KR writes, "Alan's post (which is definitely worth a read) suggests that if I really want to know who is writing a blog like his, I ought to just ask. Fair enough — but I'm pretty easily found too."
***
KR, this is another good example of how some of your stuff does not make sense. A disconnect of reasoning. This one and your idea of "Otter forfeit the housing allowance because you are a millionaire" are two recent ones- fa sur!

I blogged about it too.

http://www.daniweb.com/blogs/entry3662.html

http://www.horsesass.org/?p=11016

Extreme language alert, but it includes this choice passage:

"But perhaps the worst thing one could say about Hartgen’s proposal is not that it is merely assinine, unconstitutional, unnecessary or even mind-numbingly stupid, but that it is downright unAmerican—an unpatriotic insult to the proud pseudonymous tradition of Publius, Anonymous, Mrs. Silence Dogood and other founding fathers.

"If these great pamphleteers were alive today, they’d be bloggers all, and I’ve no doubt they’d join me, anonymously or not, in asking Rep. Hartgen the question that should be posed to all those who threaten the essential freedoms ensconced in our First Amendment: why do you hate America?"

Full disclosure: I, too, worked at The Times-News once upon a time. The alumni ranks run deep.

Mr. Richert,

On 12/14/08, I wrote a long and detailed message on another thread regarding the legislation you claim Mr. Hartgen is “drafting.” I took the time to write that post because I think this entire “debate” is based on the misinterpretation of a single sentence that was republished out of context, and without attribution, by the Idaho State Journal in Pocatello.

To your credit, on 12/15/08, you responded to some of my questions by revealing that before you wrote your original post on this subject, you had "interviewed Hartgen for about 40 minutes" because you had “a lot of questions about the mechanics of and motivation for the bill." But you did not answer my question as to whether Mr. Hartgen actually confirmed during your conversation that he was "drafting" a bill, nor did you explain the questions you asked of Mr. Hartgen regarding the mechanics and motivation for the bill, nor did you report the answers Mr. Hartgen gave to your questions.

For me, this debate is not about Mr. Hartgen’s “draft” legislation, it is about media accountability. I think my questions are reasonable, Mr. Richert, and I think that you, as a professional journalist and editor of this newspaper, should answer them. Will you, please?

----------
The lost and the damned will teach you still. Will you listen?

Readers who quickly categorize anonymous comments to their personal biases, is a variation of an ad hominem attack, instead of discounting content based on identity, real or alleged flaws; it is based on presumed flaws, based solely on lack of identity, quite a logical absurdity.

All this amounts to be is a preemptive character assassination.

Nowhere is there a scientific method (maybe in intelligent design teachings) that accounts personal identity to validation of authenticity, not surprisingly, a journalist suggests anonymous writers are operating outside of any reasonable ethical line. Is your type of journalism about informing people or is it about maintaining special privileges for a group of self-appointed journalists, politicians and activists who believe they should control what other people know.

Are anonymous posters less credible? Perhaps at times, anonymous bloggers can and have built solid reputations with their readers by proving themselves to be consistently credible. Claiming there is no integrity or credibility in anonymous postings, is a rhetoric tool of the conservative movement and their politicians, over the last decade they have worked very hard to marginalize legitimate political dissent found in modern technology that they cannot control or understand.

It is a Western culture intellectual tradition to have anonymous authors, Thomas Jefferson wrote under fictitious names to stir up the political pot to get his point across, look at our roots and who and were we came from before your quick to take away freedom of speech.

Dec. 11, 2008, a judge ruled, Oregon law allowing newspapers to shield news source identities, also protects anonymous writers who post comments to media web sites. These web sites can not be compelled to identify anonymous writers under federal law; this decision was one of the first to expand news media protections to anonymous comments on the Internet. Montana judge issued a similar ruling in September, indicating anonymous comments to newspaper web sites are akin to confidential sources.

