Of course I haven’t lied about anything in this discussion or any other online discussion.

Really? Here I thought you’d lied, but now that you told me you didn’t lie, I guess you must not have. It’s not as though anyone would ever lie about having lied.

To my knowledge, Fumento has not denied posting as Tracy Spenser. If Xlrq [sic] wants to claim that he did deny it, he needs to provide an actual quote instead of falsely accusing me of lying.

That’s a great idea, Tim, but here’s a better one: how about you read the friggin’ entry yourself?! It’s all there.

As for the IP address thing, SayUncle’s matching of Fumento’s IP address with the Wiki editing, did in fact prove that Fumento was editing Wikipedia. Fumento only admitted doing it after SayUncle had the proof.

Did Fumento ever deny having done so? Feel free to link to any evidence that he did – with the caveat that any link containing the string “timlambert.org” does not constitute evidence.

Fumento, on the other hand, has a history of dishonesty and accusing other people of lying based on nothing more than his fantasies. He has repeatedly claimed that the 100,000 Lancet estimate of excess deaths in Iraq included Falluja when the study clealy stated that it did not. Xlrq has read my recent post but apparently the quote from Nick Gillespie about how Fumento falsely accused him of lying mysteriously escaped his attention. Weird.

As for the IP address thing, SayUncle’s matching of Fumento’s IP address with the Wiki editing, did in fact prove that Fumento was editing Wikipedia. Fumento only admitted doing it after SayUncle had the proof.

Fumento also says: “But if you cleaned up your act, you might just find that somebody somewhere, even with a circulation of ten, would occassionally print you. Alas, you will not. You are a lost cause.”

You will note that in that response to me, Fumento was not up to the task of actually defending his work, with which I had taken issue. He attacked people instead.

In fact, my initial discussion of this issue involved substantive criticism. Fumento’s response, I repeat, was not to address that substantive criticism (he still hasn’t) but tell me I was stupid and insignificant – “to attack people instead.” That’s why I couldn’t help but be struck by the irony of his comment in this thread that I quote above.

As I mentioned on my blog, it’s a bit of a conundrum, because Fumento is capable of fine work, some of which I find persuasive.

P.S. It wasn’t photoshopped. Nora actually made a sock puppet. She’s been pretty amused by this whole affair.

How so? Lambert says IP# is editing Wikipedia.

So does Fumento. Thus, a match between that IP address and the one that appeared on your blog proves nothing, except maybe that Michael Fumento and Michael Fumento are the same person. It doesn’t do a thing to corroborate any of Lambert’s kooky sock puppet theories.

As i said, Lambert could be lying.

As he has, repeatedly, including at least twice in this very discussion (your thread that is). Yet, for some odd reason you seem inclined to take his word over that of a well-known researcher who may have pissed you off in other ways, but who has shown no tendency toward fabricating anything. Bizarre.

As i said, Lambert could be lying.

Xrlq, just because one person is acting prickish it’s not a reason to assume they can’t also be right.

True, but Lambert isn’t just prickish, he’s dishonest. And he isn’t just dishonest in general, he’s dishonest about this issue specifically. Thus, it makes little sense to take his word over anyone else’s.

I said no such thing. I said that it [the fact that Michael Fumento's IP address matches that of Michael Fumento] makes lambert’s explanation more believable to me.

How so? All it proves is that Lambert knows what Michael Fumento’s IP address is. Which is hardly surprising, assuming he has commented on his blog at least once in non-sock puppet form.

saying it proves the use of sockpuppets or something or other

I said no such thing. I said that it makes lambert’s explanation more believable to me.

As I made clear, I was getting NONE of these until I made my post on Lambert

Over this incident, you received quite a few more in bound links and it’s reasonable that the spam would follow.

Fumento, by contrast, has no known history of sock puppetry, nor of dishonesty in any other form. This is why your facile “once a prick, always a prick” maxim does not work. There are a lot of very different character traits that cause people to identify others by that name. I won’t call Fumento a prick myself, but I don’t necessarily fault you for using that word, either, at least when describing this exchange which I do believe he should have handled better than he did. However, to the extent he was a “prick” in that exchange, it was because he was arrogant, condescending and unnecessarily blunt. All of these traits are a good way to get called a prick, but none of them demonstrate a propensity toward dishonesty. In fact, the unnecessary bluntness suggests exactly the opposite, namely that Fumento may be too brutally honest for his own good.

I will grant you, though, that taking Fumento’s word based on Fumento taking someone else’s word adds a second level of hearsay into the mix, which would normally concern me greatly. In this case, it doesn’t bother me at all, as the worst possible outcome is for Lambert to get a taste of his own medicine.