Wessonality

Lisa Jones e-mails from Rocky Watch about a very interesting--what?--slip of the tongue, perhaps, by ex-Ward Churchill investigating committee member Robert Johansen in an e-mail he wrote to the Churchill-besotted folks over at The Try-Works. They had asked Johansen what he thought about his treatment since Pirate Ballerina outed his laudatory comments about Churchill and forced him to resign from the committee.

Johansen's reply is basically the one he's already become a bore using: he was treated unfairly by an "Orwellian, McCarthyite, Swift Boat Vets" smear campaign--this time with the added little egocentricity of comparing himself explicitly to Edward R. Murrow.

Sure.

But what's interesting about Johansen's e-mail, as Jones points out in the comments to the post, is the light it may or may not shed on the identity of the site's pseudonymous poster, "John Moredock." Johansen says,

My reading of the chatter on pirateballerina.com is that they're now going after the other three "stooges," and that they may want the emails to link you three to Rob and myself. I see on the website that Paine is attacking you for such outrages as being interviewed on NPR, and for Radelet's public opposition to the death penalty. On Margorie, he can't find anything, but he pledges to keep looking.

"[E]-mails to link you three"; Paine is attacking you." Here's Jones' comment:

You e-mailed Johansen, and this was his response to you. So may we now presume that you are Mimi Wesson? Why else would Johansen say: "...they may want the emails to link you three to Rob and myself. I see on the website that Paine is attacking you for such outrages as being interviewed on NPR, and for Radelet's public opposition to the death penalty. On Margorie, he can't find anything, but he pledges to keep looking." "...having "gotten" Williams and myself, may now drown in their own excess going after the rest of you." Ms. Wesson, in light of your involvement on this blog, do you really feel that you can investigate Churchill impartially?

"Moredock's" reply (after cutting the usual invective) is essentially, "Get a grip, he was addressing the remaining committee through us, practice your close-reading skills."

But it is odd, because while Moredock's lead-in to Johansen's response says they asked him "to give the three members left on the committee some advice," nowhere does Johansen directly say he is addressing those members. He never says "I would say to them," or, "What I would tell them is. . .", he just addresses them as "you."

So, it is possible that Moredock is Wesson, but the Drunkablog tends rather toward the simplest explanation: Johansen is a sloppy writer. In fact I am still of the opinion that The Try-Works is merely a front for Churchill's Colorado American Indian Movement. Whatever. The truth is that "Moredock," whoever he is, is a coward who viciously and personally attacks people from behind his anonymity. Why don't you reveal yourself, Moredock, and let people google your name?

Update: Lisa Jones e-mails with some good questions:

Note that Johanson says: "attacking you for such outrages as being interviewed on NPR" -- then he mentions the other two committee members by name. Wesson is the only one on NPR, as far as I know. She's a regular.

But the real puzzler for me is Johansen's comment: "they may want the e-mails to link you three to Rob and myself." What e-mails? What "they"? Do e-mails exist that link the 5 committee members in a way that might be construed as conflict of interest? Or that might somehow compromise the impartiality of the committee?

Hmmm.

Yeah, hmmm.

Update II: Lisa e-mailed Johansen to try to clear up the speculation his odd wording has caused, and received a reply which pretty much does just that. Johansen even takes the time to throw a little mud on his brave defenders at The Try-Works. Excellent.