Former Bachmann Political Director may have vandalized Democrat’s Wikipedia Entry

It is hard to prove, but the evidence certainly leads in that direction.

The former Bachmann campaign official in question is Luke Hellier, previously featured on Quiche Morain here. There is no doubt whatsoever that Hellier’s commentary on the Minnesota Democrats Exposed blog, regarding editing of Jim Meffert’s Wikipedia entry was dishonest. I had not mentioned this in my earlier post at QM, but Ed Kohler of The Deets clearly and painstakingly documents that Hellier “quote mined” the Wikipedia change log to make it look like a Meffert volunteer was acting inappropriately. It turns out that the volunteer was fixing vandalism that had happened earlier on Meffert’s site.

And there is some evidence, not conclusive but … interesting … that this vandalism was carried out by Luke Hellier.

The details are complex and I would not do justice to the argument to repeat it here. Visit The Deets to learn more: @LukeHellier’s Lie of Omission Regarding Wikipedia Vandalism.

Additional information:

Comments

#1 Art
June 26, 2010

Pretty standard “ratfucker” methodology:
Screw a reference to the intended victim up. This gives the victim a choice of leaving the reference screwed, a tacit agreement the slur is warranted, or change it back, which will be interpreted as either a coverup or an attempt to censor the free speech rights of the person who is doing the screwing.

By alternating playing of the various cards (victim, unbiased inquirer, free-speech, nonpartisan investigator, reporter being the most popular) the ratfucker can keep the game going and confuse the issue enough that they can extract themselves and avoid blame.
#2 Pinky
June 27, 2010

What was the dealio with Hellier changing Jim Meffert’s surname to a hyphenated one on Meffert’s Wikipedia page? Was it a misguided effort to make Meffert appear aristocratic and therefore one of those dreaded elites?
#3 Canadian Curmudgeon
June 27, 2010

In our little Canadian province of Prince Edward island about 2 elections ago, two people took it upon themselves to update the then premier’s Wikipedia entry. Each one represented a differing opinion of the politician. The bio was changed about a dozen times in 3 days causing the Wikipedia admins to shut the editing process off until after the elections.

It was the first time many people here had heard of Wikipedia.