE definition of sock puppetry. IPs are only *part* of a pattern, and having the same IP doesn't prove a sock. The pattern here is not that of a sock, as has been pointed out in great length by Tim.
Yes, Patterico, Greenwald's partner sometimes omits apostrophes. Just like Ryan:
>You people are morons, seriously. You run around claiming things without having any idea if there true. And then when you get exposed as liars, you slink away and repeat the next lie.
And quoting myself:
>Ellison left pro-Greenwald comments at Greenwald's and at Ace's. If you want to claim that they were left by different people then you need to come up with some sort of argument. No doubt you will evade this point again.
Sure enough, you did. Can I predict the future or what?
Since the comments exonerate Greenwald, it's obvious that by making them unavailable (not deleting them) he's not trying to hide stuff. It seems that the influx of trolls you helped cause meant he had to change the commenting system. Congratulations.
The reason I was beginning to become interested in David Miranda's comments is that I noticed that some related to things he has seen while apparently in the United States. For instance, in one post he mentioned all of the bumper stickers he had seen that read "Never Again" after 9/11.
I was curious as to whether any of these comments might provide information that implicated Greenwald as the actual commentator. Were any of Miranda's comments time-sensitive, and if so, were they made while Miranda was in the United States or not?
In any event, I suppose we will never know since they are gone now. I think Greenwald was getting worried about what people might find if they looked further into it. I can see no good reason for removing all the comments from the blog.
We don't know much about Mr. Miranda. I think I have read that he (assuming 'he' is the David in question, of course) travelled with Greenwald to the United States during a book tour.
I get the impression that Miranda might not be all that computer savvy. He has multiple blogs, both of which contain only a few posts and which are apparently unkept.
I noticed that he had at least two blogs in Portuguese and one in mixed English and Portuguese. Each with only about two posts each. (One of the Portuguese blogs is a much older one that was linked only to some of David's earlier posts.) The other two blogs were linked to his more recent posts.
I would also like to mention that there were multiple davids on Greenwald's board. It was clear that not all the comments left under the name 'David' were attributable to 'David Miranda.'
"You people are morons, seriously. You run around claiming things without having any idea if there true. And then when you get exposed as liars, you slink away and repeat the next lie."
That's not consistently omitting apostrophes the way David did. That's substituting a single homonym -- the kind of rushed typo I have made in comments. And Greenwald makes mistakes in comments himself.
But you ever-so-conveniently omit Ryan's comments where he does (unlike David) use apostrophes. For example:
If I didn't know better, I'd think you were trying to argue dishonestly!
"Ellison left pro-Greenwald comments at Greenwald's and at Ace's. If you want to claim that they were left by different people then you need to come up with some sort of argument. No doubt you will evade this point again."
The Ellison comment on Greenwald's site didn't sound like an English speaker. The Ellison comment on Ace's did. I thought I already pointed this out, but I don't have time to review the thread to see. It's an obvious point anyway.
The comments on Greenwald's site, you have effectively shown, support my argument. Too bad they're gone --- but that's what the guilty do when they want to hide evidence.
Tim writes:
No doubt this is obvious to techier people than I, but please clarify.
1) How do you know that Greenwald has made them unavailable and not deleted them? To my eye, they have simply vanished, but perhaps there is some indication on the page that I am missing.
2) Aren't you assuming the answer here? A few days ago, you and Patterico could both see the comments. You thought that they exonerated Greenwald. Patter thought that the comments implicated him. If I had asked the two of you then about what your predictions would be about the half-life of the comments, you would have predicted, I presume, that they would stay up. After all, the comments exonerate Greenwald! Patterico would have predicted, perhaps, that there was a good chance that the comments would be deleted. Now, after the comments were deleted, shouldn't that make it more likely for me to agree with Patterico then I was before? (Of course, I might still put the odds at 90:10 in your favor, but I don't see how comment-deletion could do anything but increase the odds that Patterico is right, if only marginally and from a low base.)
3) Do you have any evidence to support your claim that the "influx of trolls you helped cause meant he had to change the commenting system." That is, if Greenwald told you this, then that would be one thing. But if you are just guessing, please tell us. In particular, I have never seen anyone delete comments for this reason. (I have seen people ban further comments on a specific post or on all posts.) If you could provide a single example of someone who deleted all previous comments because of trolls, that would be a useful data point. If there are no such examples, then I would think that Greenwald's motives for deletion lie elsewhere.
Gee Patterico, there are two comments from David in this thread. One has missing apostrophes, one does not. Somehow the one with the apostrophes has escaped your attention. Weird.
"Ellison left pro-Greenwald comments at Greenwald's and at Ace's. If you want to claim that they were left by different people then you need to come up with some sort of argument. No doubt you will evade this point again."
Wait. Let me get this straight. I never saw any comments from Ellison on Greenwald's blog. But if there were comments from Ellison then why would David Miranda, who posts under his own name on that blog already, also post under a different name. That doesn't make a lot of sense.
