Well, if ratings (meaning number of viewers/readers) were any indication of whether someone should continue their work, you certainly would have been long gone.

m-

huh? have you checked the site meter? Most bloggers, such as myself, would die for these numbers, over a thousand unique visitors a day? that is really good by blogger standards.

napa-- please sweetie, you should aim a little higher. And, there's no count of unique views, just number of hits per day. Not to mention, non-static IP addresses always create more unique viewers than there acutally are. His numbers aren't even close to that high...and the numbers listed appear to be for The National Debate, not this site.

Bob plugs himself like a shameless whore, and all he can get is a few hundred hits a day, probably from poor KO fans who accidentlly come here thinking to find something worthwhile. The average visit is 1 minute, no one is reading the site. It's a joke.

M,

I'm sure you're right. Most of the hits here do come from Olbermann fans who have wondered in.

And it's that likihood that makes your comparision of this site with an MSNBC news show, faulty. Olbermann Watch is a narrowly focused site. Unless you're also arguing that Countdown is just as narrowly a focused outlet... Hellllooo, JD and your brilliant "cryto-liberal fest" description... your comparision falls apart.

Since Olbermann Watch IS a narrowly focused site, readership is dependent upon the number of people who watch Countdown and give a flip about Keith Olbermann. It's far more likely that the people who don't (including those who think he's an absolute jackass) will just go their merry way without becoming interested in a site critiquing him and his show.

So this site is connected to Countdown in the sense that it is dependent upon the interest that Olbermann manages to ignite. Your presence here is an example of that...

Too,it might be easier to swallow your point about quality not necessarily garnering numbers if Countdown fans primarily defended Olbermann and his show based on Keith's erudition instead of invariably arguing that Kieth:

Airs issues the MSM ignore... which has meant he airs the latest conspiracy theory of leftwing blog sites... "Hellllooo, JD..."

C- Thanks again, as always, for explaining to me what I meant in my own post. But actually, I meant exactly what I said: If ratings were an indication of anything useful, Cox would have been long gone.

And I wasn't just talking about Olbywatch, I was speaking about TND as well. And I wasn't making a comparison to Countdown at all. Not sure where you came up with that. I was talking about Cox and his "readership" in absolute terms and relative to, well, nothing. My point was that Bob seems to think that ratings are some indicator of something useful. If he really believes that, then perhaps he should take his own advice and go away.

as for what draws others to Olbermann to watch the show, I really can't speak for them. I watch the show becuase I like it and I think the man is funny. say what you want about his coverage of "the latest conspiracy theory on the left wing blogs," at least he's got a spine-- which is more than I can say for most of the MSM. I like my news good and "partisan", what can I say.

M, Look at Cecilia's last post again. She is not "explaining" to you what you meant-- she is telling you that what you said is WRONG! I discern the following premises and conclusions from your earlier posts:

1) Olbywatch does not get a lot of hits.
2) Getting a lot of hits is an indication that the site is saying something useful.
3) Olbywatch does not have anything useful to say and should go away.
Now, M, if I have misstated what you "meant" I apologize in advance because I would not want you to once again become the victim of misinterpretation and get you panties in a wad.However, I think the premises stated above seem to be a reasonable summation of your argument. If so, I contend (and I think Cecilia does also) that your second premise is wrong. Somtimes when a site does does not get a lot of hits it means that it is not saying anything useful. However, as Cecilia was pointing out, Countdown's ratings are so woeful, there is not much interest in sites about the show or its host. The Olbywatch site traffic may well be a function of the interest generated by the show that is the subject of the site, not whether it has any "useful" content, which seems to be your contention. I also find your suggestion interesting that Mr. Cox should "go away"? Why? Because he disagrees with you? None of KO's critics on this site has urged him to "go away".

Finally regarding your thought that KO has a "spine": Putting on a loony bin stories that no one else will air is not the same thing as having a spine (see the month long coverage of Republicans "stealing" the Ohio vote). As has been pointed out on this site before, KO's left wing attack dog partisanship clouds his judgement as to what is credible.

"I meant exactly what I said: If ratings were an indication of anything useful, Cox would have been long gone."

So they aren't an indication of something useful? Or are they an indication of something useful?

You've implied one thing when it comes to Countdown and explicitly stated the opposite when it comes to Olbermann Watch: "The average visit is 1 minute, no one is reading the site. It's a joke."

I'm not misstating your arguments, I'm flatly saying that you generally have not thought them through and that logic is not your strong suit.

Jeez louise, are you people really this dense? Clearly, I don't think ratings mean anything. What part of that was not clear when I said "well, if ratings meant anything useful Bob Cox WOULD HAVE been long gone"

Meaning, ratings are not useful, and Cox should STOP ATTACKING KO over his ratings. It's a low blow. If Cox has actual issues with the man's journalism skills then lets hear it, if not, shut the fuck up already about ratings. Especially when you're own site doesn't get any visitiors.

And I wasn't just talking about Olbywatch. And, Hank, you're logic is clearly screwed up. I wasn't making the point that ratings meant something. I was making the opposite point, to emphasize the ridiculous nature of Bob's comments about Olbermann's ratings. Good lord, this is not that difficult people. Are you actually reading my posts, or just deciding what you think they say and then posting in response to that?

"Are you actually reading my posts, or just deciding what you think they say and then posting in response to that?"

Now, M, it's the former.

And that seems to be the problem. We actually read the words you write. However, for reasons already stated, there's some real doubt as whether you read what you write.

And I'm entirely sure we took the following remark in the EXACT spirit that you intended it...

"Bob plugs himself like a shameless whore, and all he can get is a few hundred hits a day, probably from poor KO fans who accidentlly come here thinking to find something worthwhile. The average visit is 1 minute, no one is reading the site. It's a joke."

Hank,

I forgot to thank you for your summation of my attempt to explain to M how one cannot view Countdown and Olbermann Watch as similar public offerings in order to make a quality vs quanity-of-audience argument.

Actually "quality" as Olbermann fans have consistly argued here, means being firebrand enough to air rumors or charges towards conservatives that are considered unproven speculation by the MSM. As opposed to quality in the sense of erudition, articulation, and depth.

With this sort of "discriminating audience".... I don't know whether Bob should feel comforted by M....eh.... making the point that numbers don't denote "quality", or not... :D

M's series of posts do have a certain "Alice in Wonderland" quality to them. Things whose meanings are plain don't really have their plain meaning, they only have the meaning that M assigns to them at any given time to suit the point of view he wants to espouse (it depends on what the meaning of "is" is). He castigates Cox for his low ratings, saying that, because of his low ratings and the fact that "no one" is reading, his site is a "joke". M also demeans him for only getting "a few hundred hits a day". So, M takes the postion that ratings must mean something unless M would have us believe that being a joke doesn't really matter. But then, when it is pointed out that Countdown and Olby Watch are intertwined in the sense that Olbywatch's slow traffic is probably a function of the abysmal ratings of Countdown, suddenly M's previous argument is inoperative and ratings don't really amount to a hill of beans after all and are nothing to be ashamed of. Oh, well I'm used to hearing doublespeak like this from the left (just check out the left's intransigent opposition to personal Social Security accounts, an idea that was endorsed by Harry Reid and Joe Lieberman when Clinton was president but which they now oppose).

And must we assume that the basis of Reid and Leberman's support (allowing you this, since I've not researched it) was the same then as now, Hank? Could the state of the ecomony at that time have had anything to do with their alleged support and if so, how does that scenario resemble this? Do you purport to allege that our current economic state is equivalent to that surrounding the case you cite? And even if they did as you suggest, support "personal" accounts then, why is that pertinent now? Robert Byrd was a KKK member a lifetime ago. Another place, another time. When I worked as a grease monkey at a Cadillac dealer I said I'd never own one. I have. Things change, as do opinions. Doublespeak, indeed. Hey, I'll take "doublespeak" over flat out bullshit of any day.

BTW, FYI, m is a female. And to me, she makes perfect sense. Granted, I read her through a liberal filter. Since we're limited to written words here, I find it difficult at times to aptly convey nuance. I've been scolded for assuming things or ascribing meaning not intended by folks like Napa, C and others who post here, so when I'm not sure, I try to ask what a writer actually means. That helps, but so long as we must convey nuanced arguments in written form, we risk being mistaken.

But to imply that lefties as a class intentionally mislead or doublespeak is just as absurd as me saying that all Republicans chonically lie. Some do, some don't. Wish we could focus on what we have in common rather than incessantly cite each other's perceived faults.

BTW, I don't mean to divert the argument, but speaking of truth, I LOVE the recent "high road" GOP slams against the AARP, classy...pertinent and SO TRUE! Just lovely. I've never been prouder to say I'm a democrat.

And another thing, on these "personal" accounts...as an active investor over the past 30 years, I can attest to the fickle nature of the stock market, including mutual funds. Even with a conservative approach and expert help, it's a roll of the dice, my friend. Period. To suggest it's otherwise is, well, to mislead. As a result, many uninformed young people, eager to participate, may be disposessed due to mistakes they make trying to grow their invested contributions. Last week my financial planner's company finally removed Enron from my monthly statement, along with its $12k loss (which is unrecoverable as a capital loss, since I invested through and IRA). To suggest that individual investment is the answer to any SS conundrum is ill-advised. You're dreamin'.

My apologies for the 'stream of consciousness' post. I've been blog idle of late and may be compensating.

Stream away, Paul. I'm delighted to see you back.

I agree too that people are different no matter their political ideology. Some folks lie, some folks use doublespeak, and some folks can elucidate a point in a logical and consistent manner (even if it's a liberal viewpoint... :D )

You're proof of that. We missed you.

M,

Still posting anonymously? Well at least you started demonstrating your penchant for foul language so maybe you are coming around to honestly representing who you are and what you are all about.

That loons like you don't like OlbermannWatch is reason enough to have a site like this but it isn't likely that I or anyone other clear thinking person would ever give serious consideration to your views. You are a loon and so this true by definition.

In fact, what you are is a troll. For internet newbies a troll is "a person who delights in sowing discord on the Internet, a person who tries to start arguments and upset people."

Given the psychological profile of a troll (it is a disorder akin to narcissism) it is important that normal people realize that "Trolls are utterly impervious to criticism (constructive or otherwise). You cannot negotiate with them; you cannot cause them to feel shame or compassion; you cannot reason with them. They cannot be made to feel remorse. For some reason, trolls do not feel they are bound by the rules of courtesy or social responsibility." Given this, engaging "m" in rational discussion is never going to result in convincing her of anything.

As can be seen by this recent exchange, it is well known that "when trolls are ignored they step up their attacks, desperately seeking the attention they crave. Their messages become more and more foul, and they post ever more of them. Alternatively, they may protest that their right to free speech is being curtailed."

Having made something of a study of trolls like "m" you may wonder why she is permitted to post on OlbermannWatch. The site uses TypeKey registration and it would be possible to block her, at least to the extent of requiring her to go through more and more hurdles to post.

Allowing "m" to post on this site is a bit of an experiment. Before the site was officially launched "m" and her liberal loon pals at Democratic Underground and the Air America forums discovered OlbermannWatch and discussed on those "boards" ways to "take down" OlbermannWatch through a technique called "flooding". A group of trolls attempts to dominate an internet discussion group like what we have with our comments section. There hope is that their behavior (foul-mouthed rants, ad hominem attacks, threats, etc.) will create such a level of hostility and anger on the site that the average reader will steer clear of the site and potential commenters ("lurkers") will be too scared to comment. Ironically, as noted above, if any attempt is made to frustrate them in this attempt to shut down the discussion they cry "censorship" and claim their "free speech rights" are being violated.

Rather than block their posts or engage them in their puerile attempts at "baiting" normal people reading this site, I took the approach of letting them post all they wanted and say whatever they wanted. I also put warning labels on their comments to alert readers to comments coming from trolls. As some of you know this enraged the trolls.

Unable to bait readers and unable to provoke the site administrator from blocking them most of the trolls gave up and moved on.

Trolls, however, are not all the same. For some the narcissistic disorder that drives their abherent behavior includes a streak of masochism. Those types of trolls - like "m" and "qualin" - will keep coming back for more and more frustration. In their own perverse way, they actually come to enjoy the feeling of emptiness that results from the failure of the trolling behavior. This form of the disorder is known as "affirmation through negation".

There is one thing a troll hates more than being ignored and that is being "outed" as a troll so a little warning to the thousands of clear-thinkers who read this intelligent, witty and valuable site each month. Having been formally identified as a troll, "m's" behavior will typically can take one of three courses - she will attempt to "prove" that she is not a troll by appearing reasonable for a period of time, she will simply disappear or she will explode in a foul-mouthed rant.

Don't be surprised and don't be offended. People like "m" are not well and as difficult as it might be they need to be treated with some degree of compassion.

Bob,

m seems to have gotten your goat. I'm amused at your analysis of her. To me, your post smacks of paranoia and an inflated self-image. Granted, I don't know your history with m and her alleged conspirators, nor do I grok the gravity of their alleged malfeasances. Devoid of this context, I must take her at face value.

m has repeatedly explained her use of the initial, yet you continue to complain about her anonymity...AS IF others who post here don't use nicknames, "handles," etc. Apparently you know details of m's identity that the rest of us must trust you to convey, but taking her at face value, I for one, find her no more offensive and in fact, in many cases, find her far less objectionable than others who post here (including, at times, yourself).

Re her profanity, as if you've not posted any here? Sure, you periodically discourage it, (double standard) but then resort to it when it serves you (double standard). And you don't chide right-wing comerades when they sink so low as to utter a potty word or two...or insult those who hold opposing views.

It occurs to me that m hit a nerve with her observation of your preoccupation with Olby's popularity or the apparrent lack thereof. In most cases, comparing cable news/infotainment viewership to blog traffic surely ain't "apples to apples," but her point that even among blogs, yours aren't setting any traffic records isn't altogether inaccurate. Considering the recent spate of blogs out there, I think you still have a right to be proud of your afforts. But m has a point when she cites your constant flogging of KO for his numbers as a trifle suspicious. (People who live in glass houses...) I also agree with her when she says high ratings don't necessarily indicate quality programming. As a nation, we love pure crap. Ratings prove it time and again. Lowest common denomionator programming sells. If you intend to use ratings to show only that KO performs poorly enough to warrant cancellation for business reasons, you make a valid point. But this has little to do with the relative quality or entertainment value of Countdown. If ratings determine your viewing preferences, I'm thankful you're not my nextdoor neighbor, or my mother in law.

I feel that the scope of Olbywatch is narrow to the point that it hamstrings the site, dooming it at times to repetitious, mean-spirited turd-tossing, which might be fun to read for a spell, but quickly becomes passe'. If you want to be a more popular blog, I think you must become more then a KO equivalent of Moe, Larry and Curly's "woman-haters club".

Amen Paul, couldn't have said it better myself. As always, thanks for your support and clear logic. I won't speak directly to Bob's comments as I think them to be utterly ridiculous and way off base (at least where I'm concerned). But I will say this, the history of my interaction with Mr. Cox is no different in tone or behavior than you have seen here on the board, and he knows it. In fact, although I have recently dropped the "F-bomb" on Olbywatch, I have never done it in an email to Mr. Cox.

As for my "anonymous" posts on the board, I've made it clear why I use only my first initial. For my own privacy and safety-- due mainly to the fact that I have held positions with prominent government agencies and currently work for a well-known U.S. Senator-- I prefer to be known as m. Bob is well aware of who I am, I've never attempted to remain anonymous in my personal interaction with him. If Bob wants to continue to be angry that I won't reveal myself to a bunch of strangers on a discussion board, so be it. I'm fairly confident that my want for privacy is perfectly valid, not nefarious in the least, and just plain smart.

Oh, and for the record, there's nothing dishonest about me or anything I've posted here. Bob continues to accuse me of being in cahoots with other random posters and being a member of various left wing "conspiracy theorists," and I have continued to deny it. You all will have to decide for yourselves which of us is to be believed. But since he has continued to paint me as someone I am not, I thought I would offer up some information about myself so you can decide for yourselves whether my comments here should be given consideration or rejected out of hand becuase I am a troll. so here goes: I'm a woman (despite many attempts here to suggest otherwise, not sure what that's about). I am a graduate student in a dual degree program at a highly regarded University (Public Policy/Urban Planning). I am not a member of Democratic Underground (not even a lurker) and I do not listen to Air America. I do however make a habit of reading the following blogs: Atrios, DailyKos, Brad DeLong, Instapundit, The Corner, Talking Points Memo, Bloggerman and a very funny blog called My Boyfriend is a Twat (you should check it out if you're a fan of Brittish humor). Oh yeah, I drop in on Olbywatch every once in a while. Things I look forward to reading (in order
of importance): NYT, The Economist, The Wall Street Journal, Foreign Affairs and The New Yorker. There's no grand conspiracy here folks, and no ill will-- just an opinionate bitch who likes a good argument and happens to be a fan of KO, seriously.

Amen Paul, couldn't have said it better myself. As always, thanks for your support and clear logic. I won't speak directly to Bob's comments as I think them to be utterly ridiculous and way off base (at least where I'm concerned). But I will say this, the history of my interaction with Mr. Cox is no different in tone or behavior than you have seen here on the board, and he knows it. In fact, although I have recently dropped the "F-bomb" on Olbywatch, I have never done it in an email to Mr. Cox.

As for my "anonymous" posts on the board, I've made it clear why I use only my first initial. For my own privacy and safety-- due mainly to the fact that I have held positions with prominent government agencies and currently work for a well-known U.S. Senator-- I prefer to be known as m. Bob is well aware of who I am, I've never attempted to remain anonymous in my personal interaction with him. If Bob wants to continue to be angry that I won't reveal myself to a bunch of strangers on a discussion board, so be it. I'm fairly confident that my want for privacy is perfectly valid, not nefarious in the least, and just plain smart.

Oh, and for the record, there's nothing dishonest about me or anything I've posted here. Bob continues to accuse me of being in cahoots with other random posters and being a member of various left wing "conspiracy theorists," and I have continued to deny it. You all will have to decide for yourselves which of us is to be believed. But since he has continued to paint me as someone I am not, I thought I would offer up some information about myself so you can decide for yourselves whether my comments here should be given consideration or rejected out of hand becuase I am a troll. so here goes: I'm a woman (despite many attempts here to suggest otherwise, not sure what that's about). I am a graduate student in a dual degree program at a highly regarded University (Public Policy/Urban Planning). I am not a member of Democratic Underground (not even a lurker) and I do not listen to Air America. I do however make a habit of reading the following blogs: Atrios, DailyKos, Brad DeLong, Instapundit, The Corner, Talking Points Memo, Bloggerman and a very funny blog called My Boyfriend is a Twat (you should check it out if you're a fan of Brittish humor). Oh yeah, I drop in on Olbywatch every once in a while. Things I look forward to reading (in order
of importance): NYT, The Economist, The Wall Street Journal, Foreign Affairs and The New Yorker. There's no grand conspiracy here folks, and no ill will-- just an opinionated bitch who likes a good argument and happens to be a fan of KO, seriously.

oops, sorry for the double post.

Paul,

Wow! "m" is an incredible liar. She is such a profound liar that it is actually fascinating to watch her propound her lies.

Setting aside "m" for a moment, I trust we can agree that OlbermannWatch.com not a KO fan site. And whatever you don't like about the site, I don't think you can say that those of us who write for this site are anything but upfront about who we are and where we come from politically. We all post by name and make our contact information available.

That said, a case can be made that OlbermannWatch.com is the most comprehensive site for information on Keith Olbermann on the internet (even more than MSNBC.com's KO pages). This might explain the relatively high page rank this site has in Google where are the highest rated non-MSNBC KO site on the web.

