More Flesh on the Bones

I recently received an interesting email from someone called Nancy Evans, who gave me permission to publish some illuminating information about "Diego" (She used his real name but I have altered it to "Diego" as is currently the policy on this site.)

There is a newsgroup soc.retirement which I read occasionally, and one of the posters is "Diego". He lives in Texas, is retired from the military, has a Spanish wife and visits Spain often and is much enthralled with flamenco music. He is a Republican who posts stuff put out by the Republican National Committee on soc.retirement. And brags about getting signed photos of George Bush for his service to the party.

[I don't know why I found this so funny. One does also begin to wonder how close and active "Diego" is in the GOP. Is he close enough for them to be embarrassed by him enough to kick him out? Most supporters of the Republican party are decent, honest, patriotic folks. It's hard to imagine they'd want someone as low, treacherous and unAmerican as "Diego" in their midst]

Someone on soc.retirement mentoned the original Riverbend blog and posted parts of it. "Diego" got very agitated and declared it a fake. Shortly thereafter, he posted a link to the Solerito website. And later to the fake Riversbend site. One of his Email addresses used to post to soc.retirement was buleria, which is Spanish for flamenco.

[..]

He has little friends on soc.retirement, some of whom were invited to contribute to the fake Riversbend site -- one said he was invited and declined. One of them published the fake entry by James Chambley (sic), who is a liberal contributor to soc.retirement. This group may sound like a bunch of old fogeys discussing retirement, but in fact it is a battleground between liberals and the right wing. No holds barred:)

[I found this very interesting. I have often wondered if "Diego" may be getting "aid and comfort" from other despicable elements. It did seem unlikely that a person could continue with absolute 100% derision going their way. The idea that a private coterie of goading enablers may be encouraging, even helping "Diego" behind the scenes is not an implausible one.

It could of course be coincidental but as far as I can see the only community online where anyone is either (a) defending the riverSbend smearblog or (b) expressing doubts as to "Diego's" responsibility for it, is indeed soc.retirement. No person of good faith elsewhere seems to be in doubt on these matters. So Im tending to doubt that the soc.retirement doubters are, of good faith. I think it's possible some are attempting to deflect blame, and diminish the misconduct out of a misguided esprit de corps]

Frankly, I think you should "out" him if you can, because he is just playing games and he and his conservative friends on soc.retirement make a habit of publishing the home addresses and phone numbers of liberals who post to this group. They take no prisoners, why should you?

[Truly despicable. And anyone who may harbour the belief that this campaign is too hard on "Diego" should know this. I have in my possession what I believe to be his home address and phone number - supplied by a reader of this site. I would not dream of posting this information in public. I think that is a despicable thing to do. The Bending Truth campaign will not sink to the low level of "Diego". (But note - that is not to say that if an individual wronged by "Diego" wishes to pursue legal action that I will feel any moral obligation to provide the information to them in confidence]

It is rich irony that he should get in trouble with someone from Fox because that is the holy network for the right winger in the newsgroup. What goes around comes around:)

At any rate, I am not at all surprised by what "Diego" has been up to. It has become quite entertaining to figure out what his next move will be.

The reason I am involved in this is that I think it is disgusting that Riverbend's blog has been imitated, though badly, when we should be celebrating that an Iraqi woman finally can speak for herself. If Americans don't like what she has to say, so be it.
But we should be happy she has a voice on the Internet. I thought bringing freedom to Iraqis was at least part of what the war was about.

[Amen to all that. That last paragraph expresses exactly what the Bending Truth campaign is about, and why it has supporters from all across the political spectrum who are able, unlike it seems some regulars of soc.retirement, to recognise when political activism has gone beyond the pale into illegality, deceit and dishonour]