Disclosure: I worked for the Lamont campaign doing web design and production and some writing for the official blog (from 9/5/06 to 11/07/06).

Friday, September 08, 2006

 

Friday Morning Round-Up

Lies and the Lying Senator Edition:

Comments:
My letter to the Time:

To the Editor:

Neil Vigdor's Sept. 5 story, "Lieberman camp pulls link to Osama photo," is inaccurate on one important point.

In that story, Lieberman spokesperson Tammy Sun implies - but is careful not to state outright - that the link to the doctored photo of Osama bin Ladin wearing a Ned Lamont sticker on his turban was posted in the comments section of the campaign's official blog, "Cup of Joe."

This is classic misdirection. The offending link, present from the moment the revamped website went online, actually appeared on the blog's main page in the left sidebar, a section not open to edits, changes or posts from commenters, as anyone clicking on the page can confirm.

Therefore, the only way the "No to Ned" website link could have appeared on the blogroll is if someone involved with the design of the Lieberman official campaign site, or authorized to access the site's server files, placed it there themselves. For the campaign and Ms. Sun to therefore allege that they "did not know who posted the link," and "as soon as we saw it, we immediately pulled it down," is thus both disingenuous and misleading.

A more likely explanation is that the website designers placed that "No to Ned" link on the blog main page on the basis of its anti-Lamont name, without vetting the content of that website first to make sure it would not reflect badly on their candidate, as it now has.

But we're talking about a campaign that blamed their previous website's crash on "Lamont hackers" - an unsubstantiated and now-debunked charge that they have yet retract or to apologize for - instead of what was almost certainly the real reason, a spike in election-day traffic that overwhelmed their servers. It's clear once again that the technically-challenged Lieberman campaign can only continue to point fingers instead of taking responsibility for their own incompetence.

Sharoney
 
Followup:

The editor of the Time just emailed me for contact information. Apparently they plan to print the letter. She didn't say when.
 
That picture is altered... THE KISS IS NOT!!
 
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