There are plenty of KO fans sites, discussion boards and other KO resources on the web. OlbermannWatch.com links to them. I don't begrudge those people their interest or support for Keith; they are entitled their opinions. And guess what, I don't even mind if pro-KO people read the site, post or use the links on the site to find "pro-Keith" information. I certainly don't go to the sites and act as a troll or otherwise disrupt KO fans in their ecstasy of Olbermann-ness. They do their thing and I do mind. Live and let live. The same cannot be said for "m".

Before this site was even launched members of Democratic Underground and the Randi Rhodes/Air America Radio forum (and other sites) discovered the OlbermannWatch.com site and hatched all sorts of loony conspiracy theories about who was "really" beind this site. A number of those folks made plans on those board to "flood" the OlbermannWatch.com site as noted previously. One of those people is "m". Her initial attempts to troll on OlbermannWatch.com was to come in acting as if she was not one of the crackpots from DU but really only concerned that I "get my facts straight". In fact, she was obviously a loon and it was not difficult to track her back to her very bizarre Quicktopic discussion board (hint: she posted a link to this site from her discussion board...duh!). I have known this all along but have had loads of fun stringing her along; there is nothing more fun than turning the tables on a troll.

Now you, Paul, are a reasonable person who happens to have views different from mine. I don't agree with you on most things but my sense is that you are genuinely interested in discussing the issues of the day. I don't think you post on OlbermannWatch in an attempt to be disruptive or otherwise act like a troll but because you want to debate.

That said, let me point out that you start off your comment by noting that you don't know anything about "m" but proceed to draw various conclusions as if you do. So, I'd suggest you start by mulling that over while I tell you a little about "m" and we can revisit the topic shortly.

"m" is the sad story of a smart girl with way too much time on her hands and a bit of narcissism disorder. She is originally from Northern California. Her father is a doctor and her sister is also "m". She is athletic, an avid soccer player who went to high school near Menlo Park, CA and went to college at UC-Berkeley where she studied history. She was a very good student at Berkeley and worked part-time as a "TA" in the history department among other things.

She is 5'3", weighs about 110 pounds and wears a size 4. She was married but is now divorced. She drives up a pick up truck and claims to have worked as a detective once. She describes herself as "not so well endowed--big big big fuckin' brains-- and a lot a balls."

"m" is your classic "professional" student. She has never held a real job but rather spent her last few years jumping from school to internships and back. She was an intern at the Independent Institute which allowed her to live at home while working for low pay in Oakland. While there she wrote an Op-Ed piece lobbying a professional organization. Last summer she again lived at home while she spent time working for the Office of Economic Develop for the City of San Jose.

Today she is holed up as a graduate student living off daddy's money at the University of Michigan's Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy. She was originally pursuing a Masters in Public Policy and would have graduated this spring but decided to add a degree in Urban Planning and so has put of her graduation plans off until 2006 (see what I mean about "professional" student). In the meantime, she is looking for a summer internship, possibly entailing a move to the East Coast (I won't say where exactly). She is also considering participating in programs in Central America (possibly Guatamala) and maybe even Cuba. Her dream, of course, would be work with/for Keith Olbermann at MSNBC. My money is on her taking a good look at the real world next year, gulping and opting to for a Ph.D. program, preferably someplace warm.

"m" currently lives about a block off the main UM campus in Ann Arbor where she is at liberty to stroll to class and her part time job in a school office. I have her exact home and work address, phone numbers and a satellite photo but I am not going to publish any of that here. The last four digits of her home phone are 3746; her work phone is 9593.

While at Michigan, "m" has been very active in a number of campus organizations ranging from a pro-Kerry group to a poker club. She is not very good at cards but the stakes are small so she can't lose too much.

Today "m" writes "I'm fairly confident that my want for privacy is perfectly valid, not nefarious in the least, and just plain smart." What she fails to mention is that she has posted to OlbermannWatch.com on a variety other names as well (and apparently, even to this day, still believes that I don't know this).

When you compare "m's" public persona to the online incarnation you can begin to understand her reason for not wanting to be associated with her internet alter ego - a horrendously foul-mouthed, bossy, raving loon. If a potential employer were to run a google search and match up her name with her various psuedonyms like "m" and "Tie Critic" and "Mary Ellen" and "EliteGrammarian" and "A2" and the many others it might be awkward for her.

Perhaps Senator Levin won't care but other employers might not be keen on hiring a woman who says her favorite word is "fuck" and ranks "Fucker as both her "favorite term of endearment" and "most favorite insult", proudly says "you've never encountered a gutter mouth like mine" and considers it a compliment that her father would often say "you could embarrass even the surliest of sailors". Not someone you would want answering the phone now is it?

There are also quite a few folks around the internet who would love to know more about "m" beacuse not only has she been an active troll on OlbermannWatch.com but has spent a good deal of time trolling at Olbermann fan sites as well. Sounds strange, right? After all "m" claims to be "in lust" with Keith so why would she want to damage a PRO-KO site?

A loyal OlbermannWatch.com reader enlightened me recently and I share it with you:

"[m's] the dictator of the the daily discussion board [at QuikcTopic]...She dominates that board ruthlessly, is foul-mouthed to the extreme, downright mean, and goes out of her way to discourage and belittle any new poster that she doesn't deem liberal enough, or, more importantly, anyone who shows any type of personal strength that may displace her in the "affections" of the other regular posters. Just judging from viewing these postings over a period of time, she seems to spend ALL of her time on the internet visiting various sites, listening to Air America at work etc., and is posting all day long from early morning to late at night. What a life! She and "eyeroll" [a DU'er] and "quanlin" [of Olbermann.org], managed to bring the Olbyfans board to a dead halt by trolling and posting nasty, rude, aggressive, and truly mean posts.

Now, given all of this (and I have loads more if you need it), do you really want to hang your hat on defending "m"?

If you are still not convinced I suggest you drop by "m's" roost at QuickTopic

http://www.quicktopic.com/29/H/CCZ5hH7RnZhQ
http://www.quicktopic.com/25/H/mHMnt3nXci7qu

I think there will you find that "m" routinely refers to me variously as FUCKER, COCKS, WANKER, PRICK, and so on. I think I liked "Bob Cox is the most spineless, childish castrato to populate cyberspace" best. She also opened herself up to a lawsuit by posting that I was "stalking" her because SHE kept sending ME e-mails. Can you say nut job? Even she realized she had gone over the line beacuse she went back and deleted that post "for legal reasons".

Yet for all her subtrifuge, "m" just can't seem to resist breaking her anonymity anyway in a post to her own messasge board last December using her "A2" alias:

===================================
A2 1917 12-04-2004 08:33 PM ET (US)

Hi all- Bloggerman is currently in second place in the 2004 weblog awards. Apparently the rules state you can vote once a day (not sure why), so go vote again when you get a chance.

q- I saw your post on Mr Cocks' sight. Thanks. I guess I should just out myself and say "hello" I'm Marisa, the stubborn idiot that has managed to get in quite an argument with Mr. Olbermann watch. If you go to the section titled "Olbermann begins to backpeddle" you can see the comments. Bob has now actually started immitating Olbermann's blogs. He "scored" our argument round by round. hmmm, wonder if he got that from keith's coverage of the debates? What a prick! I guess I'll have to respond to him tomorrow. what better way to avoid the 5 papers I'm supposed to be writing before the end of the semester?

===================================

You see, if you put together the pieces - Michigan, School, Public Policy - (and Google is pretty good and putting together such pieces) you will find that there are not that many Universities, in Michigan, that offer graduate degrees in Public Policy - and even less than have students named Marisa.

wow. Bob, you're pretty pissed. So as long as we're going to discuss me, and all of my personal business, we should probably make sure to get it correct-- lest we have some kind of legal incident over the posting of knowingly incorrect information. So, for the rest of the board, Bob has some of his information correct. It's all information that can be found on the internet if one knows my name, clearly he does.

Um, I do attend the University of Michigan, as Bob has so nicely pointed out. But that's about the only piece of information Bob has correct. As an example, I never studied history. I have know idea where that bit of nonsense came from. Nor was I ever a TA in any history department at any University. And, I'm not a soccer player. Oh, I have also never been a detective nor ever claimed to be. Really, Bob, put down the crack pipe. And I don't work for Senator Levin. As for my personal address and home phone number, and the type of vehicle I drive and the satellite photo...well, now Bob has given us all a little insight into just exactly how psycho he is. And quite nicely proven my point about why one should not use their name when posting on websites.

As another example of Bob's load of crap he's telling you,"Mary Ellen" and "EliteGrammarian" are not me. And this is the only board on which I have ever used the intitial M. Really, if you're going to lurk over on other boards, make sure you know who's who...and at least make the effort to post comments that were actually mine.

Bob, I have no problem with your choice to spread my personal information all over the place, but you ought to be careful about publishing knowingly false information for the purpose of intending to harm someone. Some people call that libel and slander, others actually sue for damages.

Do you really think people are going to side with you over this, after what you just did? The fact that you posted a bunch of false information is unethical enough, had a large portion of it been true it would be unconscionable and unforgivable. I think there are some people on this site that are going to be mighty surprised and sorely disappointed. Congratulations Bob, one of us has certainly started to show our true colors.

Marissa,

We can all call you that now, right? Let's be clear about an important point. You "outed" yourself - on your own board. It's you who disclosed that your name is Marisa, that you are a divorcee from California, that you are a gradudate student studying public policy, that you attend school at a University in Michigan. Just as you don't seem to understand how it is that a log file on a web site can track commenters on the site regardless of what phony name they use, anyone googling for "University + Michigan + Public Policy" would find as the first listing "The University of Michigan: Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy" and anyone who searched that site for "Marisa" would find you. Funny how a person who claims to have been a "detective" wouldn't be able to figure this out.

In other words, don't blame me for you "outing" you; you did it yourself.

Regardless, you have claimed that you don't want to disclose your identity "for my own privacy and safety-- due mainly to the fact that I have held positions with prominent government agencies and currently work for a well-known U.S. Senator-- I prefer to be known as m"

As with many of your lies there is always an element of truth to them. So while this might be partly true, the primary reason you hide behind fake names is that you want to be free to behave in the most disgusting, outrageous and dishonest manner possible - making crude, malicious, defamatory statements without anyone knowing who you really are. That way you can go to comments sections like this one of the discussion board at Olberfans and troll with impunity. Apprently this is your idea of fun.

Now, let's take a look at your denials.

I have listed about 50 publicly available pieces of information about you. You are not denying most of them. You are denying five. Let's take a look at those five. Since you are now making vague noises about taking legal action I am going to need to provide actual proof now aren't I? So, where appropriate, these links will have your name.

----------------------------------

"I never studied history. I have know idea where that bit of nonsense came from. Nor was I ever a TA in any history department at any University."

http://ist-socrates.berkeley.edu/~mceurope/mcclass/archive/fall01/mcabout2001fall.html

----------------------------------

"I'm not a soccer player."

http://www.recsports.umich.edu/intramurals/schedules/soccer/regseason/teams/129.html

----------------------------------

"I have also never been a detective nor ever claimed to be."

You are Tie Critic, correct? At least you are not yet lying about that. In this post from January you do, in fact, claim to have been a detective. That you would have been lying about that too would be no surprise but you did make that claim.

What I like about this post is that it also references "DU" or "Democratic Underground" putting the lie to your previous claim that you have nothing to do with DU. In fact, you state that you have "now embraced the whole DU/QT crossover".

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Tie Critic 3194
01-21-2005 01:05 PM ET (US)

Edited by author 01-21-2005 01:07 PM
And yes, I was a detective in a former life. The semi-photographic memory serves me well on occasion (save all the weird Scarborough knowledge) also, I clearly have now embraced the whole DU/QT crossover.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

----------------------------------

"'Mary Ellen' and 'EliteGrammarian' are not me."

Perhaps you would care to clarify just "who" you really are or have you used so many phony names that you can't keep them all straight. Let's have the whole list, shall we?

----------------------------------

"I don't work for Senator Levin."

I didn't say that you did. I just said that Senator Levin would probably not want to hire someone with your online history. Since you would likely "work "for either a Senator from Michigan or California and you claim the Senator is "prominent" I think that leaves us with Senator Boxer. And given her behavior during the meeting of the Electoral College and your status as a "black boxer" it all sort of fits now doesn't it.

------------------------------------

Let me close by suggesting that before you casually imply taking legal threats on this site that you do more thinking about how screen grabs work than you have done about how Google and Log Files work. When someone as unwell as you publicly accuses me of "stalking" her because I responded to their e-mails then I take notice. I also take action including compiling a dossier on that person and documenting, via screen grabs, every foul-mouthed, defamatory comment. If you really want to go do down that path then, by all means, "bring it on".

Now I'm afraid to respond. You two need to sort this out between yourselves...it's just gotten too weird for me. Perhaps this is a web or a blog thing and if so, I'm happy to retrench/abstain. But satellite photos of her residence, reports of her daily habits, hobbies, etc. down to her poker stakes seem to me to be a shade more than a trifle over the top.

I do feel that you're up front about your agenda and politics, as are those who appear on your masthead. I'm thankful that you've sussed my modus operandi. I'm certainly neither lurker nor troll (terms new to me in this context) and it pleases me that you acknowledge that. I'm also not a rabid KO fan and hope that I've expressed my take on his faults as freely as I've written in his defense. Until now, with very few exceptions, (in which I've found you most reassuring) I've been comfortable posting here and have genuinely enjoyed interacting with you and others re Olby, along with arguing politics here. But this has become, well, creepy...eerily Karl Rovian, in my humble, liberal, paranoid opinion.

It makes me long for a simpler, more innocent time in politics, like that of say, the `50s.

Paul,

That you say you are "afraid to respond" is the precise goal of trolls like Marisa so I am sure she is happy to hear that. As her trolling, ironically, tends to drive away KO supporters here and KO fan sites, I can't say that OlbermannWatch.com readers are too upset with Marisa's trolling activities.

As I noted before, trolls are happiest when sowing discord, hatred and anger. Note how Marisa keeps trying to push the idea that people, including me, are "angry" with her. This is a common manifestation of the pyschological disorder that drives people to become trolls in the first place - looking for affirmation of any kind but especially negative affirmation because this feeds into a warped sense of being powerful - having the "power" to cause people to become enraged.

As for providing detailed information about Marisa, trolls thrive on anonymity. They love the idea that they can go around the internet stirring up trouble with impunity. I, for one, could really care less about Marisa and her fellow loons but she knows I have been generous to her so far. She knows that if I decide to publish her name on this site then the link would be made between her public persona and her ugly internet persona - and she sure doesn't want that.

Bob, Well, it appears you've done your homework.
What disturbs me is the personal nature of these attacks. You know how I feel about such behavior as I've often mentioned it here.

I defended Marissa's arguments and am disappointed that it appears she's anything other than what I took her to be. Still, since her arguments hold logic, I stand by mine.

Deceit hurts all of us, regardless of which side of the political fence one's on. The decline of political ethics, not to mention courtesy in our society is troubling, indeed.

We've all got skeletons in our closets. If you're even inclined to search for mine, let me know. I can spare you some time by fessing up to a few of the most tawdry (like being suspended as an eighth grade altar boy for sampling sacramental wine while the priest was busy distributing communion). Oh, the shame.
At least once revealed, such morsels may be less sensational to readers.

I still prefer to focus on the idea rather than its bearer. I understand why you've behaved otherwise and don't fault you for it, I just wish we could engage in discourse on a higher plane. That we apparently cannot, serves no one.

Paul,
Sorry to hear that you feel hesitant about posting here. That certainly wasn't my intention. As for why Bob is doing what he's going, well, that's anyone's guess. In any case, fear not, I'm fairly certain that Bob harbors no real ill-will towards anyone, least of all you. I think he just really believes that I have something to hide, and that "outing" me is some kind of threat to my academic and professional career. So, that said, I'm tired of Bob and his game, so I'll just steal his thunder for a moment and settle this once and for all: My name is Marisa McNee. Feel free to google me and find out all of the information from which Bob is drawing his ridiculous conclusions. Better yet, if you really want to know more about me or would like to hear the silly email history behind Bob's irritation with me, feel free to email me at mmcnee@umich.edu. That goes for anyone, not just Paul. As for comments about Bob and his stalkerish behavior-- well, he's just admitted that he has my home address, home phone number, knows my daily habits (he doesn't actually, I have no idea what the poker comment was about...I don't play poker. And I don't know where the stuff about Cuba came from) and that he has a satellite photo of where I live. I'll let the board decide whether that qualifies as stalker behavior, but I'm pretty confident that my statements were justified.

Bob,
If you're not angry, you sure have a funny way of showing it. Both on the board and by email. And thanks for your generosity, but please feel free to post all of my email correspondance if you'd like. There isn't anything on this board or over on the QT discussion board that I would be afraid of owning up to. Nor do I think it would harm my career in the slightest. As for the strange facts that you are trying to string together in some weird story about me, well you're just making it way to easy for me to prove that you're way off base. So here goes:

The IM Soccer team roster that you found. Well, when I first started in school someone asked me if I wanted to play IM soccer, I signed some list thing. Then I never played. I got busy and changed my mind. As I said, I don't play soccer. So, you found a soccer roster and decided to extend that into the comments "she is an avid soccer player"? See, that's my point about you, you exaggerate. And make things up, based on the smallest amount of evidence.

As for comments as Tie Critic about being a detective. Well, it was joke you fool. It was a sarcastic comment regarding my own self-depricating admission that I was a know it all. Of course, as usual, you take comments out of context and then spread untruthful BS. Hence, my comments about your legal liability for much of what you say here on this board. Same goes for the "DU/QT crossover" comments. There are some people who are on both boards. As I said, I'm not a DU person. Have I ever been to DU? of course. But few and far between. As for my "internet personalities," well, A2 and Tie Critic over on the QT boards...those are me. If you read QT as you claim to, you know that the name got changed from one to the other as a joke. Stop pretending that I'm some rabid loon posting all over the internet under false names. That's the whole list: A2, Tie Critic, and m.

I don't work for Barbara Boxer. And no, you didn't say I worked for Levin...but you sure implied it.

And really, you're way off base about this whole thing. I'm really just a random KO fan who found their way here and didn't like what I was seeing. I also enjoy a good argument so I engaged some of the posters here. And now you've started to scare some of your readers. Perhaps you may want to rethink your approach, and your tactics.

For the rest of the Olbywatch readers: sorry you had to witness this, it's silly, I know.

Let me get this straight--you have posted where this woman goes to college at, have tracked down who her father is, what her sister's name is, who she has worked, for, her phone number, address, and even have mapped how far it is from where she lives at to where she goes to school at?

If there was ever any question as to the state of your mental health, this pretty much would answer it for any sane reader. You are cyber-stalker this woman.

And why? Because she dared express an opinion YOU didn't like?

Marisa,

I'm sorry this has gotten so weird. I was being a bit cheeky when I said I feared posting. I do enjoy your posts and value your contributions. The level to which Bob has gone to cast aspersions on you reveals a side of him he's not exhibited prior to this point and I feel it does little to forward or buttress his agenda. I'm not inclined to judge, nor did I expect to, however, your claims seem strong and Bob's shown a questionable facet of his personality in his inquisition of you. You've got nothing to prove to me or in my opinion, to others who post here, but alas, I'm but a guest. And to me, it seems as though Bob has gone to extreme lengths in an effort to pin your ears back. One must wonder why?

