Red Handed! Netroots Nation Conference Kicks Off Next Week In Austin — Blogger Exposes Rabid Sock Puppet’s True Identity

Blogger Exposes Rabid Sock Puppet’s True Identity

AUSTIN, Texas Matt Glazer has been busy, busy, busy as of late. There’s preparations for the Netroots Nation Conference next week in Austin. There’s preparations for attending the Democratic National Convention in Denver this August. And then there’s been a hunt for a rabid “sock puppet” on the blogosphere. But, hey, that’s just part of his job; he didn’t start the fire.

Glazer is the editor-in-chief of the Burnt Orange Report, a blog designed to advocate progressive and liberal issues and candidates in Texas. The sock puppet? Well, that’s David Beckwith, Sen. John Cornyn’s state re-election campaign director.

Beckwith became what is known online as a “sock puppet” when he posted 80-plus comments on BOR under a false identity. With screen name “Buck Smith,” Beckwith insulted, harrassed, and intimidated other bloggers, mostly on threads concerning his boss Cornyn and his political rival Lt. Col. Rick Noreiga, according to Glazer.

However, not only did the senior Republican operative covertly post pro-Cornyn propoganda for the last year and a half, “Buck Smith” even went so far as to suggest his alter ego Beckwith deserved a pay raise and promotion! “But nowhere does he say who he is or who he works for,” wrote Glazer on his BOR post unmasking Beckwith.

Glazer uncovered Buck Smith’s real identity without resorting to tactics used by an Internet stalker or Nigerian scam artist. “We found out his identity because Mr. Beckwith’s email on file with the site is the same email listed on the webpage for his high school reunion class,” explained Glazer in his post.

To be fair, Glazer admitted that a few Democratic consultants have been caught participating in covert psychological operations online, too. In the same post, he noted that a Noriega staffer was “rightfuly excoriated” for “falsely represented himself as a blogger to the Cornyn campaign” and a Democratic consultant was “rightfully questioned” for creating an anonymous website.

But the truth has yet to set the Cornyn campaign free. When confronted with Beckwith’s puppetry, Cornyn spokesman Kevin McLaughlin told Glazer sarcastically, “What?!?! ‘Buck Smith’ isn’t a real person?!?! Are you serious?? People blog under screen names?!?! I am shocked… next thing I know, you’ll be saying the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus aren’t real either. What kind of world are we living in?!?!”

To which Glazer replied on BOR: “To our young readers, we are sorry you had to hear about Santa Claus this way. We didn’t want you to know so soon, but I promised to post their quote in it’s entirety and completely unedited.”

Sen. Cornyn, however, took a more “big bad” approach when Austin’s KVUE-TV confronted him with the online antics of his own campaign director. “I would suggest you talk to him,” said the unpopular incumbant Republican senator. “I don’t know everything he wrote. There’s a lot of things that go on on the Internet that we all, uh, sometimes we enjoy them. Sometimes they seem pretty outrageous.”

The campaign offered “no comment” to questions about Cornyn’s approval of Beckwith’s online trolling habits.

Beckwith is reportedly still on Cornyn’s payroll.

Unmasking “sock puppets” like Beckwith is only one of the many accomplishments the Burnt O