I understand that Chris “capper” Liebenthal has become a popular whipping boy for so many on the right who want to attack public employees, liberal bloggers, and public employees who happen to be liberal bloggers, due to the trumped-up complaint filed against Liebenthal by Citizens for Responsible Government (CRG), a pro-Scott Walker outfit, but let’s look at some cold hard facts.
Despite the complaint filed with the Milwaukee County District Attorney’s office by CRG, capper was found to have broken no laws. In fact, the CRG complaint was so laughable it cited blog entries Liebenthal made on days off, national holidays, and furlough days as “proof” he was engaging in illegal behavior.
On the other hand, Darlene Wink, who served as Scott Walker’s director of constituent services when he was Milwaukee County Executive, was found out to have been posting pro-Walker, anti-Mark Neumann blog comments on JSOnline, and it’s widely speculated Wink was behind “ScottForGov,” a pro-Walker blog. It was later learned Wink had been doing her pro-Walker blog commenting while on taxpayer time using Milwaukee County resources, and she’s thought to be one of the targets of a John Doe investigation along with former Walker aide Tim Russell.
While Cynthia Archer’s role in all of this has yet to be made public, it’s worth noting that the FBI never raided capper’s personal residence, nor did they seize his persona home computers/hard drives.
As Emily Mills noted, comparing capper to Cynthia Archer is like comparing apples to oranges.
capper himself has more on this.
Most significantly, Capper was not found to have done what CRG accused him of doing. CRG started their attack on him with accusations that he was posting to his blog during work hours. The County said they found no evidence of that. Instead, they found he was spending too much time (in their legitimate view) reading the Web.
I wish people would be honest about this. All the day-time commenters on any blogs, right or left… all those MJS commenters… Apart from the retired “get off my lawn” types, I think many people are doing this on work time. It might be the reason so many hide behind anonymity or pseudonyms. Even if you aren’t reading or posting on work time, chances are good that the commenter above or below you is. There’s no honest discussion about this. Instead, they’ll attack Capper for doing the very same thing many others are doing.