Regardless of where else you've posted, WHO YOU ARE or WHAT YOU DO shouldn't matter. Is this not intended to be a public forum? Does one need consent to post there? According to Bob, no. He apparently takes pride in that. If it's all a facade, BC should limit access. Either it's a free and open forum or it's not.

Something here indeed smells foul.

Isn't it ironic that he owns this site called "The National Debate" when he doesn't want to engage in any form of debate of any kind? He wants people to agree with him and when he can't insult them, he resorts to these kind of tactics-posting this woman's personal information? He's obviously gone to some effort here to find out more about her and you've got to ask yourself WHY? It is very, very disturbing and it should serve as a warning to anyone who posts on this site--you do so at your own risk. Piss him off and you're liable to see your information plasted all over the web too. I guess it's a good thing so very few people ever read this total wasted space on the internet and that even fewer even bother to post.

Does anyone else find it deeply ironic that this man operates a site called The National Debate when it is clear that he does not want to engage in debate, for fear that he will be revealed as the mental midget he truly is?

Anyone who posts here does so at their own risk. It is clear that if you disagree with him, he will hunt down personal information on you and post it in a public forum. It is deeply disturbing the lengths he has gone to to try and threaten(?) and intimidate (?) this woman.

Good thing that so few people actually read this waste of internet space and even few ever bother to post here I guess.

Having slept on it and re-reading the prior posts, I must admit that I mispoke earlier when I said I understood Bob's behavior. I thought I did, but I don't.

Regardless of the facts here, it's unfortunate that we must dwell on these side issues. After all, it's not like m is a gay hooker posing as a legitimate journalist or something. Her most egregious alleged offenses appear to be lying and an affection for dropping the "F bomb." So, maybe the Cheney's could ADOPT her. If she sings tenor they'd be halfway to a profanity barbershop. They could do Frank Zappa songs acapella. What fun! Oh, I forgot...she's a "professional student." Under this administration, the quest for knowledge is also offensive. The point is, red, m is clearly NOT a GREAT AMERICAN! The nerve of her holding liberal views. The nerve of her expressing them under a pseudonym. The nerve of her misrepresenting the value and importance of this site. What a LURKER... what a TROLL. We'd clearly be much better off if n'aer-do-wells like m would stay off all of the internets.

Exactly Paul. It's really startling to see the lengths that these people will go to try and silence liberal voices. They seem to totally pick and chose which parts of the Constitution & Declaration of the Independence that they want to use. And nothing, nothing in the world scares them like an outspoken, intelligent liberal. Probably because we see through their smokescreens and lies.

Upon being frustrated in trolling, a standard response for a troll is to claim that the troll's free speech is being denied. Marisa, who seems pre-occupied with making up names for herself, adds her own touch by creating yet another internet persona "redheadedwoman" to "defend" herself with the "censorship/free speech" line.

Of course, no one is censoring anyone on this site. If that were the case, I could go into TypeKey and block the accounts Marisa's is creating or - if I was really serious - block access from the University of Michigan gateway and other interet providers Marisa uses to access OlbermannWatch.com I haven't and don't intend to because stringing Marisa along is just too much fun.

As has always been the case, Marisa and her gal pals on the QT forum are free to post on this site as much as they want in as many different guises as they choose to take on. There is no effort to silence anyone. At the same time, people who exploit the anonymity afforded by the Internet as a way to lie or make disgusting defamatory comments deserve, whereever possible, to be shown up for who they are and what they are all about. I suppose those only thing a troll likes less than being ignore is being outed.

Marisa is typical of trolls. A fellow named Timothy Campbell has put up an excellent FAQ on Trolls: http://members.aol.com/intwg/trolls.htm. It is a worthwhile read if you are interested in understanding the mental state of someone like Marisa.

Tim writes: "Trolls see Internet communications services as convenient venues for their bizarre game. For some reason, they don't "get" that they are hurting real people. To them, other Internet users are not quite human but are a kind of digital abstraction. As a result, they feel no sorrow whatsoever for the pain they inflict. Indeed, the greater the suffering they cause, the greater their 'achievement' (as they see it). At the moment, the relative anonymity of the net allows trolls to flourish. Trolls are utterly impervious to criticism (constructive or otherwise). You cannot negotiate with them; you cannot cause them to feel shame or compassion; you cannot reason with them. They cannot be made to feel remorse. For some reason, trolls do not feel they are bound by the rules of courtesy or social responsibility. Perhaps this sounds inconceivable. You may think, "Surely there is something I can write that will change them." But a true troll can not be changed by mere words."

Normal people might hesitate before calling someone "fucker" or "prick" and would not dream or putting that in writing let alone publishing it on the web. Trolls like Marisa feel no compunction in doing so because people she encounters on the Internet are not really human beings. She justifies this behavior in her own mind with me beacuse I am politically conservative but she does exactly the same thing to other people - people who are big fans of Keith Olbermann - because they are not liberal enough or like Keith enough or don't like him in the right way. Hence Marisa leading a troll flood on a KO fan site. In reality, Marisa's behavior is not a function of anything they do but rather a manifestation of a self-loathing that expresses itself in trolling.

In the warped mind of a troll like Marisa, making disgusting personal comments about me is "free speech" while my connecting the dots for my readers as to who she is and what she is really all about is "censorship".

What makes Marisa's warped behavior all the more hilarious is her constant harping about being a "liberal" which suppposedly means that she "cares" about "people". Clear thinking people know that what this really means is that she cares about "the idee" of people but not ACTUAL people.

Since Marisa is apparently so proud of her behavior online perhaps will stop using psuedonyms and starting posting under just ONE name - her own. Apparently her pride does not go quite that far.

Bob, really, you've gone off the deep end. I am not redheaded woman. I know this might be difficult for you to believe, but there might actually be other people out there who have issues with your recent behavior.

This should be easy to solve. Check my IP address, you should be able to easily tell that I post on this site ONLY as M. I have never posted on this site as anyone other than M. Stop being so paranoid, really.

I can assure you that I am not Marisa. And that Marisa is not me. I guess you are so used to so few visitors to this pathetic little site that it blows your tiny little mind to grasp that there could be more than one female around here who disagree with you. You're really a paranoid one aren't you? I mean, it was bad enough that you cyber-stalked this woman but now you are accusing her of wild things that are totally untrue. I don't really know what your obsession with her is to be very honest. I think it indicates that you have a sincere problem with anyone who disagrees with you and that you think everyone is against you. Everyone who disagrees is your enemy--is that? Well, the enemy of my enemy is my friend so I think I'll have a little chat with M--I believe that she and I have much in common. Just as I believe that you need some serious psychiatric help.

--you are accusing her of wild things that are totally untrue--

I don't know what's true or isn't true, but I'm curious how YOU know. I mean, how do you know these are "wild" charges that are "totally untrue", unless you really ARE "m"?

Dollar-I know that the obvious is beyond your grasp but I know what was posted about M was in large part, untrue, because she told us it was in an earlier post. I guess READING COMPREHENSION is also beyond your grasp. Oh well, I guess anyone who devotes their life to maintaining a pro-Faux website is bound to be quite challenged in grasping the obvious.

and again, I know she is not me because I am me and am not M. I guess you and Mr. Cox want my name so you can create a file on me too, huh?

Did it ever occur to you that you are not the only ones who can compile files and run background checks and post private information on a public webspace? Something you both might want to keep in mind as you go around attacking people who do not agree with you.

--untrue, because she told us it was--

Oh, I get it. It's the "because I said so" standard of proof. OK, gotcha.

--as you go around attacking people--

Do you really think simply being asked a question means you're being attacked? Paranoid much? You'll feel a lot better if you pay a visit here:

http://zapatopi.net/afdb.html

Cheers!

JD,
I think red was referring to RC's attack of Marisa. At least that's how I took it. But thanks for the imbecilic web link.

Mr. Dollar, you think I'm paranoid? Does it not bother you one iota that your friend Mr. Cox went to the time, energy, and expense to look up information about this woman, and posted what he claimed were digits from her phone number, about her family members, etc. How would you like it if that happened to your daughter/sister/wife/mother or friend--or to you yourself? If you can't see what's wrong with that, then that tells me all I need to know about you as well.

BOB,

RE: Mr. Timothy Campbell; what are his credentials pertinent to the analysis of human behavior? The link you provided led to an truly interesting and useful site, but I find no reference to Mr. Campnell's credentials in this area. Perhaps I missed it. Any guidance here?

I find it interesting that you link to Mr. Campbell, yet disregard his succinct, explicit advice on how to respond to trolls, e.g., "The only way to deal with trolls is to limit your reaction to reminding others not to respond to trolls." To me, this leaves little room for interpretation, yet you went "J. Edgar Hoover" on m, posting the alleged results in detail.

Any explanation for this apparent inconguity of your actions given Mr. Campbell's explicit recommendation in this regard?

As near as I can tell, there's been some bad blood between Bob and Marisa for quite awhile.

She has dissed Bob on some sites and he has returned the favor and more...

I followed the links Bob provided for the Olbermann groupie site but I don't feel like wading through the sophmoric "discussion" in order to find out what's been posted about Bob.

I don't know if M has said anything that would warrant Bob letting her know he knows where to send the subpoena... so to speak... but I do think he should have done it privately.

End of story. If you don't like this board or the guy who owns it, don't let the door hit you in the butt... Bob, if M angers you to the point that you have feel you have to track her down and then out her publicly, I think you should prevent her from commenting on O. Watch.

That's my two cents.

I'd say it's worth considerably more.

Well put, C.

Cecilla writes: "I don't know if M has said anything that would warrant Bob letting her know he knows where to send the subpoena... so to speak..."

Well, the simple truth is that M has apparently not done anything that would allow Mr. Cox to swear out a complaint against her. But he has done plenty that would allow HER to take such legal action against HIM because of his cyberstalking.

And he was dumb enough to put the proof of his stalking on this very website. (Don't bother to erase it now--trust me, it's already been archived).

I'm not sure what she did to him either to warrant this extreme action and bitter, vindictive retaliation on his part. My guess is that disagreeing with him, and doing so in an intelligent manner was simply more than he could handle.

If he doesn't want dissenting opinion on this site, it's very simple-block us from posting. But my guess is that Cox's ego is such that he feels the need to have people like Cecilla & Johnny Dollar post to validate him and his point-of-view.

And this incident clearly indicates that anyone who disagrees with him is subject to having their private information posted on the 'net just as M has, simply because they had the nerve to disagree with him. Anyone who posts here who doesn't agree with him are "trolls" and "loonies" and any number of terms of "endearment" he uses to describe us. But his own actions clearly indicate that it is he who is the troll and who clearly has some issues with anger.

Again, it's good that no one really posts here I suppose, or Mr. Cox would no doubt find himself on the receiving end of any number of legal actions against him for his cyberstalking. I'm just waiting to see how long it takes him to figure out who I really am and how long before my info is posted up here for all to see like M's.

Paul,

I did address the question you raise about "not responding" to trolls way back (scroll up). It is rare that a troll provides enough information about themselves that they can be publicly identified and so Marisa McNee represents a fascinating case study for long-time troll observers

With the tables now turned on the troll, Marisa can't STOP posting here, an interesting manifestation of the obessessive/compulsive component to the mental disorder that produces a desire to become a troll in the first place.

As for the quals of Tim Campbell, who knows? His article his a good summary of what experienced internet users have known for a long time - that the anonymity of the internet has encouraged behavior previously limited to prank phone calls.

Since you are still posting here I guess you aren't THAT scared of me? :-)

I'd be interested in knowing if anyone can tell us if there are any laws against "cyberstalking" as Red puts it.

If in the course of conversation on a public board, someone reveals information such where they go to school, their first name, etc and someone follows up on that info... is that an actual crime?

It's seems repellant, weird and obsessive to say the least. Bob says he's been personally impugned by M. on other boards and feels justified in finding out about the person maligning him. He has yet to offer any proof that he was slandered though and slander can most certainly have legal repercussions. Vulgar adolescent names don't qualify. Sticks and stones... remember, Bob.. :D

Again, I think Bob should have addressed M privately. And if M is so upsetting to him that he feels he has garnering info on her in order to make her cease and desist... he should block her posts here.

redheadedwoman writes:

"I'm just waiting to see how long it takes him to figure out who I really am and how long before my info is posted up here for all to see like M's."

I've already gotten the goods:

Miss Clairol #109 "Flamglo" :D

Keeping doing your research there Cecelia. I'm a natural redhead and when I do need some enhancement to cover the grey caused by dealing with people like Mr. C, I wouldn't dare use the in-home stuff--it's not my style.

Cyberstalking, by the way, can involve a large number of activities. The law is quite clear on this subject, just as it is clear that Mr. Cox used bits and pieces gathered from various websites to track down additional information regarding M. He is clearly trying to threaten and intimidate her into NOT posting, but God bless her, I don't think she's the kind who can be backed into a corner. I guess that's another sin she's committed in C's eyes. She refuses to back down and be silenced by his bullying tactics.

If I were a supporter as some of you seem to be, of his, I'd have to ask myself do you really want to put yourself out there on the limb he's currently grasping onto? Do you really want to associate yourself with someone who would stoop so low to try and intimidate and bully someone?

What happens if YOU happen to disagree with him? What then? Something to ask yourselves if you intend to continue to post at this site.

Keeping doing your research there Cecelia. I'm a natural redhead and when I do need some enhancement to cover the grey caused by dealing with people like Mr. C, I wouldn't dare use the in-home stuff--it's not my style.

Cyberstalking, by the way, can involve a large number of activities. The law is quite clear on this subject, just as it is clear that Mr. Cox used bits and pieces gathered from various websites to track down additional information regarding M. He is clearly trying to threaten and intimidate her into NOT posting, but God bless her, I don't think she's the kind who can be backed into a corner. I guess that's another sin she's committed in C's eyes. She refuses to back down and be silenced by his bullying tactics.

If I were a supporter as some of you seem to be, of his, I'd have to ask myself do you really want to put yourself out there on the limb he's currently grasping onto? Do you really want to associate yourself with someone who would stoop so low to try and intimidate and bully someone?

What happens if YOU happen to disagree with him? What then? Something to ask yourselves if you intend to continue to post at this site.

Hi Celia,

I have a lot more to say about this situation with Bob, and I will shortly. But in the interim, if you'd like to know more about cyberstalking and the laws that apply to and govern internet stalking behavior I'll provide some links. Keep in mind that which laws apply to Bob are "fuzzy" from a juridsictional standpoint-- meaning it isn't entirely clear whether Michigan law would apply since it is the state in which I live, or whether New York state law would apply becuase it is where Bob Cox lives and hence the state that the alleged "cyberstalking" would have occurred. In any case here is a link where you can find laws in both states: http://www.ncsl.org/programs/lis/cip/stalk99.htm

I think you might find the following language from the New York state penal code quite interesting:

S 240.30 Aggravated harassment in the second degree.
A person is guilty of aggravated harassment in the second degree when,
with intent to harass, annoy, threaten or alarm another person, he or
she:
1. Either (a) communicates with a person, anonymously or otherwise, by
telephone, or by telegraph, mail or any other form of written
communication, in a manner likely to cause annoyance or alarm; or
(b) causes a communication to be initiated by mechanical or electronic
means or otherwise with a person, anonymously or otherwise, by
telephone, or by telegraph, mail or any other form of written
communication, in a manner likely to cause annoyance or alarm;

-- of course depending on the definition of "annoyance" this language is quite vague. You or I for example might be at risk for being called guilty of harrassement in the second degree for having "annoyed" each other on Olbywatch. I do however think that the case could be made that Bob has certainly engaged in behavior that was inteded to cause alarm.

in the state of New York Aggravated harassment in the second degree is a class A misdemeanor.

I'll spare you the boring detail of the Michigan penal code, you can look it up if you feel like it. For the record, I don't have any idea of what Bob's intentions are...but I think one could make the argument that Bob is certainly putting himself at some risk of penalty here. Perhaps he could argue that he obtained my address for the purpose of sending a subpeona. But ask yourself this question: what exactly does my father's line of work, my undergraduate instition, my daily habits or my work history have to do with getting a subpeona or even filing a lawsuit for slander? What purpose--other than harrassment or intent to cause harm-- would it serve to post all that information publicly when one could have done it privately? And now ask yourself this: If a majority of the posted information is in fact knowingly incorrect, wouldn't one now have opened themselves up to a lawsuit for slander and liabel as well as prosecution for harrassment in the second degree as stipulated by the New York state penal code?

Redheadedwoman,

I very sincerely appreciate the fact that you have a sense of humor, but I'm disappointed with the "all or nothing" mentality evident in your remarks that I'm "supporting" Bob.

The description of his actions as repellant, weird, and obsessive wasn't exactly a compliment.

But I've privately communicated with Bob about this incident and his side of things has made me not fearful of his judgement as much as bemused by his ego. But in truth, I'd trust Bob more than many of the people commenting on Olbermann groupie board that he linked. With those guys I'd feel I needed a computer arsenal to keep the virus bombs at bay were I to post one criticism of Olbermann.

I know this is easy for me to say since Bob hasn't "cyberstalked" me...

M,

As I have stated, I haven't seen your messages on other boards, so I don't know what personal information you have posted so I'm no able to opine on whether it was of a nature that anyone might easily connect-the-dots with a bit of googling or accessing other public records, such as online white pages, etc.

It would have depend on what information you've been willing to publicly reveal online and/or allow to be a matter of public record in first place. You'd have to prove that dissemination of this info has in fact harmed or endangered you in some way. Harrassment is not some vague term meaning causing discomfort.

As to posting inaccurate information about someone as opposed to 'false' information, I take it you mean inaccurate as to where you work, go to school, etc...Again, I think you'd have to prove he did it with malicious intent and as always, that it indeed had a deleterious effect.

Good luck.

Cecilia,
the information I supplied you was just that, information, not an indication of my intentions. At the moment, there's been no actual harm caused. I've spent much of the last couple of days giggling over this.

And if you'd like to hear the other side of the story, feel free to email me and I can explain it to you.

And just for the record, availability of public information is not a defense against harrassment. Compiling of readily available information and then posting it in a manner that intends to cause fear or harm is grounds for being found guilty of harrassment in the state of New York. If you'd like the cases that establish precedent let me know and I can supply them for you.

"I've already gotten the goods: Miss Clairol #109 "Flamglo" :D"

I don't mean to minimize the gravity of this exchange, but darn--we can use more of this. Thanks, C.

--in the state of New York Aggravated harassment in the second degree is a class A misdemeanor.--

And murder is a felony. And neither one applies in this case.

The statute talks about communication WITH a person. That's a phone call, a letter, walking up to someone and talking to him or her.

Posting public comments on a public bulletin board is not a communication with a person. It's a public statement to the entire planet. Not only does it go out to the whole world, but the "victim" does not have to log on to read it. It's not like a phone call that comes into your house. It's a posting on an internet site. You don't have to log in and read it if you don't want. It's not your personal email.

The notion that this law could in the wildest stretch of imagination apply to postings on a comments thread is preposterous logically and legally. That's not even the law in California.

If you'd like a legal brief regarding the cases in New York State that speak to the exact issue of personal information posted on a website...i'd be more than happy to provide it for you. Do some legal research on actual cases that have set precedent and get informed. Otherwise, just stay quiet.