I would say that any posts by the alleged sockpuppets on Greenwald's own blog would be further evidence of Greenwald's guilt. There is simply no reason why Miranda would need to post under a pseudonym to praise Greenwald since he has no problem backing Greenwald in some of his posts under the name "David Miranda." Why would he adopt an alias to do what he does unabashedly already?
"It seems that the influx of trolls you helped cause meant he had to change the commenting system. Congratulations."
When did the 'influx of trolls' begin? I checked out Greenwald's blog for over a week since the post addressing allegations of sockpuppetry. I was waiting to see if he would say anything further about the subject or if the "David" we were discussing would make an appearance in the the comments (I don't think he ever did on any of the posts I saw). On the post rebutting allegations of sockpuppetry, the overwhelming majority of commentators were supporters of Greenwald. Only a handful were the "trolls" that you speak of. For the next week, on subsequent posts, I saw few if any comments from visitors discussing the sockpuppetry incident on unrelated threads.
So, when did Greenwald begin to get bombarded with "troll" comments?
David Kane:
1) The comments have not been deleted because you can still access them if you know the url. Only the link does not appear in the template. I've fixed the links to the two comments by David upthread. They are still there.
2) You are ignoring the evidentiary value of the comments. Even if there is a 10% chance that the comments incriminate him and a 90% chance that they exonerate him, on average deleting them (though they hasn't happened see point 1) harms GG's cause.
3) Making the commments unavailable is a side effect of switching to haloscan which allows IP bans of trolls. On his blog GG stated that was the reason for the switch.
mike: "a handful"?? You must have ENORMOUS hands. And yes Greenwld's defenders outnumbered the trolls, but that's the point of trolling -- the arguments you start crowd out meaningful discussion.
Above, Tim said:
It most likely that all the Ellison comments were written by the same person -- why would Greenwald steal his partner's nym to leave a comment? You just can't come up with a reason for this, can you?
This is trivially easy. The partner uses the computer at Time A with the name Ellison. Later, Glenn Greenwald wants to leave comments on another blog that also uses Typepad or whatever. Lo and behold, the browser has automatically filled out the "Name" form with the "Ellison" pseudonym. Indeed, it's even possible that Greenwald could have left a comment under the name "Ellison" without noticing that his partner had changed the name that is automatically filled in.
That would be possible if both blogs involved were on typepad, but they were on different domains: mu.nu and blogspot.com
So what? How would you know that the partner never used the pseudonym "Ellison" on another blogspot site, for example?
The overall irony here is that Lambert seems to be a bit defensive and irritated that anyone would be 1/10 as obsessive in tracking the online whereabouts of Greenwald as Lambert was with regard to John Lott.
How many posts does Patterico need after announcing he is "done here"?
Six.
Seven and counting. I was done when Tim was making absolutely no sense and just arguing to argue, but then I got interested in some of his "evidence" -- although his arguments from that evidence have been obtuse at all times.
But in the midst of a discussion about a guy who deleted comments right when it looked like they might provide evidence against him, it's interesting to hear from a guy who deleted his whole blog rather than provide evidence of some wild claims he was making.
"Gee Patterico, there are two comments from David in this thread. One has missing apostrophes, one does not. Somehow the one with the apostrophes has escaped your attention. Weird."
Maybe they were written by different people. We really have no idea because we know nothing about the IP addresses. You're simply making desperate assumptions to support your increasingly unlikely case.
it's interesting to hear from a guy who deleted his whole blog rather than provide evidence of some wild claims he was making.
Really! Fascinating.
And what claims would those be...?
It never has occurred to you that you may not know what you are talking about, has it?
Anono, you have it backwards. For your theory to work his partner would have had to have used it at mu.nu. And if there is another post by Ellison there Google doesn't know about it. Nor am I "defensive or irritated" about this. My opinion, based on my experience in sock puppet detecting, is that the comments were likely left by Greenwald's partner.
Patterico, Greenwald's comments have not been deleted. They are still available and I have links to them in my comments above. If your theory is that he tried to delete them to cover up some incriminating evidence, then you should find this evidence and present it. Otherwise your theory falls flat on its face.
I don't know the IP addresses for those two David comments. I have something better. Matching IP addresses would just show that they were posted from the same household. They were posted from the same Blogger account which is stronger evidence that they were written by the same person.
You have yet to prove that Greenwald's partner was even home during the posted times in question.
If you cannot prove the boyfriend was there when the "sock puppet" post/s were recorded, how can you ever prove it was not Greenwald?
You do know that Greenwald posted during those same time frames? So we know he was home.
And of course Greenwald has never said it was his boy friend. He said it came from his "house".
So, unless and until you can prove someone other than Greenwald was home at the times in question, your theory is all speculation.
Now, Patterico et al, can prove Greenwald was home, and that the IP's were the same, and Greenwald admits it came from his home, and the sytax matches Greenwald, yet Greenwald never once said it was his boyfriend, and has not once said his boyfriend was home at the time, and the "evidence" goes away when the heat turns up -
If you can't connect those dots, then at least prove your case beyond a reasonable doubt by getting the boyfriend to cop to the whole thing and prove he was even home that night.
