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Nov

10

Techie/campaign treasurer wife blogs anonymously, maligns hub’s opponent, hub wins, lawsuit likely


From the Yakima Herald-Republic:

Two days after his election to the Yakima City Council, Rick Ensey admitted his wife was in fact the anonymous blogger who badmouthed his opponent throughout the campaign.Now Ensey’s vanquished opponent, Councilmember Ron Bonlender, is threatening to sue Ensey and his wife, Diane, for slander and defamation.

“I don’t want to sound like I’m threatening, but I am making inquiries,” Bonlender said Thursday after Ensey came clean to KIMA-TV about the blogger’s identity.

[snip]

He [Rick Ensey] told KIMA on Thursday that his wife started the blog without telling him, and that she thought it’d be a fun way to put voice to the issues they cared about.

Diane Ensey, who served as Ensey’s campaign treasurer, is a Web developer and professional blogger.

In a Herald-Republic story on Oct. 30 that raised questions about the ethics of an anonymous blog and controversial postings at Inside Yakima, Rick Ensey variously described the blogger as a friend or acquaintance but wouldn’t name names.

When asked to deny that the blogger was his wife, he refused to answer the question.

Now there’s a case for a recall vote, among other things, if ever there was one. Absolutely, positively criminal, big and little “c.” From so many angles.

Here’s a cached version of the now-defunct website.

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By Jill Miller Zimon at 1:28 am November 10th, 2007 in Blogging, Campaigning, Elections, Politics, Tech, Wide Open 

Comments

4 Responses to “Techie/campaign treasurer wife blogs anonymously, maligns hub’s opponent, hub wins, lawsuit likely”

  1. 1 Jeff Hess on November 10th, 2007 9:14 am

    Shalom Jill,

    I’ll demur to your understanding of the law, but I don’t think he has a case.

    The slander/libel bar for political candidates is very high. If now Sen. George Voinovich could accuse then Sen. Howard Mettezbaum of pedophilia, and only lose the election, then I just don’t see what Bonlender thinks he can accomplish.

    How would this be different from any one of the hundreds of front groups that flood the airwaves with negative ads the weekend before election day knowing that candidates do not have time to react?

    I think this is just politics. Nasty, short and brutish it may be, but it’s the way we elect our representatives.

    B’shalom,

    Jeff

  2. 2 MY COMMENTS… on November 10th, 2007 9:17 am

    [...] …wife blogs anonymously, maligns hub’s opponent, hub wins, lawsuit likely digg_url=”http://havecoffeewillwrite.com/?p=5427″; digg_skin = [...]

  3. 3 grant lynden on November 15th, 2007 9:05 pm

    Another Republican that needs to lie and cheat to win…

  4. 4 Jill Miller Zimon on November 15th, 2007 10:24 pm

    Thanks for reading and commenting, Grant – who did you have in mind when you wrote this comment?

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