I’ve come out in support of vouchers, but not very supportive of the often weak efforts of the pro-voucher groups. Not supportive and downright disgusted are two different things. This makes me downright disgusted. So far the misleading email has not been conclusively tied to any official pro-voucher group but I don’t trust them enough to abandon that possibility. I would like to think that this is the work of a weasel who thought he’d do his part to help the cause – if so then someone needs to track him down and shout “Hey, you’re not helping!!”
At the risk of having someone throw eggs at my house I just have to consider the slim chance of reverse-psychology logic leading voucher supporters to pull this trick to manufacture yet another black eye for their inept opponents.
Isn’t politics lovely?
As much as I’d like to blame this on PCE or Sutherland or some other suitably evil pro-voucher group it seems pretty clear that the Utah Blogosphere’s most infamous pretend pirate and spammer is behind this one. Since no campaign in their right mind hire him I’m betting he’s acting alone.
The “vouchernews.blogspot” site linked in the email is where Towner has been posting articles about vouchers and the UEA for the past couple months under the pseudonym of “Jason Bourne”.
I must be really slow – I didn’t realize that Towner had adopted another identity for his vouchernews blog. I’ve stumbled upon it before (even as a supporter I was not overly impressed) and I just assumed it was his. I guess it would make sense to try a little self-promotion with such an email campaign.
Maybe I’ll pop over there and leave a “Hey, you’re not helping!!” comment.
Ugh…it looks like Anon was wrong. According to this blog post:
http://againstutahvouchers.blogspot.com/2007/10/more-on-voucher-spam.html
PCE actually paid Mr. Towner to do this type of thing for them.
Thanks for the follow-up. That post by Mata Hari (that’s almost as lame as Jason Bourne) is pretty conclusive, but leaves just enough unproven to allow Mark and PCE to protest their innocence.
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About the only unsure thing right now is if PCE gave Mark carte blanche to do whatever he thought would help or if they provided input as to what exactly he did. At any rate, someone had to know what they were getting into by hiring him.
I didn’t notice that the address had been confirmed as Mark’s. You’re right that nobody (not even PCE) would hire someone without any idea of what that person was supposed to be doing.
If Mark Towner is able to come out of this not guilty, then I will apologize. But as for now, I suggest that no one from either side have anything to do with him. I suspect he’s in it for the intrigue and entertainment.
Perhaps Towner WANTS vouchers to fail. His tactics are surely damaging to the pro-voucher effort.
Having seen what he’s admitted to in the past, it aggravates me to no end when I see his stories (pretty much spam themselves) on Utah Bloghive. I suggest his feed be removed from Utah Bloghive until he can apologize for his silly tactics and until he can contribute something worthwhile to the blogging community.
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