BlueMeanie Too Kind to Huppenthal?

The BlueMeanie wrote what would seem to be a timely post, Sockpuppet John Huppenthal also trolled Wikipedia, in which he reminded us that in 2006 ole Thuckenthal was busted for whitewashing his Wikipedia page. Obviously similar behavior to what we’ve noticed here.

But it seems BlueMeanie let Huppenthal off too easy. You see, there was an exchange of comments that occurred between an “anonymous” commenter and the proprietor of the blog, who went by the name Geo. The comment exchange made for reading as good as the post, which was quite good, by the way.

Yes, we can’t know for sure who the commenter was, but the M.O. was vintage Huppenthal, including the sock puppetry. But it’s not the sock puppetry that makes the comment noteworthy. It’s the obsessive compulsive nature of the commenter. You see, this comment was posted on a two-year old post that appeared on a blog that had gone defunct. Who on this planet is obsessive enough to go to such lengths to defend John Huppenthal? Before jumping to answer that, remember the title of my post from earlier this week: Does Anyone Actually Like John Huppenthal?

Here are the first few sentences of the proprietor’s response to the “anonymous” comment:

Dear “Anonymous”,

You have got to be kidding me. On a thread that is over two years old, posted on a blog that has been defunct for over a year, you drive by to make your comment and open a controversy that I’m sure most people had forgotten about long ago? Wow.

The entire exchange follows after the jump.

Anonymous said…

Huppenthal received a call from Mesa Community College that a group of students would like to meet with a Senator – not even necessarily students from his district.

Geo was one of those students- a fact he does not present in this column.

He told those students of the work that he was doing in the area of performance pay for teachers in Arizona and how he was writing it up on Wikipedia so that the underlying theory could be shared with other states.

Geo vandalized all of that work and was able to terminate it.

Arizona is the only state in the nation where every teacher in the state has a substantial amount of pay tied to measured performance. All this arises directly from Huppenthal’s research and legislation.

Geo’s information is just incorrect. Mead outspent Huppenthal about two to one in that campaign – directly from the spending records.

Huppenthal’s correction of Mead’s wikipedia corrected that entry and reworded another sentence to cast Mead in a better light, something Geo also forgets.

Anonymous

Geo said…

Dear “Anonymous”,

You have got to be kidding me. On a thread that is over two years old, posted on a blog that has been defunct for over a year, you drive by to make your comment and open a controversy that I’m sure most people had forgotten about long ago? Wow.

Well, let me respond briefly, I guess. Two key things folks can and should take away from our exchange:

1. Everything I said is true and unimpeachably documented by links to the pages on Wikipedia where anyone can verify it. So they don’t have to wonder which of us is more believable, they can check it out for themselves. So can you, if you are interested.

2. Senator Huppenthal has already admitted to making these edits. His attempts to rationalize them were embarrassing and documented here, as well.

I think that’s really it, in a nutshell.

Now, to address a couple of your tangential comments, lt me say that it’s fun to engage in hyperbolic language from time to time. But when it reaches the point of unjust accusation, it really must be rebutted.

When you say I “vandalized all that work”, I’m afraid I have to call you out on that. I never edited or touched the Wikipedia entries or modified them in any way. I take the accusation that I vandalized Huppenthal’s work as an offensively bold deceit and it does you no credit.

If I have “terminated” anything, it was Senator Huppenthal’s attempt to covertly edit Wikipedia to expunge it of any controversial and unflattering statements about himself or his political friends. My sole act in this regard was to shine a little sunlight on what he had done. If anything, being able to uncover even so relatively trivial an example of injudicious propagandizing from an elected official is a point of personal pride. Again, all this is documented, so no one has to wonder at my veracity: they can look it up for themselves.

On the barely relevant matter of the meeting with Senator Huppenthal in which he first mentioned that he had been editing Wikipedia, it seems pretty much inconsequential to me. Your comment seems to suggest that he might have concealed that information had he known I was one of his constituents. If that’s your intent, it reflects even worse on him.

But just to clarify, I was there with a group of about 8 members of a student organization geared to training and empowering private citizens to take a more active role in influencing public policy with their elected officials. The group was not a Mesa Community College group (of which I was not a student, anyway) but had representatives from all over the Valley. That you have been misinformed on this point makes it clear that you were not one of the members of our group – who certainly would know better – but that you have been misinformed by (or, possibly, are) Senator Huppenthal, himself.

I didn’t mention that group in this post because I run this blog on my own time as a private citizen and not as a function of any organization or business concern. Senator Huppenthal was clearly told the nature of the group he was visiting with and, aside from the group, I explicitly introduced myself to him and told him that I ran this blog in my private time. To be sure, I don’t recall whether I told him that before or after he mentioned he had been editing Wikipedia, but again, this seems irrelevant to the larger issue. As I say, the idea that he might have concealed the information had he known I was his constituent or that I was internet-savvy would reflect even worse upon him.

A wise person once said that when you find yourself in a hole, stop digging. That would be my advice to Senator Huppenthal’s supporters on this matter. A discussion thread which had lain dead for over two years, on a blog that has been defunct much of that time, is no place to dredge up unsavory controversies that can only further damage his reputation. I have no interest in unduly raking Senator Huppenthal over the coals and would be happy to let the record speak for itself and for all of us to move on. I’d urge Senator Huppenthal’s supporters to do likewise.

A final note: not too long after this thread was posted, I emailed Senator Huppenthal and offered him equal time. I told him that I knew I’d been rough on him on this blog in exposing the things I had, but wanted to give him the opportunity to share some things he felt were important, as opposed to just responding to criticisms. I offered him the forum without preconditions, even though I recognized that he was probably disinclined, given the nature of my most recent exchange with him on the Wikipedia issue. In the two years since that offer was made, I have not heard from him and am not holding my breath.

In any event, I wish you – whomever you are behind your cloak of anonymity – a pleasant and joyous 2009.

Sincerely,

Geo


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2 thoughts on “BlueMeanie Too Kind to Huppenthal?”

  1. This has all been very fun to see Huppenthal’s narcissism on display, but let’s not forget his wrong-headed policy decisions that are so harmful to Arizona children. The four hr ELL block, that Huppenthal has never decried, charter school favoritism over district schools, and the stealing of public money with empowerment scholarships. Then there’s the racist campaign he ran promising to end La Raza studies, which was nothing more than a dog whistle to the right wing. Eight years of Tom Horne and four of Huppenthal has set Arizona public education back decades, and all the Common Core tests in the world, will not bring it back any time soon.

    • I agree, but aren’t the narcissism and the wrong-headed policy decisions inextricably linked?

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