Friday, March 16, 2007

Rewriting History



I know that a lot of people have conflicting opinions on Wikipedia. It's a phenomenal resource on a wide range of subjects and is easily accessible and regularly updated. That said, it's also vulnerable to abuse. Heated political campaigns, especially, tend to reveal that issue.

Tim Walberg's Wikipedia entry, it seems, has had its own small-scale problem, and today has been a busy day for editing the page. For instance, a user named Kurlansky briefly changed the link to Walberg's campaign site to that of the Club for Growth-- a change which was reverted fairly quickly. But the most significant changes came from an interesting source.

At 14:39 and 14:41 GMT, a user made changes that can be seen here. (The previous version of the article appears on the left, this user's changes are on the right.) What were the changes?

The following passages were removed from the article:
Walberg is known as both a social and economic conservative and was a congressional candidate in [[Michigan's 7th congressional district]] in 2004 in which he placed third. http://www.cqpolitics.com/2006/03/mi_7_schwarz_pressured_from_th.html
and
In October 2006, the Walberg campaign faced scandal when one of the campaign's employees pleaded guilty to child abuse charges. The allegations first appeared in the ''Jackson Citizen Patriot''. http://www.mlive.com/news/jacitpat/index.ssf?/base/news-19/1161878713322500.xml&coll=3 The allegations included severe injuries to a young childs face and body. The staffer was sentenced to probation. Walberg later said he would not discuss hiring decisions with the media.
In other words, the user wanted to remove the mention of Walberg's third-place finish in 2004 and of a major scandal that changed the nature of the 2006 race.

The user that made these changes signed them as "Rickibaxter." For those that have forgotten, Rick Baxter is Tim Walberg's district director and is a former member of the Michigan House of Representatives.

Now, I'm not going to jump to any conclusions, because I know it's easy to fake things on the internet and on Wikipedia. But it's a little suspicious, isn't it?

Anyway, that's what caught my eye tonight.

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Comments:
Hum, it seems my addition to the website was also deleted. I put an asterik on the 2006 primary and cited the fact there was only a 17 percent turnout districtwide which translated into less than 8 percent of the registered voters actually voted for Walberg.

He's never let facts get in the way of the truth, so why should this site be any different?

2008 is coming! Anybody but Walberg.
 
Anon-
Repost again with the source cited and it won't be touched! Also make a note of the site you found it on and repost as many times as Wally's people take it down.
More proof the reactionary right has nothing better to do than edit a wiki page.
 
I would not try to stay up on the wikipedia website. I tried it last fall, adding info on his flip-floping on earmarks (1st he said he would never support one, now he says he will support responsible earmarks). The changes I made, including excellent citations, we're "edited" out quickly.

Obviously, some of Walberg's supporters agree with his strategy of revising history, ignoring facts and warping the truth to fit their needs.

If you choose to work on his Wiki entry, good luck.
 
Off topic, but how old is Rick Baxter? His rise and fall to the state house seems to have happened to him at a very early age. About the only thing I know about him is that he made a huge personal loan to his first campaign (maybe like 50 or 60 thousand dollars.) He is an interesting political figure, and I say is fair game here as Walberg has entrusted the in-state offices to him.

One thing he needs to do is get Chris Simmons a new laptop. Simmons was on his radio show today complaining that he and his other office staff were sharing an old antique laptop hand-me-down.
 
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