And, I've gone back to the posts on QT that Bob has referenced above, becuase i was sure that as usual Bob was taking things out of context in order to try and make his point. And, of course, I was right, he was. I have no problem with people on the board being annoyed with my stance on the issues, I do have a problem with someone posting partial comments in order to impugn my integrity. So for those who don't want to wade through all the crap above, Bob said the following:
************************************
"She is 5'3", weighs about 110 pounds and wears a size 4. She was married but is now divorced. She drives up a pick up truck and claims to have worked as a detective once. She describes herself as "not so well endowed--big big big fuckin' brains-- and a lot a balls."
*****************************************

This was, as per the usual with Bob, taken out of context and only a partial post. For what reason, god only knows, but upon looking again at what i actually said, one can only surmise that it was becuase the rest of the post makes me look, well, less like an insane floosy. I think the ENTIRE post will make it a little more clear that Bob takes liberty with the truth. And that my posts, on both boards, are a little more thoughtful and genuine than he has otherwise suggested. This is what I actually said:
*****************************************
Tie Critic 3525

01-23-2005 01:36 PM ET (US)

And as long as we're all "required" to give out personal information in order to be considered trustworthy: 5',3"- 110lbs--size 4--married and divorced once--not so well endowed--big big big fuckin' brains-- and a lot a balls.

Exactly how does this information make me more credible or trustworthy?

Time and mutual interaction does a trustworthy companion make. Let's get on with it
*****************************************

As you can see, there was a lot more going on than what Bob suggests. And, I was clearly kidding and involved in a much larger discussion regarding-- get this-- a "troll" over on the QT board. I can provide more examples just like this for just about every claim Bob has made about me.

My point, has always been, that Bob takes liberties with the truth. That he takes partial information and turns it into elaborate stories that make almost anything he says suspect-- he's like the Michael Moore of Olbywatch. I originally posted here because he was doing it to KO, for what appeared to be solely because he took issue with Olbermann's coverage of Ohio. Bob then began doing the exact same thing to me. This isn't about my love of KO, it's about the principle of the thing. It stinks to high heaven, and it's bad bad bad blogger behavior. There's no mystery, no grand conspiracy behind my posting here-- I've just explained it.

Hank,

I've just been reviewing earlier posts on this thread and found a comment of yours I'd missed. "Finally regarding your thought that KO has a "spine": Putting on a loony bin stories that no one else will air is not the same thing as having a spine (see the month long coverage of Republicans "stealing" the Ohio vote)."

Please explain what isn't courageous about reporting stories that affect a large segment of the population (like us here in Ohio, and oh, the NATION) that the MSM elects to IGNORE... especially when doing so opens the door to charges of dredging the "loony bin" lodged by salacious hypocrites like you, who decry my castigation of pundits who routinely employ lies and name-calling to sway public opinion and in the next breath, insult anyone who holds an opposing viewpoint? BTW, while KO indeed provided a forum for those who felt that the Ohio vote had been "stolen," I don't recall him ever SAYING that "Republicans stole the Ohio vote" or anything similar. Did he? Show me.

His covering voting irregularities wasn't popular. But it took guts..More guts than slandering him for doing so on some low-profile blog. Again, when did KO say the republicans stole the Ohio vote? Got a link, transcript or quote? Perhaps Bob can help you with this. I don't recall KO using those words, but my memory sucks, so please enlighten me.

And please don't indict me for insulting folks just to turn around and insult others. Like many of your righty comrades, you engage in the rhetoric of convenience.

Paul,

Since several days before I launched OlbermannWatch, Marisa and her online galpal who uses her own assortments of psuedonyms (Quanlin, Gold Dust Woman, RedHeadedWoman, etc.) have been actively trying to "shut down" OlbermannWatch. Last fall, during the week when I was setting up the site they learned of the site and discussed on Marisa's old QuickTopic board ways to "get" me including a troll flood. If you go back to November and December you will find posts "alerting" readers at Democratic Underground, BlackBoxVoting.com, BlackboxVoting.org, Air America Radio's Morning Sedition and Randi Rhodes Show (and presumeably others) to the launch of OlbermannWatch and discussing various ways to attack and subvert the site. I did not know it at the time but that "campaign" was orchestrated by Marisa and her pal Quanlin (I later found their QT discussion). The plan was to post hateful, vile comments about me and thus force me to shut down the comments section. As you can still see, I left every post up on the site (I later converted to requiring TypeKey registration not to keep them out but because the alternative was to manually confirm every post which became hugely time consuming for me). Because I did not react as they had hoped most of them got bored and gave up. "Someone" also used my contact information to sign me up for all sorts of liberal mailing lists like MoveOn.org and as many "spam" offers as possible so that I found it necessary to sign up for Mail Blocks to screen my e-mail.

Since you are defending Marisa now, I wonder if you have bothered to actually read the many disgusting, hateful comments that she and "Quanlin" wrote about me on their QuickTopic board over the past 5 months. Maybe you are OK with it - and attempting to "shut down" OlbermanWatch.com because they don't like criticism of Keith.

Nothing surprises me on the internet and so the bile they published on their site did not surprise me but that does not mean it is not offensive. I don't think Marisa has a right to make the comments she had made because she takes issue with my criticism of Keith Olbermann.

My purpose in posting as much information as I could find about Marisa was simply to make the point that she is not as "anonymous" as she thinks and that her behavior may also come with a cost. Just as she made her hate speech about me a part of the "permanent" record of the internet via Google, so to is information about the actual person who wrote all that stuff. My hope is that someday, somehow she will be held accountable for her behavior. In the meantime, that she does not like is reason enough. It's called getting a taste of your own medicine, something Marisa's father knows something about.


Dr. Francis McNee

BTW, there is no mystery to how I know what I know. My web hosting account comes with some basic web stats software which includes features like displaying where visitors are coming from (so I know what sites/forums have linked to OW) and the IP addresses of visitors/comments (so I can sort by IP address). I can match the IP addresses with what pages were visited including the comment form page; this allows me to do a quick sort and see all the comments coming from one person regardless of what fake name they use. This is how I know when someone is using multiple "handles" to post.

Paul, No serious objective observer of the political landscape contends that the the 2004 Ohio vote was rigged or that Kerry would have won if more safeguards or different voting machines had been used. The voting in Ohio was probably not perfectly free of flaws, no election is, no matter how much you try to avert mistakes. The point is, KO kept pounding this story day after day, week after week, with his one sided view that there was corruption on a massive scale and the implication that Ken Blackwell as the top election official in Ohio somewhow masterminded the results in favor of Bush just because Blackwell is a Republican. The election is OVER. It was OVER long after KO bit into this story like a pit bull and wouldn't let go. In the end, KO couldn't produce any convincing evidence that Kerry got jobbed out of winning Ohio and KO just sort of quietly let it go (long after this conclusion was obvious to everyone, even Kerry's own campaign). Paul, I didn't sit there and take notes while KO was going apoplectic about the Ohio non-story, so I can't really say whether KO uttered the precise words that Republicans "stole" the election. But, c'mon, surely we can agree that KO wanted to believe that Republicans stole the election and clearly he wanted his viewers to think this was the case whether he uttered the precise words or not. This is just nutty. Even left leaning CNN, no friend of President Bush, passed on this story, not because they were afraid to go with a story that the President wouldn't appreciate, but because they saw that there was nothing there. Interestingly, KO never touched the Washington state governors election where the Republican candidate "won" until uncounted votes were suddenly found several days later in liberal King County giving the election to the Democrat.

Paul I've absorbed a lot of insults in my time, but I don't know that anyone has every accused me of being "salacious" as you have. I looked it up in my trusty Webster's which says that it means: "lustful, lascivious". Hmmm, I'll tell my wife you said so. She might actually appreciate your observation. Best wishes.

I am fascinated by your following statements, "Marisa and her online galpal who uses her own assortments of psuedonyms (Quanlin, Gold Dust Woman, RedHeadedWoman, etc.)" and this one "My web hosting account. . . like displaying where visitors are coming from (so I know what sites/forums have linked to OW) and the IP addresses of visitors/comments (so I can sort by IP address). I can match the IP addresses with what pages were visited including the comment form page; this allows me to do a quick sort and see all the comments coming from one person regardless of what fake name they use. This is how I know when someone is using multiple "handles" to post."

You're so full of crap I don't know how you can even manage to see. Perhaps you can't, which would explain why you are so 1000% wrong on this fact.

See, I know quite a bit about IP's too. I'm board admin at QT and I too can see the IP's of the posters over there. While you are correct that Marisa is a friend of mine, you are very incorrect in saying we are the same person or that we are using multiple aliases to post under. That's just insane. I'm me and I'm posting solely as me on your little site.

And furthermore, your claim that MaryEllen, and Quanlin are all Marisa is just a flat-out lie. I know, I see there IP's each and every day and I can tell you that they are all unique, static addresses. In addition, I trade e-mails, phone calls, etc. with each of these women and it's mighty darn funny how we can all be the same person when we live in totally different parts of the country and what do you know-have different first and last names and phone numbers and addresses!

People--here is one of the best examples that I know into how this man's mind works and the clear insane notions that have seized what little remains of his pea-sized brain. He apparently doesn't have a clue that certain IP providers use non-static IP addresses and that it's totally possible for multiple posters from the same IP provider to be using the same IP address, even though they may be in seperate parts of the country, or even the world. I see it all the time on QT because at least four of our regulars use the same on-line providers. Sometimes all four show up as posting from the same IP address, sometimes they all show up using different IP's--sometimes those IP's change during the day as they sign on and off. The key is that this particular IP provider usually uses a very distinct suffix on the IP addy.

Yes, I know it's a shock but the font of wisdom that is Bob Cox doesn't know what in God's name he's talking about--yet again. See a pattern here folks? He twists, he distorts, and he flat-out lies to try and prove his insane conspiracy theories, and when he's shown up to be what he truly is--he then launches personal attacks against the people who have illustrated how he lies, twists, distorts, and carries on his vindictive crusade against anyone dares oppose him--as evidenced by his latest photo exhibition.

Let me ask each of you who profess to be his friends and regularly post here--how can you condone his actions? How can you look past his lies and distortions? How do you continue to defend the undefendable. What does this woman's family have to do with her? Would you all like your family's pictures and info posted on a website?

None of the posters have done anything on QT except state the truth--Mr. Cox is a vile, disgusting, loathsome creature who is so filled with hate and rage that if he let those things go--he'd have nothing left to provide fuel for what must be his pathetic existence.

The real reason that he doesn't ban posters form his site is that if he didn't, he'd only have a grand total of 3 visitors over here anyway and he can't stand being ignored which is why he's done everything he can do to illict a comment from Marisa--and from her friends. And this is the reason why he is so obssessed with revenge against her--he wants the comments, he wants the controversy, despite his protests to the contrary.

He can't stand that he can't draw interest to this site so he'll go to any extent to create controversy to get someone--anyone--to post here. Then he claims he's the victim, and therefore, in that narrow-mind of his, justifies his radical behavior of tracking down personal info about Marisa and even posting pictures of family members.

You don't think I'm correct on this theory? Click on that site meter at the bottom of this screen. You're looking at the stats for his National Debate website-not Olbywatch. That's how desperate he is to claim he reaches a much larger audience than he actually does.

I guess it must be deeply embarassing for him to be humilated on his own website. But if he didn't take part in activities which make him a laughingstock, then there would be no need for any of us to come here and point out just how full of it he truly is.

I really do fear for anyone who makes him angry. He's obviously got some very deep-seated issues and he really needs to get some psychological help if he currently isn't under the care of a mental-health professional.

You people can continue to post here if you'd like, but I'm done. This was mildly amusing before it veered off into total insanity--but it's so clear to me that Cox has some real issues and that he needs professional help--or law enforcement intervention that I have no interest in enabling someone else's insanity or criminal activities.

Talk about having your tin-foil hat on too tight--on any given day, this man believes that Marisa posts under multiple names; that multiple posters are all the same person; and that there is a vast, left-wing conspiracy to "get him" and shut down this pathetic little site.

Speaking of which, Mr. C posted on QT and informed us we'd been google-bombed--meaning he'd done everything he could do to get Owatch up at the top of the Google list when you did a search for Keith Olbermann's name and that he'd done everything he could do to delist QT. That illustrates the lengths to which he'll go to in his desperation to "win". If you want to climb in the car with him as he drives off the cliff-go ahead. I'm bailing now.

I've wasted enough of my time, energy, and intelligence on someone who isn't worth my time. In the words of a far saner, more intelligent man, "Good bye, and good luck".

Bob,

If you have evidence for anything you're saying, I'd like to see it. By all means, post this alleged discussion between Quanlin and myself. I'm sure it will become obvious that whatever was said was just wishful thinking and joking between two people on a discussion board. I don't know what grand conspiracy you think you've uncovered, but please, loosen up the tin foil hat a bit. I'm not that important and you're not that important. Jeez, and I'm the tin foil hat loon on this site? Give me a break.

And please post all these horrible things I've said about you. Even if true, a taste of my own medicine would be to call me names or say bad things about me(something you've already done), but how is posting personal information about me a taste of my own medicine? I've never posted personal information about you anywhere. Moreover, I thought your explanation for why you were compiling information on me was for legal protection? I'm glad to see that you've finally decided to tell the truth-- that it was solely for retaliation. Delude yourself into believing your actions are justified if you like, but I can't imagine anyone here thinks this is okay behavior.

As for the mystery of what you know about IP addresses, if you have evidence....let's see it. You're a liar. I have NEVER posted on this site as anyone other than M.

I've asked multiple times for you to provide evidence about my "grand consipiracy" to take down your site. I've also asked multiple times for you to provide evidence of all the horrible things I've supposedly done to anger you. You haven't given me or anyone else here any evidence. We can clear this up pretty quickly, post the evidence, including every email interaction we've ever had (in their entirety), and then we'll see what's what.

Oh, and woo hoo, nice pic dad! In the words of the oh-so-famous Paris Hilton-- That's hot!

RedHeadedWoman- So, you're finally leaving us? No more pleasantries and rational discourse to share with us? We will all be the lesser for it, I'm sure.

M- With regard to your response to Johnny Dollar when he pointed out to you that the New York statute does not cover internet postings, where is your case law or court decisons that support your interpretation of the law? As far as I can tell, Johnny correctly interpreted and applied the statute that you yourself said was the relevant statute which seems to indicate that you have no claim. You try to lecture Johnny to do the research on cases and get informed or just stay quiet. Pardon me, but Johnny is not the one asserting that he has a claim under the law-- YOU are! So, its not his place to find a case or a brief that supports your position. He has already shown that the statute you cite does not help you, so now it's your turn to put your money where your mouth is and give us some legal authority from a controlling jurisdiction that stands for the propsition that you assert. I'm not interested in "I'd be happy to provide it to you" at some unspecified day and time. You don't have to provide a document, just give a case citation. Otherwise, you are are the one who should "just be quiet".

Hank,

Re: "No serious objective observer of the political landscape contends that the 2004 Ohio vote was rigged or that Kerry would have won if more safeguards or different voting machines had been used." --> You can't prove this any more that I can prove otherwise. Many are either suspicious of the outcome or strongly believe that there were significant problems that MAY have affected the result.

"The voting in Ohio was probably not perfectly free of flaws, no election is, no matter how much you try to avert mistakes. The point is, KO kept pounding this story day after day, week after week, with his one sided view that there was corruption on a massive scale and the implication that Ken Blackwell as the top election official in Ohio somehow masterminded the results in favor of Bush just because Blackwell is a Republican." --> You over-simplify. Many feel Blackwell was a factor. If you saw him conduct the state's business, you may have a keener appreciation for why that is, but there were many others people, groups and issues who contributed to our suspicions.

"The election is OVER." (-->Thanks, Sean--you forgot "YOU LOST!--GET OVER IT!). "It was OVER long after KO bit into this story like a pit bull and wouldn't let go. In the end, KO couldn't produce any convincing evidence that Kerry got jobbed out of winning Ohio and KO just sort of quietly let it go (long after this conclusion was obvious to everyone, even Kerry's own campaign)." --> Cheeez, you BROUGHT IT UP! Have you any idea how INFREQUENTLY I've done so here? Yet I continue to have to argue with folks like you about it.

"Paul, I didn't sit there and take notes while KO was going apoplectic about the Ohio non-story, so I can't really say whether KO uttered the precise words that Republicans "stole" the election." --> If you CAN'T back it up, then please don't talk as if you can. It's misleading to readers. I'll try to extend you and your conservative comrades the same courtesy. Maybe next time you'll take notes.

"But, c'mon, surely we can agree that KO wanted to believe that Republicans stole the election and clearly he wanted his viewers to think this was the case whether he uttered the precise words or not." --> I don't know KO or what he thinks, sorry. I haven't the benefit, as you apparently do, of having had lengthy conversations with KO on these issues. Maybe you're right. Next time you chat, please have him call me. If her confirms your claims, I'll be happy to acknowlege it publicly.

"This is just nutty." --> Thanks. Yeah, we're just noisy, nutty loons. That makes it easy for you to blow us off. We're just a bunch of wacko fruitcakes (Jane Fonda, Michael Moore, Tin Foil Hat Crowd). I agree that it's nutty from the angle I've had to repeat myself so much on this as; I'm sure have you. I'm really tired of talking about this.

"Even left leaning CNN, no friend of President Bush, passed on this story, not because they were afraid to go with a story that the President wouldn't appreciate, but because they saw that there was nothing there." --> You have documentation? Please provide evidence of this. If you don't, please curb you urge to speak of it.

"Interestingly, KO never touched the Washington state governors election where the Republican candidate "won" until uncounted votes were suddenly found several days later in liberal King County giving the election to the Democrat."

--> Here we go again. Washington State is the 15th most populated state in the nation, with just over 6 million people. They're 18th in the US ranked by area. Why is it that you and others who continue to blather on about this outrage feel that the Washington State Gubernatortial Race and our National Presidential Election are REMOTELY comparable?

"Paul I've absorbed a lot of insults in my time, but I don't know that anyone has every accused me of being "salacious" as you have. I looked it up in my trusty Webster's, which says that it means: "lustful, lascivious". Hmmm, I'll tell my wife you said so. She might actually appreciate your observation. Best wishes.� --> Yes, it indeed means lustful, lascivious. Alternate meanings are: disapproving, cheap, rude, and suggestive. Take your pick. But if it helps with your frau, please doon't forgot who gave you your "props." ;-}

Thanks for your thoughts.

Hank,

It's unfortunate that both you and JD have not taken the time to read the New York Penal Code provided above. But since I'm in a generous mood I'll take the time to provide a palatable explanation for interpreting �240.30.

Here's the problem with JD's interpretation. He says:

**********************************************
"The statute talks about communication WITH a person. That's a phone call, a letter, walking up to someone and talking to him or her.

Posting public comments on a public bulletin board is not a communication with a person. It's a public statement to the entire planet. Not only does it go out to the whole world, but the "victim" does not have to log on to read it. It's not like a phone call that comes into your house. It's a posting on an internet site. You don't have to log in and read it if you don't want. It's not your personal email.

The notion that this law could in the wildest stretch of imagination apply to postings on a comments thread is preposterous logically and legally. That's not even the law in California."
************************************************

Well, yes, section 1a applies to direct contact with a person. That's true. But-- and here's where JD's impatience got the better of him and he didn't bother to read further along-- section 1b clearly stipulates that a person is guilty of aggravated harassment in the second degree when, with intent to harass, annoy, threaten or alarm another person, he or she causes a communication to be initiated by mechanical or electronic means or otherwise, with a person, anonymously or otherwise, by telephone, or by telegraph, mail or any other form of written communication, in a manner likely to cause annoyance or alarm.

read the words again, just so you get it, CAUSES A COMMUNICATION TO BE INITIATED. This law most certainly applies to postings on a comments board.

so, to answer Cecilia's original question:
*********************************************
"If in the course of conversation on a public board, someone reveals information such where they go to school, their first name, etc and someone follows up on that info... is that an actual crime?"
**********************************************

yes, if the information posted on a public board causes communication to be initiated that was intended solely to harrass, annoy or alarm...it is in fact a crime according to �240.30 in the New York State Penal Code. Bob does not have to be the initiator of contact, he simply has to have been the one who caused that contact. Bob has now made himself responsible for the behavior of any nut that might be reading this site and choose to make contact with me based on the information provided here.

