The Enlightened Despot

It’s about time I came clean: my name is not ‘Akhbar’ and I was not born in 1542.  I’ve decided it’s best you hear it from me, rather than from some legislator I offend, as happened to AKMuckraker:

The day that Sarah Palin got nominated to be John McCain’s Vice President, life changed.  My sister called me at some pre-dawn hour and said, “Did you hear?”  I, like many Alaskans, was completely stunned.  Sarah Palin?  Was I still dreaming?  Really?  I knew I had to take the day off.  I made a pot of coffee, and thought to myself, that my 250 people might not be the only ones interested in this VP pick.  Now, many people adored Sarah Palin, and maybe some of them had blogs too….I had never checked, but they must be out there somewhere.  But I knew some things about her, and her policies and positions that others might not be able to find out so easily.  I decided to write my opinion.  So I wrote a post, “What Is McCain Thinking?  One Alaskan’s Perspective.” And that’s exactly what the piece was - one Alaskans perspective.  My perspective.  Just in case anyone was interested.

It took me about 45 minutes to crank it out and click Publish.  (Yes, I was still in my pajamas at the time) And it turned out that people were interested. Really interested.  By the time I’d made myself a couple eggs and toast, and sat back down there were more than 7,000 hits.  By the end of the day there were 64,000.  The total readership of that post ended up being almost 270,000 with more than 1300 comments.  To say I was shocked is putting it mildly.  I began to get emails and comments asking me when I was going to post again, asking questions about Palin, and saying that this was the only “real” information they were getting.

…

After [publishing a post critical of State Representative Mike Doogan] in Mudflats, I started hearing from fellow bloggers that Mike Doogan was trying to figure out who I was.  It seemed strange to me, because really, all I’d done was take his own words and actions and comment on them.  Anyone was perfectly free to disagree, or comment on the piece.

…

I didn’t think much more about it until yesterday, when I got this email:

From: “doogans@gci.net” <doogans@gci.net>
To: akmuckraker@yahoo.com
Sent: Thursday, March 26, 2009 2:55:14 PM
Subject: your identity

Jeanne:

I am reliably told that you are the anonymous blogger who writes Mudflats. I am planning to reveal this in the enews I send to my constituents tomorrow, and am writing to let you know this and offer the opportunity to comment.

Mike Doogan

I was a bit surprised to see my real name, as you can imagine.  But after the initial surprise wore off, it really hit me.  This is an elected State Representative, of my own political party, who has decided that it’s not OK for me to control the information about my identity; that it’s not OK to express my opinion on my own blog without shouting from the rooftops who I am.

This infuriates and saddens me. But I’ll start by saying that I am biased on at least two fronts: I am an (ostensibly) anonymous blogger, and I am a fan of Mudflats. I qualify the former point for a reason: I don’t care about anonymity, and I have done nothing to protect mine. People I know are aware that I write for this blog under the name ‘Akhbar the Great’. Occasional contributor and regular source of background information Meiji is also not very anonymous, because I’m not, and I don’t know all that many members of the United States Marine Corps. We adopted the pseudonyms because Frederick wanted to remain anonymous, and thus far that has worked out swimmingly.

If the Despot were to become famous overnight - yeah, I know, but just hear me out - that wouldn’t, I imagine, make Frederick any more eager to reveal his identity. Indeed, I would think anyone who doesn’t want to admit their authorship of a blog with a small readership would care at least as much, if not more, about concealing his identity on a blog with a huge readership. Yet Doogan felt that by becoming widely read and influential, AKMudflats forfeited her right to anonymity. Doogan had this to say in his defense:

My own theory about the public process is you can say what you want, as long as you are willing to stand behind it using your real name.

If you turn that comma into a period and purge the rest, you have a sensible take on American freedom of speech. The right to comment on government does not have enterance requirements. Nor is anonymity a child of blogging. Perhaps Mr. Doogan is unfamiliar with the Federalist Papers, but if so, he doesn’t belong in government in the first place.

The good news, however, is that in a place as small (population-wise, of course) as Alaska, a blogger with a large national audience is much more of a heavyweight than a low level elected official; I strongly suspect that Doogan has just torpedoed his own career. In the meantime, AKMudflats is back to work reporting on (amongst other things) the ever expanding list of Palin scandals. The latest:

She has selected Tim Grussendorf as the person to replace the recently relocated to Washington D.C. Senator Kim Elton.

Normally, the Senate sends a list of 3 possible replacements to the governor, who chooses one.  This time the Senators bucked tradition because one candidate shone so brightly above all others - Rep. Beth Kerttula.  The candidate must be a Democrat who lives in Juneau, and Kerttula is smart, very qualified, and ready to step from her role in the house, to a new position in the senate without missing a beat.  She is so beloved and respected, that hers was the only name submitted to the governor.  This one is kind of a no-brainer, which means right off the bat, we know we’re in trouble.

Here’s the problem.

Kerttula has been an outspoken opponent of the governor for quite some time.  And we all know how that works out for people.

So, the governor made an announcement saying she’d like to get applications from other qualified Alaskans who are interested in the appointment.  It’s kind of like when the teacher asks a question, only one kid raises their hand, jumping up and down in their seat,  and the teacher scans the room and says, “Anybody?  Anybody else??”  Obviously Kerttula wasn’t going to get the nod.  At least not in the first round.

And so after interviews, Palin has made her selection.  She has chosen Legislative aid Tim Grussendorf.  I, like many of you, had no idea who Tim Grussendorf was.  And let me start off by saying, he may be a stand up guy. *shrug*  But we know this:

Until two weeks ago, he was a registered Republican. According to Grussendorf, he didn’t realize he was registered as a Republican and it was some kind of clerical error in 2006.  I’m not entirely clear on how someone could have gone through the 2008 political season and not realize one was a registered Republican, but that’s the story.  I guess the “R” on the voter registration card slipped under the radar.  Perhaps he thought all those donation requests, and shiny 4-color postcards, and letters from the Republican party were just coincidence.  We may never know.

Just when you think Palin is done shocking you, she goes and does something like this. I don’t see how grabbing one more seat for her party can possibly be worth the blowback on such obvious fraud, but this is just Palin being Palin. God bless her, and AKMudflats too, for keeping up the good work.

Tags: Alaskan politics, jerks, metaposting, Palin

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 31st, 2009 at 1:55 am and is filed under posts by Akhbar. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.