I am reaching the conclusion we on the political Right may have been deceived by Americans for Limited Government (ALG).
As readers of Big Government know, late last Friday, ALG issued a press release claiming it had received an offensive e-mail from Dateline NBC producer, Jane Stone. Within hours, the Rightroots had been mobilized and the story when viral.
Known as the “Bite me Jew boy” e-mail, both Ms. Stone and NBC were pilloried by the Right. Throughout the weekend, Matthew Vadum chronicled the exchange of statements and press releases here on the BigGovernment.com website.
So Now What?
It’s been five days and ALG has yet to provide indisputable evidence to prove its claim and NBC continues to back Ms. Stone’s assertion she never sent the e-mail in question.
In making its claim, ALG gambled its credibility with activists and media contacts to help push a story that increasingly looks like a hoax. In at least 2 press releases, ALG very publicly accused a respected media professional for a major media outlet of an explicit act of anti-Semitism; a charge that if true would damage her reputation and destroy her career.
Collectively, the political Right advanced the story and stirred the pot after assurances from ALG that they had their facts straight and had done their due diligence. To date, it appears they had neither.
There are several plausible scenarios, none of which seem to justify a rush to mobilize the troops and publish multiple press releases. These scenarios could include:
SCENARIO 1.) Jane Stone actually wrote an inexplicably offensive e-mail and then followed that moment of stupidity with an outrageous lie to her employer, who then risked the reputation of a major network with an unequivocal denial on behalf of a racist employee. UNLIKELY
SCENARIO 2.) A rogue individual at ALG duped their ALG colleagues by intercepting an e-mail received from NBC, edited the e-mail, and passed it along as legitimate. ALG management then used the same individual or an otherwise unqualified source to complete their “due diligence” efforts. POSSIBLE
SCENARIO 3.) ALG received a legitimate e-mail from Ms. Stone’s Blackberry, decided to edit the text of the e-mail, and began the process of generating publicity with an outrageous and wholly fabricated accusation of racism. The story goes viral, screenshots don’t satisfy the skeptics, and ALG is asked to produce detailed header and server records that do not exist. I PRAY THIS DIDN’T HAPPEN
SCENARIO 4.) Someone used Ms. Stone’s Blackberry and sent the e-mail without her knowledge. ALG received the e-mail, did its due diligence, and published its claim. Ms. Stone denied the claims made by ALG, confident that she did not send the e-mail in question from her Blackberry. PROBABLE
I don’t pretend to know which, if any, of these scenarios is accurate, but as I tweeted shortly after the story broke, “Someone at NBC or ALG is LYING. When they show the e-mail in question (w/ the complete headers), we will know who.”
Yesterday, I spoke with the folks over at ALG and was told they have no plans to release additional information. And while the release of more information could resolve this issue, they continue to stand behind a goofy screenshot conspicuously missing to only real evidence that could validate their claim. In doing so, they have demonstrated a willingness to behave exactly like those on the left who use baseless accusations of racism to advance their political agenda. By not publishing complete e-mail header information, it also looks like they have a disregard for the truth, the inability to conduct meaningful due diligence, and/or an ignorance of the basic technologies involved.
It is the responsibility of those in each faction of a political movement to hold its own accountable.
Anti-Semitism (and racism) is a serious matter and should never be used by any political organization as a tool in its communications toolbox. As Right and Center-right political activists, our credibility on this issue is at stake when one of our own engages in distasteful tactics. As such, it is incumbent on the Right to leverage its influence and demand ALG produce real proof of their allegations. When and if such proof is not forthcoming, I hope we all use our resources to rebuke ALG with the same level of outrage we had when the original story first broke.
I hope I’m wrong about ALG, but my gut is telling me we’ve been played. What do you think?
September 30th, 2009 at 6:33 pm
As a consultant who works with large enterprise email systems all the time, it was pretty obvious once NBC execs went public that they had traced the message on their side and it did not contain the offensive remarks, that ALG was the culprit.
It would have taken the NBC IT guys probably 30 minutes to track the message from the blackberry, to the blackberry server, to the email server, to the external SMTP relay. Which would actually track the connection, to the provider who hosts ALG’s email domain (Postini by the way), length of the connection(in milliseconds), and the bytes transferred.
Oh, and since ALG uses Postini as their SMTP relay/anti spam provider the detailed message information, including a copy of the message is available, this is a configurable setting, so it probably is defaulted to 24 hours. ALG also uses Microsoft Exchange 2007, and all the detailed message info is stored on the server and can be accessed from the admin console in about 5 minutes.
Now, that’s to get the absolute techyist details, but the header info is in the email UI from Outlook Web Access, which ALG has made available from any internet connected computer. All you need is the user name and password, which I’d guess ALG has.
Well, that’s what I thought at least.
September 30th, 2009 at 8:29 pm
We have totally been played. I just wish people on the right would rip into ALG as they properly deserve. It’s small comfort that they destroyed their credibility with anyone who heard the story. Lazy groups that make bombastic charges should be eradicated. What a discredit to the people who actually do good work for limited government.
October 1st, 2009 at 10:10 am
One hopes that the “Right” would apply the same standard to media personalities such as Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, and Lou Dobbs.
October 1st, 2009 at 3:55 pm
It is the responsibility of those in each faction of a political movement to hold its own accountable.
Anti-Semitism (and racism) is a serious matter and should never be used by any political organization as a tool in its communications toolbox.
Uh, so, are you all at last repudiating the Southern Strategy?
October 1st, 2009 at 10:09 pm
Ms Stone lied.
Seeing the headers proves nothing. The only way to be sure is to look at the raw sent mail spool, not the interface. Even then, the raw spool can be modified without anyone being the wiser. It takes less than one tenth of a second to do so. No tracks and no problem for anyone with root access and an understanding of stream editing.
Do you really think that ALG has a Unix geek on their staff or at their disposal to make such modifications?
I don’t.
My best guess is that ALG uses a third party for their email, and while they can probably look at their raw received mail spool, they probably can’t modify them.
NBC can’t say the same thing.
Ms. Stone lied.
October 21st, 2009 at 11:43 am
Badanov –
The problem is that you have jumped to the conclusion of “Ms. Stone lied” without the proof. Proof is available and has not yet been published. That fact alone makes the accusation questionable.
Why are you are willing to take ALG at their word when proof is readily available? It seems the same logic would allow you to accept the word of those who falsely accused Rush Limbaugh of racism.
Without proof, accusations are just accusations. Racism is a serious issue and needs to be handled carefully by all parties.