Our new Brutus

"Minnesota Democrat Exposer"'s latest reply to his critics is a stirring defense of the right to publish anonymously that harkens back to the Republic's earliest days. Why, remember when the anonymous Anti-Federalists named their own letters The Federalist Papers to confuse supporters of the Constitution?

Oh wait. The Anti-Federalists were honest about what they were selling, and their letters became known as the Anti-Federalist Papers. (For reference, an interesting chronology of this extended debate.)

He also accuses the DFL of hypocrisy for engaging in the same practices with three examples that utterly miss the mark. Let's review them.

1. The DFL has a PawlentyFacts.com website. You'll notice a difference between PawlentyFacts.com and the domains that MDE registered: PattyWetterlingForSenate.com, WetterlingForSenate.com, MikeHatchForGovernor.com, AmyKlobucharForUSSenate.com. PawlentyFacts.com is a site about Pawlenty. It doesn't pretend to be Pawlenty's site. Anonymously registering political domains pretending to be other than what they are is sleazy.
2. The DFL has linked to Pawlenty Exposed, which is run anonymously (actually, it's something of an homage to MDE). Sorry, I missed the part where Pawlenty Exposed registered PawlentyForPresident.com in order to direct more traffic to his website...
3. The DFL benefited from cybersquatting after someone registered RandySkoglund.com, after the name of a MNGOP party official. What this leaves out is: 1) The just-deserts factor: at the time, Skoglund was cybersquatting on TimPenny.com and other DFL-inspired names. 2) Who did this? I bet they didn't do it anonymously, and MDE has presented no evidence that the DFL was involved in any way. 3) Skoglund is a nobody, he wasn't considering a run for elective office. 4) This domain has now lapsed, and is still unprocessed. Apparently Skoglund didn't care enough about his name to pick up the domain when it expired.

MDE won't address the real reason why his behavior is at issue. Instead, he's hiding behind his right to anonymity. I think Flash does a good job of summarizing the real problem with what he's done:

So I will share in their defense of anonymous free speech. But I will also use my right of free speech as well. I find it cowardly to hide behind an anonymous non de plume when you are attempting to thrust yourself into the political spotlight. I believe it effects your credibility. It should also make one leary that if you can't even be honest about who you are, how can you trust the information that is being disseminated. [emphasis mine]

I said yesterday that MDE wants to have credibility without accountability And as a commenter here noted, he's removed comments from his blog so he can't be challenged there, and he's removed links to local liberal blogs where readers might find a counter to what he's saying [Note: I checked on this last night, but it seems that the links have since been added]. So far, he hasn't linked to any criticism by local bloggers of what he's done, though it's appeared on at least three sites.

After Randy Skoglund registered DFL names, we knew who he was to criticize him. We knew he was the deputy executive director of the Minnesota Republican Party. Not so with MDE. For all we know, he is Randy Skoglund, up to his old tricks.

I urge MDE to either come clean and let us know who he is, or relinquish the domains he bought at cost to the injured parties.

Title Note: Brutus was a common pseudonym used in publishing the Anti-Federalist papers.