The more important issue at the moment, however, isn't even whether someone contacts me-- he's much more vulnerable should someone contact my father. One could always argue that I provided enough personal info myself, that Bob is not responsible. The same argument can't be made in regards to my father. Mr. Cox has provided his name and a link to a site that lists his work address and phone numbers. And has also presented that information in a way that suggests one should perhaps contact my father. Should my father receive a phone call, fax, email or letter from anyone that got that information on this site-- Bob would be subject to prosecution under �240.30.

Given Bob's rantings on the deplorable behavior of anonymous trolls on the internet, it's rather surprising that he would make himself responsible for their behavior by being the vehicle by which they engage in such behavior.

In any case, Johnny Dollar was wrong in his interpretation, and so were you Hank.

--CAUSES A COMMUNICATION TO BE INITIATED. This law most certainly applies to postings on a comments board.--

I'm sorry but unless the English language has been revised, and statutes do not mean what they say, you are mistaken.

It reads "causes a communication to be initiated by mechanical or electronic means or otherwise WITH A PERSON". Not a bulletin board. The object of the communication is an individual, not a public website.

If you have a case that interprets This Statute to include posts to public bulletin boards, cite it. Unlike Olby, I'll admit it if I'm wrong. If you don't have any such case, I trust you will admit that you are wrong.

JD,
Again, slow down honey, and read carefully. The statute is interpreted to mean the following: If a person, posts information on a public board or a webiste, and that information causes a communication to be initiated by mechanical or electronic means or otherwise WITH A PERSON than said person can be found guilty of Aggravated harassment in the second degree in the state of New York.

I think you're getting yourself tripped up over the idea that Bob's comments on the board are not communication to a person. You say the following:

"It reads "causes a communication to be initiated by mechanical or electronic means or otherwise WITH A PERSON". Not a bulletin board. The object of the communication is an individual, not a public website."

An email, fax, phone call or letter would be communication WITH A PERSON. The object of the communication would in fact be me or my father. This statute is specifically written so that people who post personal information on a public board or website so that OTHER people can do the harrassing, are just as responsible for the harrassment as thought they themselves had made actual contact WITH A PERSON. So, basically, it isn't about whether Bob's comments on the board are CONTACT WITH A PERSON.It's about whether Bob's comments on a public space are the vehicle by which ANYONE makes CONACT WITH THAT PERSON. In other words, if you were to decide to call my father and make harrassing comments, and you made that phone call with information provided by OlbermannWatch (or Bob Cox), Bob Cox could be prosectued under �240.30-- not becuase HE made contact WITH A PERSON, but becuase he CAUSED contact to be made WITH A PERSON.

Are we clear? I'll forgoe a request for an admmission of wrongness on your part, if we can agree to a truce on this. Arguing the technicalities of the statutory language isn't really the point. Bob's behavior stinks to high heaven and you know it.

Read it and weep girls...

from today's Hartford Courant

Making Sport Of It All March 15, 2005
By LIZ HALLORAN, Courant Staff Writer

from the Q&A section:

Q: You've described yourself as non-political and nonpartisan and have said you don't vote. But often the tone, if not the content, of your show can suggest otherwise, and conservative folks like those at the "Olbermann Watch" blog refer to you as "rabidly leftist." If not political, what are the basic standards you use to evaluate policy, for example, or candidates and politicians?

A: Boy, how soon they forget. I did 228 consecutive shows on MSNBC in '98 on the Clinton-Lewinsky story, and not a one of them was pro-Clinton. And I know that most of this ideological nonsense is predicated on my coverage of the Ohio [2004 presidential election] voting problems. What I found so amusing about the backlash to that was that the undertone to my coverage of Ohio was what a fool John Kerry had made of himself, dipping his toe in the recount water and then running away when it got too chilly. As an overall philosophy, I liked what Dana Milbank of The Washington Post said as he bowed out as White House correspondent: that he's basically antithetical to power. Me, too.

There is a whole army of bloggers, radio hosts and TV people who have decided that any deviation from their political view is to be persecuted - and the "Olbermann Watch" and [Brent] Bozell jokers [of Media Research Center and Parents Television Council] are foremost among them. We made just as much sport of Kerry as Bush during the campaign, but neutrality is not what they want. They want conformity and a deliberate, institutionalized, pro-Republican slant. Guess what? They're never going to get it.

No matter what your political orientation is, if you don't stick up for freedom of all opinion, eventually the wheel will turn, you'll be the minority and you'll have written the rules by which you yourself are squashed.

--This statute is specifically written--

It IS specifically written. It means what it says. If you think otherwise, CITE THE CASE.

--becuase he CAUSED contact to be made WITH A PERSON--

You do not know what you are talking about. To CAUSE contact to be made with a person means you told someone to do it, not that you posted information on a public website.

Again, you are not making any sense legally. So I ask again, CITE THE CASE. Otherwise you are just blowing smoke.

Speaking of the law...

Isn't there a law against impersonating a lawyer? I know Marisa is a "professional student" but I was not aware she had gone to law school and passed the bar too!

Maybe I had better report her to the American Bar Association.

HERE'S YOUR CITATION

People v. Munn, 688 N.Y.S.2d 384 (City Crim. Ct. 1999) - the court in this case held as follows: "Harassing and threatening message posted on an Internet newsgroup is the type of communication prohibited by statute governing aggravated harassment in the second degree as it was initiated by electronic means, namely a computer, attachable to telephones, and involved written communication directed at complainant, whose name was included in a posting on the newsgroup." To make and be succesful on this type of complaint, a plaintiff is only required to prove the following two criteria: "The communication must be one initiated by electronic or mechanical means attachable to telephones or be a written form of communication. Secondly, the communication must have been one directed at the complainant. The message in the instant case allegedly posted on an Internet newsgroup meets both these criteria."

Judging by what Cox has posted about and toward me and my father on his site, I would not have a difficult time meeting these two criteria. You also may want to reference McKinley's Penal Law Sec. 240.30, subds. 1,2 and 35B N.Y. Jur.2d Criminal Law Sec. 4973 for further explication of this statute.

*******************************************

yes, impersonating a lawyer is a crime in every state, just as it is a crime to impersonate a physician. However, one must hold themselves out as a lawyer to a client and give that person legal advice and/or practice law under the auspices that they are a licensed, practicing attorney. Discussing a statute or area of the law on a website would not fall under this legal code. I never held myself out as an attorney, in fact, Cox has informed everyone that I am a student of Urban Planning and Public Policy, therefore visitors to his site would know that I am not a lawyer.

If Mr. Cox would like to report me to the American Bar Association, I invite him to do so. Perhaps I'll get lucky and they will arrest him for falsely reporting a crime.

Bob Cox "could be prosectued under �240.30".

I seriously doubt that. Though you say you're not interested in pursuing the matter, if you change your mind and find an attorney who will take the case, I'd be surprised.

On the other hand, Bob, could you give your enormous drama queen ego a much needed vacation and have the simple commonsense to decide whether you are going to be adult enough to allow m to call you dirty names on other sites or ban her from your site and spare the rest of your blog audience this nonsense.

Bob,

I did try to wade through the comments your URLs provided to find examples of Marisa's bad behavior but found it tedious. The banality of the QT board makes it difficult. I did, however, see evidence to support some of your your contentions. Few among us like to be ridiculed or insulted. Whether or not this justifies your reaction is a question I'm unqualified to answer. I limit my defense of Marisa to her ideas and her right to express them here. By doing so, I don't intend to defend her bad behavior on other sites. However, on OlbyWatch, she's been more restrained. Since this situation is indeed unique, I agree with C that you may have every right to ban her, however, in my opinion, her contributions here haven't in any way sabotaged your efforts or undermined the purpose of your site. So, troll or otherwise, what real affect has she had on your site? Your lurkers are still lurkin' and your regulars are still postin'. If there are grounds for legal action, I wonder if you two should continue pursue it in the court of public opinion? I think we'd all be better off if we stick to discussing what happens on Countdown.

As I said, "M", you don't know what you're talking about.

People v. Munn, 688 N.Y.S.2d 384 (City Crim. Ct. 1999) -- this case involved a posting to a newsgroup that named a police officer and called for his murder. Not just a posting of someone's name and a few digits of their phone number.

But even more to the point, this case involves a New York CITY ordinance. You cited a New York STATE Penal Code law. (By word of explanation, when a city passes a law, that is not the same thing as when the state passes a law. It's even LESS the same thing when their language is different.) So the case you provide has NOTHING to do whatsoever with the statute you claim to be applicable.

So I ask again. If you have evidence that the NY statute you cited above (240.30) is in any way applicable in the fashion you claim, CITE THE CASE. And this time, save us all a lot of time and make a least a rudimentary check to make sure you're not citing another case that has nothing to do at all with the statute.

Actually JD, the precedent that was set was not about the threat that was made and whether it was a valid threat, it actually spoke to the fact that threatening language posted on a newsgroup or message board is in fact "the type of communication prohibited by statute governing aggravated harassment in the second degree"

And, again, as usual you failed to read the information provided to you that would have made this clear. The full text of the case reveals the following:

"[1] The defendant moved pursuant to CPL 170.30 and 170.35 for an order dismissing the charge of aggravated harassment in the second degree. Since
there is no specific provision in the Penal Law which bans harassment via the Internet, the novel issue raised in this motion is whether a harassing and threatening message posted on an Internet newsgroup is a type of communication
prohibited by Penal Law 240.30(1). The Court finds that such a communication is encompassed by section 240.30 and denies the defendant's motion to dismiss."

This case spoke exactly to the statute in question.

"M", you are citing a case under a city ordinance. If the language you are quoting (without sourcing it, by the way) comes from the case you claim it does, then it has zero value as a precedent. What a city judge says about a state law is meaningless. It is rendered even MORE meaningless (if such a thing is possible) because the facts of the case (a call for someone to murder a named police officer) could not be more dissimilar to what we have here. The case specifically dealt with posting THREATS directed to PARTICULAR PEOPLE.

My request is a simple one. Cite a case Brought Under The NY Statute that interprets it as you say. A case that establishes the precedent (which a city court cannot do) that if someone collects data from other internet sites and re-posts it, with no communication to any particular person, and no threats, then that constitutes a violation of the New York state statute. THAT is the fact situation we have before us. THAT is what you claim this statute covers. So CITE THE CASE.

As the bouncer said: "All-right, guys, just take it outside, okay?" JD, you ain't getting billable hours for this, are you?

Cecelia,

I don't accept your framing of the question: "decide whether you are going to be adult enough to allow m to call you dirty names on other sites or ban her from your site".

I am not attempting to prevent Marisa McNee from calling me "dirty names". If that were the case, I would be filing a complaint with the owners of the QuickTopic board or pursuing legal action against her for libel based on a defamatory post that Marisa McNee put up which falsely accused me a crime. At this point, I am not doing that.

I don't think it follows that because Marisa McNee is a troll she should be banned from the site. It's not a "free speech" issue because "free speech" does not mean the right to post any comment, anywhere. It is a practical matter. Banning a troll does not work because trolling is a function of the ease with which people like Marisa McNee can post anonymously on web sites. As you can already see the GalPals from Marisa McNee's QuickTopic discussion group are adept at taking on psudeonyms and trolling. Attempting to play some cat-and-mouse ban/troll game with them is what gives meaning to their lives (affirmation through negation) so my banning them will only excite them and encourage them further.

That article I cited the other day addressed your point:

What Can be Done about Trolls?

When you suspect that somebody is a troll, you might try responding with a polite, mild message to see if it's just somebody in a bad mood. Internet users sometimes let their passions get away from them when seated safely behind their keyboard. If you ignore their bluster and respond in a pleasant manner, they usually calm down. However, if the person persists in being beastly, and seems to enjoy being unpleasant, the only effective position is summed up as follows: The only way to deal with trolls is to limit your reaction to reminding others not to respond to trolls. When you try to reason with a troll, he wins. When you insult a troll, he wins. When you scream at a troll, he wins. The only thing that trolls can't handle is being ignored.

If people on this board don't like Marisa McNee and her galpals posting comments on OlbermannWatch the only effective way to deal with them is to ignore them. I'm having too much fun

Getting back to the original question, the answer is that if you don't like Marisa McNee and her ilk posting on this site then just ignore them altogether and ultimately most will get bored and go away. Marisa McNee exhibits signs of a particularly malignant form of trolling that is partly narcissistic and partly obsessive/compulsive. It is clear that she has become obsessed with me - sending me e-mails, posting incessantly about me on her discussion board and posting comments on my site.

What I find amusing is that having harrassed me for five months, Marisa McNee's reaction, and that of her galpals on their QuickTopic discussion board, to my turning the tables on her for a few days is to makes all sorts of vague, legal threats. To that extent she is similar to her imaginary boyfriend, Keith Olbermann. She can dish it out but she can't take it (see yesterday's Hartford Courant, above).

Speaking of legal threats, if you really want to get a sense of how "unbalanced" KO fans are take a look at this post about an effort by some of the KO "galpals" to organize a Keith Olbermann "fan club from last December:

Ayonna 1981
12-06-2004 07:41 PM ET (US)

Here's the post I mentioned:

By now most of you have noticed that something's been a little "off" with the group lately. Since this is a semi-private group, and I am an active participant and co-owner, and Keith is a public figure, I have every right to post this message. You all helped me with the website and supported the efforts for a fan club (which we didn't think we'd ever get anyway). You all have a right to know (and the attorneys in my office agree that you all have a right to know):

Last weekend I sent Keith an e-mail asking him to kindly answer some questions for the fans so that we could post them - if not questions, if he could send me some photos or an article for the website.

Here's a snippet of the relevant paragraphs:

"Would you be so kind as to throw an adorable young woman a bone (yes, me)? Please let me know if you would be willing to answer a list of questions for your fans. Consider it an update from the last few times you did it several years ago. They won't be mundane questions - unless you want mundane and that's totally up to you - I'll take what I can get. I can send it to you, you pick and choose what you want to answer and send it back - case closed. Barbara Bassett, a member of the iheartolbermann board, prepared a list of questions a while back that she would have forwarded for a fan club.

Speaking of which, your agent was lovely, we just wish she said "no" from day one instead of "yes" and then "no" a few weeks later. We had no idea what some old fans put you through [well, we know now] and I understand why you've never written me back (if it's based on your past experience, who knows, maybe you don't find me amusing or maybe you find my beauty and wisdom intimidating - I'm sorry, I did have quite a bit of shiraz with dinner last night - it must still be in my system). Although you don't seem the type to want a club, we just wanted to go back to the ladies and say that we at least tried. If you ever change your mind or need letter writers, don't hesitate to contact us."

Keith's agent sent me the following e-mail on Monday morning:

"Amy: Keith forwarded me your recent email to him. It disturbed me immensely; thus, I must request that you not contact him or me again.

You misrepresented our talk to Keith by saying that I had said "yes" and then a few weeks later "no" regarding the fan club. I specifically remember saying to you how Keith appreciated such faithful fans and viewers but I was in no position to say yes or no to an official fan club that I had to check with him. When he explained to me that he had a fan club that had been created a number of years ago and that he didn't want to negate their loyalty by announcing an "official Keith Olbermann" fan club, I conveyed that to you.

I think it's best at this point that all correspondence stop to him and to me.

Regards,"

I have every e-mail, everything's documented - she never contradicted me when I confirmed our telephone call by e-mail (in fact she made a joke about her name being on the petition - that's it) and never once did she e-mail me to say "Amy, Keith's changed his mind - You and Barbara can stop doing work to get this togther". The fan club was contingent on including his other fans from the old, already closed 1997 group - we got all that together. So now, his agent is calling me a liar and trying to shut me up - Why? Is she's trying to cover her ass? If so, from what? Well, damned if I know - allegedly Keith left her before only to come back 6 months later. No one's perfect and I'm sure in 20 years of doing business with one another, mistakes were made. However, it is beyond any of us how an agent would knowingly and willingly cut off a fan who was a "co-ringleader" of a 55 person group of fans, who gives her own client free publicity by way of a fairly decent website, and generally, with the help of others, looks out for their client's best interests (i.e., the guy trying to buy Keith's domain name from me, the hate mail I/we received).

Needless to say, the website home page has been taken down. For those who want to save photos or articles, you can go to ww.keitholbermann.com/celebpage - I am only going to continue to pay for it for a few more weeks and then I'm pulling the $16.99 a month plug.

An agent's job is to represent their client's wishes - - if these are Keith's wishes, Kim, Barbara, Patty, myself and others don't want anything to do with him anymore - he doesn't deserve to have such loyal and honorable fans, imo. Several people have written to Keith in response to his agent and we are so appreciative of everyone's efforts - the love, care and concern for each other has been great - we've all been let down by someone we thought was better than this behavior. Keith should know that this is now how to treat decent human beings who merely respect his work and supported him.

You can all feel however you want about him - no one is asking that anyone stops watching the show. You can still talk about him, drool if you wish...some of us just won't participate in the discussion.

We have a great deal of fondness and affection for you all and we are NOT shutting down the group. We will however change the name of the group. So far, suggestions for the new name include:

MenofMSNBC
Newswatchers
MSNBCNewswatchers
KissourassOlbermann

If anyone can come up with any other ideas, let us know. We'd like to change the name of the group by this weekend and forget the whole thing ever happened.

Thanks all!

Love,

Amy, Kim, Barbara & Patty

--JD, you ain't getting billable hours for this, are you?--

You know what? I NEVER got any billable hours! I spent a quarter of a century as Assistant Prosecuting Attorney in one of the largest jurisdictions in the country. All that time was spent intepreting state statutes and prosecuting violaters. If I had been paid by the hour I could have retired many years ago!

Bob,

So now your problem with M isn't that she's launched ad hominem attacks on other sites, it's that she's been a troll on this one.

Sheesh! I am simply in the dark as to what has inspired you to publish personal information on M.

I'm not alone in this. Paul and I both have respected you and enjoyed your site and have tried to understand what the hell is going on. But you've given us no reason to think that you've done anything other than over-react.

Bob, I have no trouble with anyone posting on this site. Even if they call you a "prick"... My concern is what it does to you.

M has not been a troll on Olbermann Watch. Unless, you tell me otherwise, all I see is that in the course of reading her arguments the worst she has done is to lob a few insults at you in return for yours, and to call this site a "joke".

If you call that being a troll and it incites you to throw up a picture of m's father in an effort to intimidate her, then we'd all be better off if you simply banned her from the site.

Please stop investigating and broadcasting M's background. You've given us no reason to think that this behavior is anything other than manical on your part AND considering the amount of gratitude and consideration that Olbermann showed toward his groupies and their fan club asperations, M can't even hope that Keith will see her info, make contacy. and reward her with a job sharpening his pencils on Countdown.

Get some perspective, Bob.

Seriously.

Bob,

So now your problem with M isn't that she's launched ad hominem attacks on other sites, it's that she's been a troll on this one.

Sheesh! I am simply in the dark as to what has inspired you to publish personal information on M.

I'm not alone in this. Paul and I both have respected you and enjoyed your site and have tried to understand what the hell is going on. But you've given us no reason to think that you've done anything other than over-react.

Bob, I have no trouble with anyone posting on this site. Even if they call you a "prick"... My concern is what it does to you.

