A gaping hole has formed in the right wing blogosphere, and we expect it to grow until all traces of the “Google bombing” of Brett Kimberlin’s name get erased from the internet on the orders of judges.
As our correspondent Bill Schmalfeldt reported yesterday, the American Spectator has scrubbed Robert Stacy McCain’s articles about Mr. Kimberlin from their website. The kimberlinunmasked website already disappeared three weeks ago, and there will be further deletions of content as Kimberlin’s lawsuits proceed.
We expect defendants will scream at the pain of separation from their beloved libels as they are ripped away and flushed down the internet’s memory hole. For some of them, this will be a simple matter of removing all posts tagged or categorized with Kimberlin’s name, but for Aaron Walker it may well mean the removal of his entire blog. Every last post on his Blogspot domain includes boilerplate text about Kimberlin, as if he wanted to ensure the legal consequences would be as severe as possible. Given Walker’s history of creating persecution narratives to feed his martyr complex, that is not an entirely unreasonable explanation. No matter what possessed him to make his Kimberlin- related obsessions inextricable from his George Zimmerman apologetics, however, Walker has no one but himself to blame if a judge decides to untie his Gordian knot with a legal sword.
Climb on crosses as they might, defendants’ protests will ring a little hollow now that the American Spectator has proven sane publishers want nothing to do with this story anymore. The heady days of “Everybody Blog About Brett Kimberlin,” when SWAT calls had the attention of Capitol Hill and defendants were enabled by an enormous echo chamber of right wing blogs, are far behind us now. There is no longer any real possibility that any publication or media organization of any consequence will ever give their stories an uncritical platform ever again. The echo chamber has moved on; nobody cares about Brett Kimberlin anymore except the defendants, and nobody cares about them except Mr. Kimberlin.
We will not be deleting our stories about the defendants, but we look forward to the day that we no longer need to blog about them anymore. We want their names to fade from the tag cloud in the sidebar. Let them disappear into that hole along with their blog posts. That great sucking sound? It is their relevance crossing the event horizon.
[youtube]http://youtu.be/E8hzLM0JpYw[/youtube]
The American Spectator learned from the Michael Mann case against the National Review. Mr. Kimberlin is in the driver’s seat now and anything the defendants do to attack him will just add damages to his suits, and make the case more difficult for the defendants. Mr. Walker is as legally toxic as a person can get, and Mr. Hoge appears to be suffering some type of dementia or mental breakdown. Courts will not be kind to him.
“Hoge appears to be suffering some type of dementia or mental breakdown.”
Compared to what?
Mr. Hoge’s filings, as any good lawyer knows, will be used against him and the other defendants. What you need to do is compare his behavior to the represented defendants’, who have not said a word since the federal case began as far as I can see. In legal circles, every good lawyer tells his client to batten down the hatches and do not say anything publicly while a case is pending. Hoge has done just the opposite like some madman on a deserted island telling the flowing volcano that it musn’t come any closer because he said so.
So that is why I say he is suffering from dementia or has lost all grip with reality. The lawyer in Michael Mann’s case withdrew when the reporter did some inappropriate things that were tame compared to what Hoge has been doing.
A quick check on PACER a few minutes ago dropped my jaw. It looks like Mr. Walker has thrown the case for all the defendants by making a complete ass out of himself. Legally speaking, his pleadings of February 3, 2014 are suicide notes to the judge. But what concerns me most is the effect this will have on the other defendants. Remember, this is a conspiracy case in more ways than one. The defendants live and die together. Mr. Walker is the person who brought all these defendants together with his lies about Mr. Kimberlin, and so they are tied to him at the hip. The Judge in the case is going to hold all the defendants accountable as a group, and these latest motions by Mr. Walker go beyond the pale. He is Mr. Kimberlin’s best witness because he shows, with every pleading, that he is harassing, targeting and intimidating Mr. Kimberlin.
Mr. Walker is every Plaintiff’s wet dream, the gift that keeps on giving. Mr. Kimberlin has to be the luckiest Plaintiff ever to have him on the other side.
It’s even worse than that, Roger. Walker makes arguments on behalf of other defendants in the case. In the 257 pages he dropped on the court on Feb. 3, he argues on behalf of John Hoge, Michelle Malkin, DB Capital Strategies, the Franklin Center and others. They have their own capable attorneys (save for Hoge who is pro se). And he filed a brief asking leave to file a reply in excess of 25 pages, according to Federal Court local rules. He waited two minutes then filed his reply of 32 pages. When one files for leave from the court, does not one also have to await a ruling from the judge before violating the local rule? It’s like asking Mommy if you can have two cookies instead of one after you’ve already eaten the second cookie.
The once-removed stories are back on the Spectator, but under new URLs. Apparently the Spectator has decided that they want some of what the National Review is getting.