If you can't connect those dots, then at least prove your case beyond a reasonable doubt by getting the boyfriend to cop to the whole thing and prove he was even home that night.
Indeed. Why, the only remaining mystery in this case is the bizarre refusal of the Brazilian authorities to issue any subpoenas. Who's pulling their strings, I'd like to know.
"They were posted from the same Blogger account which is stronger evidence that they were written by the same person."
And the connection to Greenwald is . . .?
"My opinion, based on my experience in sock puppet detecting . . ."
Tim Lambert, Sock Puppet Detective. Here's my card.
I got a whole post on this, Timmie my boy. Tons of stuff you never addressed. You ever want to address it, be my guest. I have comments.
Thers,
Your blog still exists???
There was never any controversy about IP addresses of commenters on your blog?????????????
Why, I stand corrected. Unless you're not being honest with us . . .
There was never any controversy about IP addresses of commenters on your blog?????????????
Sigh...
The "IP address controversy" was nonsense. But then I suppose you believe the fairytale that I "ran around the internet" using a disgusting comment I made up myself about my infant daughter to smear someone else and his commenters.
As a matter of fact, what I said at the time was this: "Upon final thought I do think it was one of his commenters who said it, but that's not reflective of anything or anyone beyond the fact that whoever said it is a sick little bastard who deserves scorn. And I have no desire to think about this any further."
Is this the "outrageous claim" you allege I made?
I was never entirely clear on why it made any difference if I supplied an IP address to prove a point about a matter I considered closed and said didn't matter and blamed nobody but the poster of the comment for anyway. But if that made it easier for you to reason out how a friend of yours didn't deliberately break a public pledge he'd just made, hey, good for you. Friendship is a beautiful thing.
The hilarious punchline is that when I did get an actual threat to my family on my new blog, a threat based on the personal information your pal had solicited and then posted, Blogger told me they wouldn't release the IP without a subpoena! Isn't that just too funny?
A rundown of what actually happened is here, and then here.
Your claim to know "the real reason" I deleted my own blog is perfectly obnoxious.
Tim, I'm sorry to take up your space here on an unrelated issue, but Patterico brought it up. I'll leave it at this post.
pttrc sms lk bg ntcs t m. m n th prcss f shttng dwn prtn wsdm nd hpfll pjms md. n nfrmtn y cn gv m bt pttrc (prvt ml s bst) wld b mst pprctd. thnks. ww
Bloody hell, Patterico, are you still going on about this? No higher compliment could be paid to Greenwald than to have nutcases like you obsess over him 24/7. It means he's getting under your skin, which is what he does best.
Enlightened, I don't have to prove that GG's partner was home at the time. If you could prove he wasn't then that would be something. But you can't.
Patterico, David is Brazilian, supports Greenwald and has the same name as Greenwald's partner. This is stronger evidence than you have for your claim that Ellensburg is a sock (there you just have a *similar* name).
I've addressed all the significant arguments in your post.
Now, you claimed that there was something incriminating in Greenwald's comments. When are you going to tell us what that is? Never, I except.
Thers, thanks for the info. I'm not surprised to find out that Patterico doesn't know what he's talking about.
Tim - No problem! You can continue to support unsubstantiated claims by a known liar about a intangible "other", as opposed to suppporting evidence that points to the only person known to be in the house and on the computer that night -
I guess it was the old "ghost in the machine".
BTW - Thers is about as reliable as - oh never mind.
Shorter Enlightened:
"Pardon, me, but I'm the captain of this Swift Boat!"
Best,
D
Jesus god, is this debate still going on???
Following a link to here a couple weeks late, so probably no one will ever see this comment.
Tim, are you off!!! It seems like your big defense of Greenwald is to assume - ignoring a good deal of evidence - that the sock puppets came from Greenwald's boyfriend. So what if they did? Let's assume you're right. They're still SOCK PUPPETS (i.e.: identities designed to give a deceptive appearance of being entirely separate individuals, when they are not), being employed by Greenwald-and-hubby for lame defenses of Greenwald. LOL :-)
And: Greenwald still had to be in on it! Remember that absurd, yet well-documented moment in all this where one of the sock-puppets had to "send an e-mail" to Greenwald to get Greenwald's answer to some charge....and duly received Greenwald's e-mail, which the sock puppet then re-posted. In other words, GREENWALD PARTICIPATED in charade e-mail exchanges with his husband's sock puppets - under your theory. Your theory makes Greenwald no less dishonest and worthy of contempt. Great "defense" of him, Tim!
Yawn. As if Greenwald couldn't have been away from home at an office or on a business trip when he answered an email question.
To assume that he did know, or even should have known, that the person asking him a question was posting on a blog using a pseudonym? If my husband displayed that level of control-freak entitlement to knowledge of my online habits I'd be very tempted to kick him to the curb.
Does your partner know you post under a pseudonym that includes "whoreson"? If not, why not?