M has not been a troll on Olbermann Watch. Unless, you tell me otherwise, all I see is that in the course of reading her arguments the worst she has done is to lob a few insults at you in return for yours, and to call this site a "joke".

If you call that being a troll and it incites you to throw up a picture of m's father in an effort to intimidate her, then we'd all be better off if you simply banned her from the site.

Please stop investigating and broadcasting M's background. You've given us no reason to think that this behavior is anything other than manical on your part AND considering the amount of gratitude and consideration that Olbermann showed toward his groupies and their fan club asperations, M can't even hope that Keith will see her info, make contact. and reward her with a job sharpening his pencils on Countdown.

Get some perspective, Bob.

Seriously.

Paul writes:

"JD, you ain't getting billable hours for this, are you?"

What a trollish remark.

Well, what can we expect.

I've done some thorough investigating and I want you folks to see a picture of Paul's father.

http://www.kemical.org/ghouls2003/pimp.jpg

Like father, like son. That was his favorite brim. You've just drawn a line in the sand, C. You're gonna' regret this!

JD,

Well, you were obviously well-suited for your chosen occupation. Let me take this opportunity to thank you for your many years of public service. (Not being sarcastic in any way here).

"(Not being sarcastic in any way here)."

rrriiight....

For that, here's a picture of Paul and his business partner.

http://www.ohs.org/education/folklife/images/Kenny_videotaping_Kurt_in_workshop.JPG

The length to which Mr. Cox is willing to go to try and prove his claims that he is the victim of a left-wing conspiracy to somehow violate his constitutional right to attack Keith Olbermann is just beyond belief.

He's now stumbled across a fan group for Olbermann on Yahoo, and has posted remarks from that group which have nothing to do with the issue being discussed here. Apparently it was just for his own personal amusement, and so he could repeat the (false) claim that one or two Olbermann fans are using multiple "aliases" to carry out some sort of left-wing conspiracy against him.

Furthermore, he's once again twisted and distorted the facts to "support" his own paranoid delusions. The simple fact is that he has once again flat-out LIED here(I know you're shocked to hear THAT). Please note very carefully the date posted in Cox's post above. He claims that it is from December 2004. How would that be possible given the simple fact that the LAST post to this group (Yahoo's Men of MSNBC) was in fact made on October 1st, 2004?

Sure, what he posted here looks like it's authentic and that he has simply cut and pasted the text directly from the posts made to that board. But I can assure you that he has carefully altered key dates to try and bend the truth to support his claims. You know, the ones about how M and her friends (or is it just M POSTING as various people--you notice his argument keeps changing on this subject) are somehow doing something to justify his very personal attacks and invasion of Marisa's privacy and have been engaged in an attempt to "silence' him over the past few months. He obviously now wants to bend time itself!

My question to you is this--how in the heck can you believe ANYTHING this man says when he pulls stunts like this? Yet you do. Not only that, you've got JD coming in to cite some totally irrelevant caselaw to somehow try and justify Cox's insane actions, and now what do we have--a link to Paul's father's picture too!

Let me ask you this. If a left-wing blogger had taken great exception to something posted on their site by a right-winger--what would be the reaction of the blog world and the media at large if the left-winger than retaliated by posting personal information about the right-wingers private life and their family members? You know darn well that it would be a subject of intense debate and discussion and cited as proof by your friends over there at Fox News as how "left wing bloggers go too far". Yet, just so long as it's a right-winger attacking someone from the left, you all apparently have no moral, philsophical or ethical issues with it. All's fair huh?
But you need to ask yourself this simple question--just how far are you willing to follow, assist, and abet this madman as he carries out his vendetta against Marisa? Where does it stop? Where does it end? And what is to be gained by it?

--you've got JD coming in to cite some totally irrelevant caselaw--

I'm sorry, D, you are very mistaken. It was "M" who cited the totally irrelevant case law. It was JD who pointed out that it was irrelevant.

JD-- you're wrong about this legal case, but it will have to wait a few minutes because I have some things to say that might add some clarity to the situation (atleast from my end, can�t speak to why Bob is doing what he�s doing).

First, I need to address the "postings" that Mr. Cox published above. He has insinuated that myself and others on the QT board ("galpals" as he likes to refer to us) were in some way affiliated with whoever wrote that email and posted those comments. I am not, nor is anyone on the QT board that I know of. From what i can tell (becuase he didn't provide information about where those posts were from) he is also attempting to make it seem as though those comments came from the QT discussion board. They did not. They are in fact from an old Yahoo discussion board that imploded a few years ago. I have no idea what relevance they have to me, I was not a member of that group and did not even know who Keith Olbermann was at the time that email was written. What Bob's post does tell us, is that he not only spends his time pouring over thousands of comments on the QT board in order to investigate (some people might refer to it as cyberstalking) he has also requested permission and joined the other group and spent his time pouring over thousands of emails on that site as well.

Second, there has been no harrassment of Bob Cox. Bob and I have exchanged emails about 10 or 12 times. I have engaged in blatant name calling on the QT discussion board, but have refrained from doing so here. On January 31, 2005(I think, it might have been February 1) Bob actually asked me to contribute to Olbywatch by providing an Olbywatch guide for Keith's coverage of the election in Iraq. After genuine consideration, I turned him down with what I thought was a reasonable explanation. What ensued was a fairly benign exchange, not much different from the kinds of comments I have posted here. The end result was an email from Bob that included the following statements(I would be more than happy to post the ENTIRE email but I need Bob's permission to do so):

**********************************************
"I said that you are foul-mouthed. And I don't hear you denying it. Instead you are saying that you have never been foul-mouthed "in any of the contact I have had with you". This is fairly typical of your psudeo-legal word parsing. You are foul-mouthed. You just did not realize that I know that about you. There is a difference. That you don't understand the difference is your problem. I have lots of ways to get information and several contacts at the University of Michigan. You are not nearly as clever as you seem to think."
**********************************************

As you can see, Bob clearly stated that he intended to have people at the University of Michigan supply him with information about me, and from what I can tell, perhaps even monitor my behavior or daily activities. Given that Mr. Cox has now gone on to post information about my personal life and my supposed daily habits, I think I could very easily make the argument that he not only made the threat, but also followed through on that threat. That makes him susceptible to prosecution under Cyberstalking laws, but also vulnerable to prosecution under those good 'ol real life regular stalking laws as well.

In the same email, and in reference to my suggesting that Mr Cox didn't really have any "sources" at MSNBC, Bob wrote the following to me:

**********************************************
I DO AND IF YOU ARE PLANNING TO WORK AT NBC OR MSNBC YOU WOULD DO WELL TO KEEP THAT IN MIND. I AM NOT EVER GOING TO TELL YOU HOW I KNOW WHAT I KNOW BUT IF YOU READ MY MAIN BLOG - THE NATIONAL DEBATE. YOU WOULD SEE NAMES LIKE JOE TRIPPI, RICK KAPLAN, DOMINIC BELLONE, GLORIA BORGER, JON BONNE, JONATHON DUBE, ANN THOMPSON, MARY THOMPSON, AND MANY OTHERS. ANY OF THOSE FOLKS RING A BELL? I WAS WITH THE PRESIDENT OF MSNBC JUST TWO WEEKS AGO AT HARVARD. DON'T KID YOURSELF THAT MESSING WITH ME IS A COST-FREE EXERCISE FOR YOU.
*********************************************

As you can see, Bob went on in the email to make more threats. My interpretation of this was that he intended to harm my academic or professional career. This caused me to remove some of my personal info from the QT discussion board and make the statement that I had removed the information due to "weird Bob Cox stalker issues." Given the email that he sent me, I don't think I was off base or out of line.

So, Mr. Dollar, if you really do have the legal background to legitimately provide legal advice to Mr. Cox-- I suggest you do so. Mr. Cox is not only vulnerable under Section 240.3 1b for posting these comments here. He is very clearly vulnerable to being arrested under 240.3 1a for having sent an email from HIS email to me at MY EMAIL that contained threatening and harrassing language. I don't need a lawyer to pursue this matter, I just need to call the New York State Police.

Mr. Cox would be wise to give some thoughtful consideration to removing the personal information and threatening comments that he posted about me and my father.

Paul and Cecilia-- Thank you for your thoughtful comments on the situation. I'm sorry if this is driving you both insane, but it just isn't okay for Bob to be doing something like this and to allow him to bully me just doesn't feel right to me somehow. I've always made an effort to respect the rules and conventions of this site-- hence no potty mouth (well, save one recent F-bomb that is)

Hey, if Cheney can get away with it on Capitol Hill, far be it from me to chastise you for it.

-- I don't need a lawyer to pursue this matter--

No one would take the case.

--I just need to call the New York State Police.--

I'm sure they could use the laugh but they really have better things to do, like investigate crimes.

I wasn't aware that use of a four-letter word was a crime. If so, then why wasn't Cheney prosecuted for it?

However, harassment, threatning, and cyberstalking--now those are all crimes.

I wasn't aware that use of a four-letter word was a crime. If so, then why wasn't Cheney prosecuted for it?

However, harassment, threatning, and cyberstalking--now those are all crimes.

I wasn't aware that use of a four-letter word was a crime. If so, then why wasn't Cheney prosecuted for it?

However, harassment, threatning, and cyberstalking--now those are all crimes.

Sigh...

You people are leaving me no choice but to act against this trolling.

Just remember you made me do this...

Here's a picture of Disgusted father:

http://www.illustratorworld.com/users/seedless_m/crazy.jpg

C--you must think you are so terribly clever don't you?

Nahh, I'm just goofing on Bob a bit, sweety.

There's no need to goof on Bob. He manages to make us all laugh at him daily with his continued ranting and raving.

Well, JD, back to the argument at hand. You're nothing if not persistent in your argument. And congratulations, score 1 for you, I actually had to employ the help of a friend with a much stronger legal background than I have, in order to articulate the argument that I know in my head to be true. I�m impressed-- you�re indefatigable to say the least.

So-- although I am alarmed at Mr. Cox's behavior and growing increasingly concerned-- in an attempt to persuade Mr. Cox and his friends that this is a serious legal matter, I am back to put the nail in the coffin of the �240.30 argument. Here goes:

First: In regards to the similarity between Munn and the situation on Olbywatch, in the law very few cases are identical. Courts must use the precedent available to them, and often times that means applying rules of law to facts that are not identical and sometimes not even similar to the precedent case. You are correct that the death threat against the police officer in Munn is worse than what Cox has done to me. That would be a factual determination for the court - whether or not Cox's posts about me and my father would be considered harassment. There is no way to know that because a case with similar facts has yet to be brought in New York, not because it would not be valid.

Second: The case I gave you was indeed brought under the state statute - the reference to a city statute was the statute used by the DEFENDANT to request his motion to dismiss. The determination regarding posting on a newsgroup, etc. was made in relation to the state statute that I previously cited (which I explained clearly in my last post, so I don't understand your argument at all). State statutes apply to any court within that state, including cities, otherwise NYC could circumvent state laws it didn't agree with while Ithaca had to still obey them, which is a ridiculous notion. City judges or judges from lower circuits are qualified and legally able to make judicial determinations regarding state statutes that come before them - if a plaintiff brings a suit based on a city ordinance but also brings, for example, a sexual harassment claim under a state statute, that judge would be allowed to rule on the merits of both.

So, that said, I�ll make one final attempt at this before pursuing it further: Mr. Cox take down the personal information and the threatening comments, please.

--There is no way to know that because a case with similar facts has yet to be brought--

Just as there is no way to know that the New York Times might be charged under this statute because somebody finds it "annoying". But the plain language of the statute, and the fact that nobody has ever been charged under your peculiar theory of the law, makes charging the Times about as likely as charging Mr Cox.

--State statutes apply to any court within that state--

Of course they do. And city courts can handle cases under state statutes. But the ruling of a city court judge is not, as you bizarrely claim, a "precedent". It is, in fact, precedential for no court in the state except, maybe, that particular judge's--and then only if he doesn't decide to change his mind.

So you have still shown ZERO precedent for interpreting the statute as you want it to be interpreted.

I have spoken.

JD has spoken! I guess that must mean that it's written on a stone tablet somewhere!

See? "Disgusted" is starting to get it.

The only thing that I get is that it's your thinking that it's encased in stone-as in the stone age.

JD writes, "I have spoken."

In other words, the defense rests... :D

JD-- Try again, hon. You've got no legal basis for your argument. You said:

�But the plain language of the statute, and the fact that nobody has ever been charged under your peculiar theory of the law, makes charging the Times about as likely as charging Mr Cox.�

Well, it isn�t established that nobody has ever been charged, if someone had been charged and pled out because of the MUNN case we wouldn�t know-- it wouldn't be on Westlaw or Lexis. What you are saying is that you disagree with my interpretation of the law but you are failing to see how Munn affects your argument. Do you have any legal basis for your out of hand rejection that Mr. Cox could never be charged-- A case citation stating that someone like Mr. Cox couldn�t be charged perhaps?

Court decisions can only be precedents for the courts below, but this is THE ONLY CASE that a judge in the state of New York has ruled on this issue - if there were any judge in NY at the same level as this judge that disagreed there would be a split. So far, this is the only legal citation out there for this particular area - threatening posts on a newsgroup/website, etc. for NY. But, obviously this case was not appealed and was not overturned, meaning it ended with the ruling I gave you.

You are playing lawyer games with me and basically arguing in circles: what you are saying is I can't produce a case with identical facts, and because I can't produce a case with identical facts or a case from a higher court, I�m wrong. But I have produced the one case out there in NY on this issue and it supports my basic thesis - so unless you can produce a case to say I AM WRONG, you�re argument makes no sense

Could I get a different judge that disagrees with Munn - yes - would I appeal it based on Munn requesting to clear up the split of interpretation by the lower courts - yes - then we would all have a definitive answer-- but we don't. So right now, I have a legal basis for my argument, all you have is your interpretation of the statute which isn�t substantiated by any court of law. I don�t know how Bob thinks, but if it were me, I�d take a NYC City Judge's interpretation over some random guy on the internet any day.

"So, that said, I�ll make one final attempt at this before pursuing it further: Mr. Cox take down the personal information and the threatening comments, please."

Well, good grief, you stated you weren't going to pursue it further. Otherwise, I'd have suggested that if you want the information removed you'll have much better luck if you start with Bob's ISP.

If I were Marisa, trust me, the first phone call I would make would be to the ISP provider. Something BC might want to think about as he continues to pursue his rather radical course of action.

If I were Marisa, trust me, the first phone call I would make would NOT be to the ISP provider. Something BC might want to think about as he continues to pursue his rather radical course of action.

--Do you have any legal basis for your out of hand rejection that Mr. Cox could never be charged--

That's not the way it works, Ms M. People don't have to prove they are innocent. The state has to prove they are guilty. A law is presumed to mean what it says, unless it is vague. Then the courts come into the case. Without a court precedent that extends the meaning of this law to such things as reposting freely available information, you have nothing to go on.

--what you are saying is I can't produce a case with identical facts--

I may not be an expert, but one thing I am an expert on is my own words. So rather than you telling me what I'm saying, I will tell you. I never said you had to have identical facts. No two cases are ever on all fours. But for you to claim this non-precedential opinion by a city court is applicable to the instant case you need to have SOME factual similarity.

You cite a case where someone calls for the murder of one or more police officers. And you cite that case as applicable to a situation where Mr Cox reposts information that is freely and publically available elsewhere.

The differences are stark. Mr Cox has not called for the murder of anyone. He hasn't called for anyone to be attacked. He hasn't even called for anyone to go make faces at you. There isn't the merest modicum of threat in what he has posted.

If your perverse interpretation of the law were to be accepted, that would mean that newspapers, blogs, magazines, newsgroups, websites--all would be under constant harrassment anytime they publish something that someone else considers annoying. Even if there was no threat whatsoever.

There's a little item that puts the likelihood of that somewhere around the square root of zero. It's called the First Amendment.

But hey, you can prove me wrong in an instant. Call up your local District Attorney, give him the address of this web page, and explain to him how it's nothing less than a crime in progress. Ask him to swear out a warrant. And if he asks you, where's the threat, just tell him you're "annoyed"--then he'll have to take action.

Cecelia- I'm all over it. Cox is in violation of the AUP under prohibited activities #10, 11,18,19 and 20-- and his ISP has been notified.

JD-- Get a hold of yourself and stop arguing in circles. We were never arguing about whether Cox's statements here are or are not considered threatening or harrassing statements. Your claim was that comments or messages posted to a discussion board were not considered applicable on New York State Penal Code (240.3).

I'll direct you to your own comments from further up the thread:

***********************************************
The statute talks about communication WITH a person. That's a phone call, a letter, walking up to someone and talking to him or her.

Posting public comments on a public bulletin board is not a communication with a person. It's a public statement to the entire planet. Not only does it go out to the whole world, but the "victim" does not have to log on to read it. It's not like a phone call that comes into your house. It's a posting on an internet site. You don't have to log in and read it if you don't want. It's not your personal email.

The notion that this law could in the wildest stretch of imagination apply to postings on a comments thread is preposterous logically and legally. That's not even the law in California.
*************************************************The MUMM case clearly states:

"[1] The defendant moved pursuant to CPL 170.30 and 170.35 for an order dismissing the charge of aggravated harassment in the second degree. Since
there is no specific provision in the Penal Law which bans harassment via the Internet, the novel issue raised in this motion is whether a harassing and threatening message posted on an Internet newsgroup is a type of communication
prohibited by Penal Law 240.30(1). The Court finds that such a communication is encompassed by section 240.30 and denies the defendant's motion to dismiss."

As you can see, the law was clearly interpreted to mean just that, that messages posted to a discssion board do in fact fall under this statute.

Can I have my admission of wrongness now? Really, I've waited a long time and been very patient.

as for whether the comments here are considered harrassing and threatening and alarming, well, that's a whole other argument with a whole bunch of other case law. In the interest of not causing Cecilia and Paul to fall dead asleep while sitting at their computers, let's spare them shall we? Legally, we'll see what's what in due time.

...too late. zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

-- that's a whole other argument--

I think it's the same argument. Your case is not precedent (and IMHO badly reasoned), but it does find one judge ruling that public postings could qualify under the statute--IF the criteria are met. But to determine if the criteria are met, you must look at the CONTENT of the postings. Otherwise, this judge could arrest people for posting anything that annoyed somebody else (which constitutes a lot of stuff!).

Do they constitute a threat? Do they call on people to commit murder or take some other action, thereby causing such actions? Those are the sorts of things in the Munn case that led the court to conclude that this was not just a public posting but rather directed at "a person".

Reposting recycled public information, in and of itself, canNOT qualify under the statute. There is no threat; there is no call to arms of any sort. It's plain old 1st Amendment protected speech. So in that respect you're at least half-wrong (which isn't so bad because you can always lay claim to maybe being half-right).

I have spoken. Again.

PS: Paul...Wake Up Already!! It's just getting good!!!

"Do they constitute a threat? Do they call on people to commit murder or take some other action, thereby causing such actions? Those are the sorts of things in the Munn case that led the court to conclude that this was not just a public posting but rather directed at "a person".

No JD, you're wrong, the type of threat or whether it was a threat was NOT given as an explanation for the ruling. You're right that the messages posted on a discussion board we're found to be applicable under 240.3 IF THEY MEET the two criteria, but the two criteria were the following (and I've explained this more than once already, so PLEASE pay attention): The communication must be one initiated by electronic or mechanical means attachable to telephones or be a written form of communication. Secondly, the communication must have been one directed at the complainant.

