Ed Herschler, the crusty three-term governor of Wyoming during the 1970s and into the mid-’80s, was a Democrat, but clearly the most popular politician in that rabidly Republican state.
The reason for his popularity was largely his down-to-earth demeanor (he personally answered the phone on his desk and you could call him directly) and his sense of humor. Ed – who could be found most evenings on his favorite barstool at the Hitching Post Inn sipping a bourbon and branch – could flat make people laugh.
I remember listening to him in a debate once, talking about a proposal he’d made regarding water development, perhaps the most contentious issue in the state at the time. And he explained his position with the preamble that he had mixed emotions about it.
“Mixed emotions is watching your mother-in-law drive off a cliff in your new Cadillac,” he said. “That’s how I feel about this plan.”
After that line, the audience was his, and the guy he was debating – a rich, stiff-shirted Ivy League GOP transplant to the state – might as well have packed up and gone home. Come the election, Herschler won in a landslide.
I’ve chuckled over that line for more than a quarter of a century, and I thought about it again last week when I read the stories in our newspapers and the regional dailies about Manalapan and its subpoena of Google to obtain the identity of a bacon-headed blogger, or bloggers, who write under the name of da Truth Squad.
Regular readers probably know how I feel about the Squad because I’ve written about this language-challenged, halfcocked, dry-gulching, anonymous loud mouth often enough. I personally loathe da Truth Squad, and if I can ever prove his or her identity (or identities), I give you my word I’ll print those identities right here for all to see.
But I’ve got mixed emotions about spending big piles of taxpayer money on attorney fees (for multiple attorneys) in what is basically a political vendetta. And if you’re a taxpayer in Manalapan, or anywhere else where local government has a tendency to put its own interests above the interests of the people who foot the bills, you ought to pay attention to this Google brouhaha as well.
The case is fairly complicated, and for more complete background, I’d point you to the front-page story in the Nov. 28 edition of the News Transcript (available at our Web site, www.gmnews.com) or a very fine column on the many attorneys working the case and the potential cost of the litigation by News Transcript Managing Editor Mark Rosman that appeared in the Sept. 26 edition of the same paper.
In a nutshell, however, Manalapan is suing Stuart Moskovitz, a former township attorney, because it claims that Moskovitz’s actions in the sale of properties on Route 522 left the township liable for the cost of an environmental cleanup on the land.
As part of that malpractice lawsuit, township attorneys served a subpoena on Google, demanding the identity, or identities, of da Truth Squad, who at least one of the attorneys has claimed is none other than Moskovitz himself.
It wasn’t exactly clear why they wanted that information, and the subpoena was likely nothing more than a fishing expedition, but they clearly hoped that learning the identity of the blog author, or authors, would bolster their case.
The subpoena has now become a national story. An Internet legal defense group called the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has been retained by the Squad in order to protect the anonymity of the blogger. At some point, the EFF, Google and Manalapan’s attorneys will have to square off in court and argue the matter.
The large New Jersey daily newspapers ran stories about the mess last week and discussions about it have been burning up the blogosphere.
The meter, meanwhile, just keeps running because, as we all know, attorneys don’t work cheap – and there are four of them working for Manalapan on the case.
Is Moskovitz da Truth Squad? I don’t know, but he swears he’s not. He told me so on his honor as a gentleman and a scholar (I know that’s not as binding as a pinkie swear, but it was the best I could do over the phone).
“I absolutely am not, and on my word, I don’t know who it is,” he told me last week. “Do I have suspicions? Absolutely. But my suspicions are three, four or five people, and I could be wrong about that.”
In the final analysis, it might not even be relevant.
When you boil it all down, this whole thing looks like nothing but a thinskinned local government’s attempt to quash the First Amendment rights of an individual, or individuals, because it doesn’t like their opinions. And they’re fighting the battle on the taxpayers’ dime, without ever asking a single one of those taxpayers whether they wanted the fight in the first place.
That makes me very uncomfortable, especially since I suspect the meter won’t stop running even when the Google matter and the malpractice case against Moskovitz are finally concluded in court.
That’s because he says he plans to file a motion for sanctions against two of the township’s attorneys – Daniel McCarthy and David Weeks – because he claims they sent the subpoena to Google without serving him a copy as well, as required by New Jersey law. He also says he plans to bring malicious prosecution actions against Weeks, McCarthy and Manalapan Mayor Andrew Lucas. Those actions would likely be defended at township expense.
Ca-ching! Ca-ching! Ca-ching!
As I said, I’ve got mixed emotions about this whole thing.
I wouldn’t mind seeing da Truth Squad drive off a nice, steep cliff. Given the opportunity, I might even give him (or her, or them) a little push. But I do wish that despicable, loud-mouthed blogger – da Fraud Squad – wasn’t riding in a new, taxpayer-funded Cadillac.
Gregory Bean is executive editor of
Greater Media Newspapers. You can
reach him at [email protected].