Either you allow anonymous comments or you don’t. The Internet presents very tricky legal questions about First Amendment rights, the law that has emerged over the last decade in major court decisions are all very pro-free speech, without any doubts.

Journalists rely on an interpretation of rights under the First Amendment to keep anonymous news sources anonymous. Regardless of whether you believe in anonymous news sources there's no denying reporters need and use confidentiality, so why is extending that benefit even to anonymous writers who want the freedom of engaging in ideas and thoughts without threatening or compromising their own lives, so hard to accept. Maybe there’s more to the issue than is told, is it because old school newspapers across the nation are losing large circulations chunks, without any competition. It's not surprising old school media is going with the conservative movement and gunning for bloggers and anonymous participants, too bad.

With a number of very successful reliable and creditable alternative internet news sources and bloggers in Idaho, why instead of attacking them don’t you utilize them, for a better look at Idaho’s everyday life and our real issues? Idaho politics has seriously polarized our great state so much that your paper cannot even acknowledge the creditable dissent and its accuracy found in Idaho’s alternative news, good luck with your efforts.

----------
The lost and the damned will teach you still. Will you listen?

Hartgen is just ticked off, like many Republicans, because Democrats and progressives figured out how to use internet politically effectively, like the R's did with talk radio.

It wasn't long ago someone was crying about those of us who never leave our names, yada, yada, yada. The same clown was a Vietnam Vet & thought we stopped communism there. Why anyone would listen to a guy who was in Vietnam & still believes over thirty years later we stopped communism after crawling home with a President like Nixon?

Like Nixon, Bush, commander in Chief, only an officer willing to sacrifice lives & never know the truth would believe that was success. Spin it with campaign finance.

The republicans were taking a beating on the interent so they paid a writer to come on the blog & stir the pot. Campaign finance didn't it done there either, some people believed but the republicans lost the big race. They did it to themselves with war & murder while running America into the dirt finacially. If that doesn't support the idea of taking campaign contributions & putting them in the general fund, I don't know what does.

The current finacial crisis is the biggest scam the world has ever seen, makes Madoff's caper, {which wouldn't have surfaced if the real scam hadn't hit US,} look like a church social. How does a country like the US go from, we're not in a recession to suddenly needing a $700 billion bailout? The same fool who claimed we stopped communism in Vietnam said we weren't in a recession & here we are facing a depression as bad as we've ever seen? There's a guy we should take stock in.

Now our representatives are going to waste time & money trying to make bloggers give up their identity? Don't we have anything better to do? We need $240 million for roads, how about giving that a little attention or the campaign $ they spend on this non issue? Go ahead, if that's what the GOP is all about. Republicommunism isn't any better than plain old fashioned communism.

The American people will never learn, the smartest thing Idahoans could do is dump the control freak GOP. Trading all other rights for gun rights doesn't show much intelligence. The same poor intelligence led US into war in Iraq.

Now we're going back to Afghanistan where our government is covering up mass murder by allies & supporting the drug trade. Iraq would have waited & would have been easier had we taken care of Afghanistan first.

With our government turning a blind eye to the drug trade in Afghanistan the war on drugs in America is another mission accomplished I suppose. I wonder why we need more $ for prisons & a detox center. Could it be campaign contributions?

America has become the biggest joke in the world. Terrorist can't lose as long as the American people keep going for the lies & scams we're being taken by through our representation. We'll bounce from Afghansitan to Pakistan, to where ever terrorist want US through our representation in the pocket of corporate unAmerica. We're really getting our money's worth in Pakistan.

Democracy isn't any better than communism or socialism when representation is in the pocket of campaign contributors. America is as social as a country can get, from taxes, public education, to Social Security, yet the GOP is all about Obama being a socialist? Spin it with campaign finance
& somehow we're not? Hasn't the eight year lie proven anything?

My birth year of 1966 was their 1000th anniversary as I seem to recall!

----------
The lost and the damned will teach you still. Will you listen?