The kind of threat involved was not a reason given for the ruling. So no, JD, I'm not half right....I'm just right.

JD-- here is the exact language from the decision about the communication being directed at the defendant:

********************************************
Furthermore, the message was one directed at the complainant. The defendant's alleged posting of his message on an Internet "newsgroup" with the complainant's name included then transformed the communication to one not only intended for the general public, but specially generated to be communicated to the complainant. Indeed in this case, the complainant himself read the
message on the computer screen, and became annoyed and alarmed. (179 Misc.2d 903, 688 N.Y.S.2d 384)
************************************************

There's no discussion of what constitutes a threat, or if said threat calls on people to commit murder or take some other action, thereby causing such actions. None.

Okay...I'm "up" again. Good Morning. It's a beautiful day in Central Ohio. We should be hearing from JD soon.

Marisa,

Please tell me, item by item, what comments on this site you deem "threatening" so I can take appropriate action.

I view those shots of Keith Olbermann sans shirt extremely threatening to my digestive health.

If I am not able to address all of your concerns let me save you some time.

Here is the web site for The New York State Police. I live in Westchester so you have to call one of the barracks in Troop K:
http://www.troopers.state.ny.us/Contact_Us/Troop_Information/K.cfm

You might also want to consider calling the Westchester County DA's office; you can even ask for our celebrity DA, Jeanine Pirro: http://www.da.westchester.ny.us/

If that doesn't work maybe the local police in my town of New Rochelle, NY will send their SWAT team over to my house: http://www.nrpd.com/

You might be able to make the case that my "crimes" are interstate crimes so the FBI might take the case: http://www.fbi.gov/

Given that my ISP is also a contributor to OlbermannWatch you might have a tough time convincing them to take action against OlbermannWatch but you can try: http://zubrcom.com/

By the way, Johnny Cochran, you might want to recall that I did not disclose your name or contact information on this site - you did! You also encouraged everyone, and that includes me, to Google your name to find out information about you.

"I'm tired of Bob and his game, so I'll just steal his thunder for a moment and settle this once and for all: My name is Marisa McNee. Feel free to google me and find out all of the information from which Bob is drawing his ridiculous conclusions. Better yet, if you really want to know more about me or would like to hear the silly email history behind Bob's irritation with me, feel free to email me at mmcnee@umich.edu."

You might also recall that you have also stated:

"There isn't anything on this board or over on the QT discussion board that I would be afraid of owning up to. Nor do I think it would harm my career in the slightest."

Given this statement, I am not sure why you are now complaining about me publishing publicly available information about you, linking that to public comments you have made on your QuickTopic board or offering to alert employers or potential employers to your public behavior.

Finally, you might recall that YOU repeatedly initiated contact with me, not the other way around. You're the legal expert but I think one of the legal criteria for "stalkers" or "cyberstalkers" is that they go after their "victims" - not the other way around.

Happy St. Patrick's Day

Bob, just for the record, since you're so fond of accusing M of being any number of other people--- I want to make this perfectly clear to you--I am not her and she is not me and this is coming from someone who has been a purely casual observer of this site for some time now--and that what I'm about to say is just my take on this whole sorry, and rather bizarre situation.

If you can't figure out where you have violated the terms of your ISP provider agreement (esp. since M has been so kind as to point out the exact clauses that you are clearly in violation of)--then you are clearly lacking the sense the Good Lord intended for you to have. Contact your lawyer--it seems to me that you might be needing one, sooner, rather than later.

--the two criteria were the following (and I've explained this more than once already, so PLEASE pay attention): The communication must be one initiated by electronic or mechanical means attachable to telephones or be a written form of communication. Secondly, the communication must have been one directed at the complainant.--

If those are the only criteria needed to trigger the statute, then any message directed to anyone constitutes harrassment. Watch me closely:

Mr Cox, I am directing the following at you: Do you use Windows or Mac?

There it is. It meets what M claims are the ONLY two criteria. Is it harrassment? Does it trigger the statute?

Clearly, no. Because such messages appear on the internet by the millions. Because there is no THREAT. Because there is no calling on someone to commit a murder.

If I go over to M's bulletin board and start conversing with people there, can I then claim that these people are harrassing me under the statute? I don't think so. It's a voluntary discussion that walked into of my own free will. It's a risk I assume when I inject myself into a conversation. (Now if these people suddenly started posting threats, or calling for my murder, then I might have a case.)

An online hate-monger by the name of Hal Turner posted a lot of information on his website about a judge he didn't like. He went so far as to say that this judge was worthy of being murdered. The FBI received complaints and investigated. And what happened to Mr Turner? Nothing. Because even saying someone is "worthy of death" is protected by the First Amendment.

Obviously M's background and experience in interpreting criminal statutes is far beyond my humble, uninformed attempts, so there is no point. Particularly when the entire matter will be so easily settled when the police swear out a warrant against Mr Cox. And the NY District Attorney declares the contents of this page to be criminal harrassment. That will resolve the matter once and for all. Except that it will only happen on Bizarro Planet.

And so (for the last time on this subject matter) I have spoken.

Bob,

Okay, since you seem to be willing to entertain my request, I�ll make it clear to you �what comments on this site I deem "threatening" so you can take appropriate action.�

From your comments on March 11, 2005 at 9:40 pm please remove the following statement:

�There are also quite a few folks around the internet who would love to know more about "m" because not only has she been an active troll on OlbermannWatch.com but has spent a good deal of time trolling at Olbermann fan sites as well.�

The implication here is that others are interested in obtaining information based on some kind of bad behavior that never happened. What you have stated is wrong, and it could be interpreted as a request and/or encouragement for some kind of action.

Also, from the same post on March 11, 2005 at 9:44 pm, please remove the reference to my father�s profession. And please remove any other comments made by you or anyone else on this site that may have referred to my father�s profession.

And from your comments on March 15, 2005 at 9:26 am, please remove the picture of my father and the link to his work information, as well as the following paragraph (including the last two sentences, which I have intentionally left off, which make reference to my father�s profession):

�My purpose in posting as much information as I could find about Marisa was simply to make the point that she is not as "anonymous" as she thinks and that her behavior may also come with a cost. Just as she made her hate speech about me a part of the "permanent" record of the internet via Google, so to is information about the actual person who wrote all that stuff. My hope is that someday, somehow she will be held accountable for her behavior.�

The fact that you use language like �her behavior may also come with a cost� and �My hope is that someday, somehow she will be held accountable for her behavior� alone is alarming because they could be interpreted as a request for action. But combined with the close proximity of these statements to a picture of my father and his work address and phone number I am exceedingly alarmed and concerned for my father�s safety (I will send a separate email explaining why, in the hopes that you will understand and take it down).

Take down all of this information and the threatening comments, and I think we�re fine. Like I said, and as you have pointed out, I have no problem with admitting who I am or owning up to what I�ve said on other boards. You�re correct; initially I had no problem with your behavior other than that you were posting lies and incorrect information. I think it�s clear to anyone that reads this board that my attitude about the situation changed as soon as my father�s information became available�and I made it real clear that I considered it to be threatening and not okay. So feel free to continue trashing me if you�d like, you�ve proved yourself to be a liar every time you do. But lay off my family, or we�re going to have a serious legal problem�they haven�t done anything to you.

And as for cyber stalking or just plain old regular stalking, well, considering that most of the victims were once in a relationship of some kind with the perpetrator, prior contact isn�t a defense. Sending you an email about Olbermannwatch and KO�s coverage of the Iraq election was not an invitation to send me threatening comments by email. That would be like saying that revealing clothing was justification for raping women, and we all know that isn�t right.

I called you names; I didn�t commit a crime that I need to be held accountable for. I had no idea that calling you names would cause you to become so seriously unhinged that you would behave this way. If I had known how deeply it hurt you or how much it angered you, I never would have done it and I certainly would have apologized for it. I had no way of knowing how upset you would become because I called you a �prick,� you�ve been calling me names here on Olbywatch for five months and that seemed to indicate that name-calling was �fair play.� I have also never called you a name on this site, I came here to have serious discussion and ad hominem attacks are never taken seriously, so I refrained. I engaged in blatant name calling on the QT board because that is a space where I am much more lighthearted and often express much less formal opinions about things�like when one talks to a bunch of friends. For what it�s worth, I had no idea that you were lurking around on QT and had no idea you would read the comments and take them personally. And if it means anything, I�m sorry I hurt your feelings or made you mad or whatever.

And JD�No one cares if you�ve spoken, trust me, we�re like two a--holes farting in the wind, no one cares what either of us has to say about this issue. What does matter is that I�ve spoken to the appropriate authorities and they are exceedingly alarmed. There are some things about this situation with my father that are quite unique, and may very well constitute a call for someone to commit murder.

So, Bob, again, please remove the portions of the thread that I have asked you to remove. I�ve been fair and am fully willing to have the majority of it left intact. There is no grand conspiracy to �take down your site� (and if there is, it certainly wasn�t orchestrated by me), I come here only to call you out on the disingenuous information that you post here. You�re a writer who chooses to publish his comments on a public blog with space for public discussion, people are going to argue with you publicly about your thoughts and even call you names sometimes�if you can�t take it, find another line of work.

Marisa,

I have offered to consider your concerns. I am willing to be reasonable but I am not going to play games with you. This is the one opportunity I am willing to offer for you to fully articulate your concerns. Be clear that I am not going to entertain vague requests such as "Take down all of this information and the threatening comments" or "lay off my family, or we're going to have a serious legal problem" or you making knowingly false claims such as your claim that I have sent you "threatening comments by email".

I have a real concern that you are only interested in drawing me in to considering your requests as part of some silly trolling game and if I comply with yor requests you will come later with more requests regarding the same e-mails and comments.

If you want a serious response then provide a comprehensive detailed list of what EXACTLY you deem to be threatening and I will consider it. Play games with me beyond this point and I will never consider it.

In attempting to sort through your latest ramblings, it appears that you want to start with the following items (if so, begin your list with them and add any others):

- any content on OlbermannWatch that in any way references Dr. Francis McNee

- the statement "There are also quite a few folks around the internet who would love to know more about "m" because not only has she been an active troll on OlbermannWatch.com but has spent a good deal of time trolling at Olbermann fan sites as well."

- the statement "My purpose in posting as much information as I could find about Marisa was simply to make the point that she is not as "anonymous" as she thinks and that her behavior may also come with a cost. Just as she made her hate speech about me a part of the "permanent" record of the internet via Google, so to is information about the actual person who wrote all that stuff. My hope is that someday, somehow she will be held accountable for her behavior."

You have also claimed that statements made to you via e-mail were "threatening". So far you have identified these:

- the statement "I said that you are foul-mouthed. And I don't hear you denying it. Instead you are saying that you have never been foul-mouthed "in any of the contact I have had with you". This is fairly typical of your psudeo-legal word parsing. You are foul-mouthed. You just did not realize that I know that about you. There is a difference. That you don't understand the difference is your problem. I have lots of ways to get information and several contacts at the University of Michigan. You are not nearly as clever as you seem to think."

- the statement "I DO AND IF YOU ARE PLANNING TO WORK AT NBC OR MSNBC YOU WOULD DO WELL TO KEEP THAT IN MIND. I AM NOT EVER GOING TO TELL YOU HOW I KNOW WHAT I KNOW BUT IF YOU READ MY MAIN BLOG - THE NATIONAL DEBATE. YOU WOULD SEE NAMES LIKE JOE TRIPPI, RICK KAPLAN, DOMINIC BELLONE, GLORIA BORGER, JON BONNE, JONATHON DUBE, ANN THOMPSON, MARY THOMPSON, AND MANY OTHERS. ANY OF THOSE FOLKS RING A BELL? I WAS WITH THE PRESIDENT OF MSNBC JUST TWO WEEKS AGO AT HARVARD. DON'T KID YOURSELF THAT MESSING WITH ME IS A COST-FREE EXERCISE FOR YOU."

Please go through my e-mails to you, identify all other statement you deem "threatening" and then list them as well.

Once you have done a thorough inventory, posted each item and stated clearly and unequivocally that the list includes every statement made by me or others on OlbermannWatch (or any other site run by me) and every statement made by me in e-mails to you, I will be willing to consider your request and respond appropriately.

And be forwarned, I intend to save any comments I might remove and will repost ALL OF THEM if you now agree to these terms and then later reneg on them. So, if you are serious don't even think of trying to "play me".

JD,

You tick me off at times but I ain't a hater and "Except that it will only happen on Bizarro Planet" made me laugh out loud.

Thanks.

I think "Bizarro Planet" is certainly what this place has turned into...

Bob,

I've already stated VERY CLEARLY on the board exactly which posts I want removed and which statements from the email I find threatening. When I made the statemen "Take down all of this information and the threatening comments" I was meaning take down all of this information and threatenign comments as I have outline specifically in the post above. If you would like me to do it again, I will oblige you, but I don't see what purpose it serves. It seems quite clear from your most recent post that you know EXACTLY what I want removed. The list I have given you on the board is the ENTIRE list of things I find objectionable (by you or anyone else). Please remove ALL comments made by you or others that reference my father. I do not know if you have posted anything else like this on other sites you own, but I do not intend to dig through all of your writings to find out. I think you're smart enough to figure out if anything you might have said elsewhere is anything like what you have said in this thread. If you have made comments about my deserving to be held accountable for anything and made those comments in close proximity to having posted personal information about me or my father, then I am requesting that you remove those as well. Other than that, feel free to trash me here or anywhere else, I'm not uncomfortable with who I am as a person. I had no problem with what you had done (other than feeling the need to argue about it and call you a liar), until you went after my father.

As a father, I'm sure you understand the love a child feels for a parent, and can understand why I would want this information removed. I can assure you this is not some little troll game, if I wanted other information removed I would have already said so.

I'm not sure why you are in a "thing" about whether I'm going to run you in circles with requestions to remove this thing or that thing. I've been quite clear about what I want removed and that I have no problem with the other stuff that's posted (true or not). I don't know what troll game you think I would be playing, but please, document everything-- it's in both our interests that you do so. I will not ask you to remove anything else that has ALREADY been posted on Olbermann Watch as of March 17, 2005. But if any information similar to this or the SAME information is again posted, I will again request that it be removed. So, fear not, I may blast you publicly for being dishonest and incorrect in your description of me, but I will not be hounding you with requests to remove anything else. Just remove what I've asked you to remove.

And for the record, my father is a Republican, a rabid one. He hates the Clintons and says he would have "voted for George W Bush twice if he was allowed to." Is that really the kind of person you intended to target with this nonsense over the last couple of days? I'm a Democrat, but I'm not the loony liberal troll you have imagined me to be in your head. Please remove what I have asked you to remove.

And to Cecilia, Paul and JD...sorry you've had to sit through all of this. I can promise you, I really only intended to have an argument about television ratings.

"I really only intended to have an argument about television ratings."

Well, it seems like even the chit-chatty discussion boards became a political shooting gallery.

I think you could definitely use some time at my favorite blog: Monolo's Shoe Blog. It's hilarious, you can't talk to or about Bob Cox, and you can find some great prices on some gorgeous kicks.

http://shoeblogs.com/

Cox won't come out and admit that free speech and dissenting opinions are the last things he wants to see on this site because he still wants to cling to the claim that he encourages debate as it makes him seem halfway reasonable. But as this whole sorry episode has so clearly illustrated, given enough information on a poster, he wil then attempt in every way possible to threaten, intimidate, and strike out against them if they disagree with him. How dare anyone express an opinion on HIS site, which does not mimic and reinforce his own! He doesn't have the guts to flat-out ban posters who disagree with them, he just engages in character assination and cheap name-calling when his weak logic and rhetoric fail him, as it frequently does. And yet, somehow, he has managed to convince some of you that he's "open" and "fair-minded" because he doesn't ban those that offer up dissenting opinion. Instead, we get this kind of disgusting and cheap exhibition in which he knows that he's done something that is beyond-the-pale but will never own up to it nor apologize for it. That's the kind of man he truly is and he has given you all ample evidence of that. Yet, some of you have twisted and bent yourselves like pretzels in a pitiful attempt to justify his actions. I don't know which I feel sorrier for-him or for those of you who are all willing to cast your lot in with him as he circles the drain and descends farther down into the gutter.

Now, D...

I've been posting here pretty much since the place started and have dissented, at times vehemently, indignantly, righteously, erroneously and even impolitely (when I lost my temper) and Bob's never posted personal info on me. You may assume that is due to a) not finding enough dirt on me or b) finding facts so banal that it proved far too laborious for him to continue or C) he's simply not interested. And I think it's the latter.

Regardless, during my time here an an outspoken opponent, the only such situation I've witnessed is Marisa's. It's obvious that their experience transcends this site. C and I questioned the logic of airing it here, but let's hope it's now resolved. I don't feel threatened and I hope that from now on, neither will Marisa. And if you like Olby, stick around and make them prove to us why he's such an oaf. I'm out-gunned. These guys are as thick-headed as we are and their ideas are just plain ridiculous! Who knows how they got this way? But some of them are pretty decent people. ;-)

Marisa,

I am very sorry to hear that you are so confused. I did not realize that you would be unsure as to "why you are in a 'thing' about whether I'm going to run you in circles"? Perhaps, among your other mental problems, you suffer from short-term memory loss so that you really don't know "what troll game you think I would be playing"? Let me take pity on your and take a few moments to recount for my readers just a few reasons for my being concerned about your pyschotic behavior.

Last December, a TV producer from Washington posted a comment on OlbermannWatch.com which appeared to be an e-mail exchange between him and Keith Olbermann. There was nothing particulary shocking in the exchange - nothing Keith has not said publicly in the past. Given the nature of the site, I wished to comment on the exchange so I wrote a post based on excerpts from the e-mail exchange. For the convenience of OlbermannWatch readers, I copied and pasted the e-mail exchange from the comments section into the "extended body" portion of my post. Note, I did not solicit the information nor did I make the e-mails public. The producer subsequently posted three additional comments on OlbermannWatch.

It is my understanding from that producer that several days later Keith Olbermann, who had been on vacation, learned of the e-mail exchange being posted on OlbermannWatch and responded aggressively including contacting the producer's employer in Washington, making vague legal threats about copyright infringement (no such protection exists when an e-mail is sent), pressuring TVNewser who had linked to the exchange to remove his site (the blogger complied) and demanding that the producer get the e-mail exchange removed from OlbermannWatch. The producer called me and informed me of Keith's actions and his fear that he would be terminated as a result. I felt badly for the guy as it was Christmas eve, he was newly engaged and had just started his job. Before he went any further I informed the producer that if the purpose of his call was to request that I remove the e-mail exchange with Keith I would gladly do so because it would generate tremendous publicity for the site as I would report the reason why the request had been made [the behavior of Keith Olbermann] and publicize that fact. I pointed out that the e-mail exchange was a minor story but Keith Olbermann's response was a much bigger story. I added that I was willing to help mitigate the damage but I was not going to remove the e-mail exchange without any explanation especially after it had generated dozens of comments and links from many other blogs. I made the producer aware that over the Christmas weekend the post would "roll off" the front page of my blog and so long as the comment section was not active the entire matter would drop from view so that if his objective (and Keith's) was to quiet things down the best course of action was to do nothing. The producer asked to think about it. He called me back several hours later and informed me that he did not wish to ask me to remove the post. As his three comments had been made after accepting his new job he asked if I would remove those comments and I did. He also asked me to remove any mention of his employer from the site and I did. I went even further and posted comments to five other posts so that the link would drop of the "recent comments" section as well. This is the first time I am telling the whole story publicly because by this time Sileo has had a chance to establish himself at the company he joined in December and ought to be "safe" from the "Wrath of KO" at this point.

I made changes to the site on the morning of Christmas Eve and hoped for the producer's sake that the matter would just fade into the archives. That same morning, I began getting a series of e-mails from Marisa McNee. I had not heard from her in a several weeks after she posted a series of inane comments on OlbermannWatch and then began sending e-mail after e-mail.

Marisa was also posting comments on the post about the exchange which was keeping it on the home page. I attempted to discourage her so that post would drop off the "recent comments" but she was oddly persistant. As we will see, she was highly motivated.

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Marisa McNee e-mails Bob Cox:

Rumor has it that Mr. Sileo requested you remove these emails from your site. Why haven't you done it?

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Bob Cox replies to Marisa McNee's unsolicited e-mail:

Rumor has it? I have no such request. Nice try though.

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Marisa McNee e-mails Bob Cox (again):

Fair enough. In that case, you ought to get in contact with Mr. Sileo as he seems to be telling people that he has requested you remove the emails from the site.

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Bob Cox replies to Marisa McNee's unsolicited e-mail:

Marisa,

I know you are a student at a terrific school but how is it possible that you think you know something about what a TV producer in Washington is telling "people" about me? I know that "facts" are confusing to those out on the far left fringe but try them some time. You might enjoy them. If you want to make such claims try saying which people, when, where, how? And what is being said? Otherwise, I suggest you stick to tin foil origami.

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Marisa McNee e-mails Bob Cox (again):

Look, I'm obviously not going to break confidentiality and tell you who told me. I was told Mr. Sileo asked you to remove those emails. Only you know if it's true. If it isn't true than perhaps someone lied to me about the supposed conversation that took place with Mr. Sileo. For the record, I don't know for sure what anyone has said about you. I just know I had a conversation with someone who said Sileo told them he requested you remove the emails. If Sileo made the request, I think you should honor it. that's all.

I know you really want to pin that tin foil hat on me, it just isn't justified however and I wish you would stop. I've been obsturate and argumentative with you, but I've always been respectful and I never call you names. I wish you would do the same. If you'd like to discredit me I wish you would do so with some integrity. Calling me a left wing loon doesn't prove anything, as logic would have it, I could technically be a left wing loon and correct all at the same time.

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Bob Cox replies to Marisa McNee's unsolicited e-mail:

Marisa,

You say you are "obviously not going to break confidentiality and tell you who told me" but then you ask me to do precisely that with regard to conversations I may or may not have had. You, someone I have never met and have no reason to believe, say that someone told you about a conversation that another person had with another person and you now expect me to publicly (or "privately") respond to what you say someone said about someone else and what they said to me.

Does this really make sense to you?

I have this sense that you are a "kid" and somewhat naive so let me give you a little free advice, be very careful about serving as someone else's messenger especially when the result is that you are publishing statements (even on a li'l old blog) stating or implying things to be true when you don't know them to be true. If someone wants to accuse me of something you would be much better served by letting them make their accusations directly to me.

PS, if you change your mind and want to show me or state to me who told you what and why you think you know something about my private conversations I would be happy to copy you on my reply to your "source."

==================================================

Marisa McNee e-mails Bob Cox (again):

I didn't make any accusation. You obviously didn't look very closely at the email I sent. I said if (and really only you know if this is true) Sileo asked you to remove the emails then you should honor the request. I'm not serving as anyone's messenger; which is why I won't tell you with whom I had the conversation. I had a conversation with someone who said they spoke to Sileo and that Sileo claimed he requested the emails be removed. This person never gave me permission to "deliver a message" or intended to be quoted in anyway. Therefore I'm not going to devulge. My only point is that if Sileo made the request you should take the emails down, since it was by his permission that you posted them in the first place. I've been quite clear in my concession that I have no idea whether Sileo made the request. And actually, neither does my source. Only you know if the request was made, and I have no reason to believe you would do anything other than what was ethical in this situation. So, at this point, I'm assumiing Sileo made no such request or you would have removed the emails.

Cheers, and Happy Holidays.

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Bob Cox replies to Marisa McNee's unsolicited e-mail:

Marisa,

Since it's Christmas Eve, be charitable and pretend that I am not a dope.

There are three parties involved in this matter. I feel reasonably certain that none of the involved parties would have had any reason to reach out to you. You are a known busybody on OlbermannWatch.com stepping in, unsolicted to act as apologist / defender for Keith and Bev Harris. Therefore, it seems reasonable to believe that YOU are the person who reached out to someone else.

With me so far?

You did not contact me.

You have already acknowledged that you have not spoken to Tom.

That leaves Keith.

How I am doing so far?

You sent an e-mail to Keith and he told you that Tom told him that Tom asked me to remove the e-mails.

Could this possibly be? Gee....

Given your past effort to act as apologist / defender of Keith, my knowledge of some of Keith's actions in response to my post including the timing, and your sudden reappearence in the OlbermannWatch comments within 24 hours of Keith going into reax mode leads me to conclude that you sent Keith an email this week and you heard back from him in the past 24 hours.

So, spare me the "I'm not serving as anyone's messenger" line.

If you want to post Keith's e-mail go ahead but don't play coy little games with me. OK?

Have a Merry Christmas!

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Marisa McNee e-mails Bob Cox (again):

I don't think you're a dope. I told you, I'm not going to discuss who I heard it from. I told you I talked to someone who talked to Tom. Believe what you want about where I heard it. I sent an email to Keith, and Keith (not having any idea who I am) decided to respond and give me information about his personal conversations with Tom Sileo? Now who's the tin foil hat wearing conspiracy theorist? If you've got proof of any of your allegations, let's hear it.

Stop distracting from the original discussion with paranoia about how I've been sending Keith emails, and grand dillusions that if I sent an email he would actually respond. This is not about where I heard the information, this is about whether you have enough respect and credibilty to honor the request (if it actually occurred).

You know whether Tom asked you to take down those emails. C'mon Bob, you're smarter than that. You've denied that Sileo ever made the request. If he never made the request, why are you saying Keith must have told me about the request? How could Keith tell me about it if it never happened?

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Bob Cox replies to Marisa McNee's unsolicited e-mail:

Actually what "this" is about is you don't like anything that you feel reflects badly on Keith. YOU want the e-mails taken down; otherwise why involve yourself in a matter that does not concern you in the least.

[After responding to previous e-mails I discovered that Marisa was publishing her e-mails to me in the comments section on OlbermannWatch]

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Marisa McNee e-mails Bob Cox (again):

Actually, the thing that really caught my eye was that the email address from the Sileo emails was different than the one provided by MSNBC (KOlbermann@msnbc.com) so I started to suspect the emails were not really an exchange between Sileo and Olbermann, or that maybe you had published an email address that wasn't supposed to be for public use. Surprise, surprise Mr. Cox continues to out people's personal information with no good reason.

I have no idea if the email exchange with Olbermann is real or not. I don't really care whether you take them down. And I promise you, I'm not that invested in whether things reflect badly on Keith. I don't know him, it's really not my business.

Moreover, I don't think the emails reflect badly on Keith (if they really are from him), so it's impossible that my motivation is as you suggest. As usual, you misunderstand my intentions. I just think it's really unethical to leave the emails up if the person who provided them to you has requested that they be taken down. The issue, for me, is that I think you're a hypocrite.

In any case, would you care to explain why you think I've been getting information about Tom Sileo from Mr. Olbermann? That was quite a little story you concocted, and you seem so sure of yourself...that is for someone who supposedly never got a request from Sileo to take the emails down. If Tom didn't request that the emails be taken down, why are you so sure I've been sending emails to Mr. Olbermann?

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Bob Cox replies to Marisa McNee's unsolicited e-mail:

Marisa,

Is this a post or an email direct to me? Do you want me to respond to you directly or on the web site? I can't tell.

Regardless, here is what I really don't understand:

There are a variety of issues raised by the e-mail that lots of folks have debated on OW.com yet have not commented on any of those; instead you focus on something that is completely off topic and do so in a some effort to impugn my integrity. And so I have to wonder why. I also note that this is not the first time that you have obsessed on tangential issues that have nothing to do with you, as a reader. Are you going to start demanding to know what kind of laptop I write on or what type of internet connection I have?

Your comments are more and more strange. You say you talked to someone who talked to Sileo then say you doubt where the e-mails are real and whether Sileo exists at all. You ask me to explain my reasoning for my conclusion that you sent an email to Keith when I have provided it to you in detail. You accuse me of being a hypocrite because you are under an impression that something happened that you don't know happened but that if it did happen YOU think should not have happened. If you want a serious response try being a serious person and quit playing games like a high school freshman.

Let me help you out there. If someone provides me information and I publish an article or post based on that information I am under absolutely no obligation to "unpublish" that information because the original source asks me to do so after the article or post has been published. I am not sure why you think I would be. Once a source gives me information and I publish it that information passses into the public sphere - it is "untethered" The source no longer controls the information when they provide it to me and I no longer control it once it is published.

If you can convince me that you have some real reason for making the accusations you have made I will clarify your original question by sending an email to your "source" with a copy to you. So, I am willing to respond to the accusation you are passing along for someone else but not to you. I don't deal with messenger boys (or girls).

==================================================

NOTE: A few days after Christmas I spoke with the producer directly and informed Marisa of the result.

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Bob Cox replies to Marisa McNee's unsolicited e-mail:

Marisa,

I did get in touch with Tom Sileo and he says he has never heard of you, has no idea what you are talking about and flatly denies what you claim.

He says the only person he has discussed the matter with is Keith Olbermann (via e-mail) and his fiance so either you are lying now or lying when you said you had not communicated with Keith. Either way, according to Sileo, you are talking out of your hat.

Sileo's email address IS available on OlbermannWatch.com if you care to pursue the matter further with him but I think I am done with you on this issue and any other. I don't have time for frauds.

==================================================

NOTE: Several weeks later a reader sent me an e-mail with links to the following posts on Marisa's QuickTopic discussion board that she was posting contemporaneously with her e-mails to me. They verified what I had known all along, that Marisa McNee is a liar and a fraud...

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Marissa McNee posts as "A2" on Quicktopic Board on 12-24-2004 01:25 AM ET (US)

...I sent an email to KO. He responded, or someone did. We exchanged a couple of emails and apparently Keith had no idea those emails had been published and he wasn't real happy about it. Rumor has it Mr. Sileo requested that Mr. Cocks remove the emails, and he hasn't.

Marissa McNee posts as "A2" on Quicktopic Board on 12-24-2004 01:27 AM ET (US)

Okay, clarification. I'm not sure if Keith had no idea about the emails. What he actually said was that he had never given consent for the emails to be published. He may or may not have already known about them when I sent the email.

Marissa McNee posts as "A2" on Quicktopic Board on 12-24-2004 01:39 AM ET

...Cock(s) would get way too much gratification by knowing that KO even gives a shit about anything on his site. I think Sileo intended for the emails to be published. From what I could tell in the email exchange with KO, sileo seems to have apologized to KO and subsequently asked for the emails to be removed. Maybe KO got pissed off at him and he realized he should try to fix it. It is potentially a copyright violation afterall. At this point I'm not even sure I had an email exchange with KO, but it seems legit. It said they were from him.

Katie 12-24-2004 01:44 AM ET

But isn't he on vacation? Did you exchange the e-mails today?

Marissa McNee posts as "A2" on Quicktopic Board on 12-24-2004 02:06 AM ET:

Edited by author 12-24-2004 02:06 AM

[Keith Olbermann] is on vacation and I did exchange the emails with him today. One this afternoon and one tonight, just a couple of hours ago. Like I said, I have no way of knowing if it was him. The email address was not (KOlbermann@msnbc.com) but it was from keith Olbermann at MSNBC. For all I know it could have been some assistant or something. The first email was signed Keith Olbermann, the second one just KO. The email exchange was cordial, and a little formal, not friendly or chatty, but polite. I don't really know if it's a copyright violation. There was a signature at the end of his email that stated the email was copyright protected and could not be used without expressed consent by Keith Olbermann and MSNBC. He made it clear that he had never had contact with Cox and didn't intend to, and that he never consented to those emails being published. Which I'm assuming means he thinks it is protected, or should be.

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==================================================

...I also learned that the woman on Marisa's QuickTopic site had been obessessing about OlbermannWatch since before it launched (the first post is on 11/30/04) and engaged in various efforts to troll in the OlbermannWatch comments section.

Scrolling back through the comments I found posts like these:

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Dnick 11-30-2004 05:26 PM ET (US)

Okay--I'm furious. Some Republican a--hole (and they are all a--holes) has launched an "olbermann watch" website--and this blog is nothing but KO hatred. http://www.olbermannwatch.com/

Yes, I'm pissed!

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JJ 11-30-2004 05:39 PM ET

Dnick, like you said, "Republican a--holes". Enough said!!

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NOTE: I am not a Republican.

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MaryEllen 11-30-2004 05:42 PM ET

Hey KK--I wasn't at all offended by your "prick" post--I just use it on a slightly different scale. And you're right about regional usage--I recently moved back East after being in AZ for 9 years, and it just wasn't used out there. Ah, the East

Coast--where calling someone a prick or a bitch is a term of endearment!

Dnick--you know, I guess the anti-KO site had to pop up eventually. What a bunch of losers. Maybe they should read what he's saying instead of fooling around with PhotoShop. God forbid that anyone would suggest that "Our Leader" (God, that creeps me out) is, again, illegitimatey elected.

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Quanlin 11-30-2004 06:32 PM ET

The OlbermannWatch site is pretty funny. Not because they are trying to be, but because they are so pathetic in their attacks on Keith. And I'm not just saying that because I'm part of this estrogen brigade either! "Let me agree with Olbermann on one point at least, we need a more uniform, reliable way to manage elections." Thats the tail end of the most recent entry in the blog. Why would we need that, if there were no voting irregularities right now? If there ARE irregularities, why not report on them? This kind of "you're a conspiracy theorist, sore-loser, cuckoo bird" heat is exactly what all the other journalists are desperate to dodge, to the point where they won't even touch this story with a 10 foot pole. Thank God Keith is willing to risk being mislabeled. Really, he's the best-positioned news anchor to do so, because he's got very little standing in the business to lose. I don't mean that as a personal derision, but just that he is underrated, and on cable, etc. It makes sense for him to pick riskier investments for his journalistic "capital". I think he really gets away with a lot that the other anchors would never try, just by virtue of the fact that he talks above the head of most of the idiots watching. They can't get up in arms about what they don't comprehend. Viva Olbermann! Is viva a feminine conjugation? Vivo Olbermann?
-q

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Japooka 11-30-2004 06:32 PM ET

Hi, Dnick - Perhaps it might make you feel better to think about the olbermannwatch site like this: If they hate him, he must be doing a good job.

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Quanlin 11-30-2004 07:05 PM ET

Check it out. Almost all the comments on the ObermannWatch blog are pro-Keith!
-q

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Dnick 11-30-2004 07:31 PM ET

Feeling better now. The comments are Overwhelmingly Pro-Keith! By the way, last time I checked at the Democratic Underground, there were two threads on this horrible website on two different discussion forums. They were NOT happy about it either!!!!

And yes, several have posted positive KO feedback at the Cornell website too. I just posted another nasty comment over there at Olbermann Watch against the creator of the site. And I fired off a nasty e-mail to the idiot at TVNewser for posting to negative websites at all and asked him why didn't he try to really report on the lies, bias and misrepresenations of newspeople-Media Matter.org does a great job of cataloging them daily--he's never even linked to the site.

Yes, I'm pissed!!!!

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Quanlin 11-30-2004 11:13 PM ET

Ew. OlbermannWatch just changed their background color to pink and salmon. Yuck. I guess having an offensive background color is supposed to give us bad feelings about KO?
-q

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MaryEllen 12-01-2004 08:57 AM ET

Edited by author 12-01-2004 09:01 AM

If anyone has time, mouse over to the OlbermannWatch site and read the comments. They are overwhelmingly pro-KO. Someone posted this: "Keith Olbermann is a sex God and you're just jealous cause you ain't getting any." Amen, sister!

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MaryEllen 12-01-2004 10:45 AM ET (US)

Hey Q--love your comment on OlbermannWatch!
http://www.olbermannwatch.com/archives/200...rs_wa.html#comments

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MaryEllen 12-01-2004 11:44 AM ET

Hey Q--Bob Cox also misspelled "belligerently" as "belligerantly" on the home page! My second post is just below yours and the first is just above his. I guess I made him a little cranky.

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MaryEllen 12-01-2004 11:53 AM ET

I saw your posts--excellent! What a prick this guy is. I guess he's a little peeved that >90% of the comments are pro-Keith.

I'm EliteGrammarian in that little fantasy world.

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Quanlin 12-01-2004 01:51 PM ET

OlbermannWatch is getting really funny. Did you see where he's begging us not to be rude and mean? Awwww. Let's all take pity on the poor guy. NOT! Lunaris, a self-desribed fangirl, has a funny post up there too. Is she one of us?
-q

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Bleu girl 12-01-2004 04:33 PM ET

Olbermannwatch is really funny. Q-be gentle with him. This guy is pathetic. He did post a sweet picture of KO in a crowd (looks like the press).

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KK 12-01-2004 04:54 PM ET

MaryEllen: "What a prick this guy is." That's the spirit!!!!! I'm proud of you!

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MaryEllen 12-01-2004 11:25 PM ET

Hey, Q, many congratulations! I hope things work out well for you very soon.

KK--thanks for noticing! I even used "prick" in conversation today (with someone who would not be shocked). Also, checking out Olbermann Watch makes me think/say/write "prick" a lot.

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MaryEllen 12-02-2004 09:01 AM ET

Edited by author 12-02-2004 09:27 AM
I just christened OlbermannWatch's minions as "Cox's Flying Monkeys." I hope the monicker sticks.
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NOTE: It has, I adopted it for OlbermannWatch!

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cole 12-02-2004 09:56 AM ET (US)

Hi gals. I just read the blogs & comments on olbermannwatch and boy, oh, boy -- KO has the pukes panties in a wad. Don't they have better things to do - like convert gays to being straight or spew Falwell's message that we need to blow up countries that don't agree with America?

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Bleu girl 12-02-2004 11:19 AM ET

Yes, Cole, isn't it amazing how easily threatened these bullies are? If you report on something, they set up a website to destroy you. MaryEllen and Quanlin will certainly keep Cox and his flying monkeys on their toes.

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MaryEllen 12-03-2004 12:26 AM ET

Edited by author 12-03-2004 12:39 AM
Aaaaugh, A2 (Marisa McNee), I just read his whole rant! What a fucking prick! Well, he probably suffers from premature ejaculation and impotence, too. I think that's the best I can say about him.

I just ripped him a new a--hole for that rant he posted. That is just so beyond low. Read my response here: http://www.olbermannwatch.com/archives/200...lbermann_begin.html

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Marissa McNee posts as "A2" on Quicktopic Board on 12-03-2004 12:43 AM ET

Nice. I just read your comment. I sent him an email...we'll see if he responds. In fact, maybe I'll just go post it for everyone to see. I guess if you want to piss off Bob Cox just tell him to "check his facts."

-the spineless fool :-)

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Marissa McNee posts as "A2" on Quicktopic Board on 12-03-2004 01:06 AM ET

Also, I just posted my email to Bob Cocks on his site: http://www.olbermannwatch.com/archives/200...begin.html#comments

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Marissa McNee posts as "A2" on Quicktopic Board on 12-03-2004 01:12 AM ET

Well, I'll be damned, Mr. Cocks has responded... off to go read what he has to say.

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Quanlin 12-03-2004 04:33 AM ET (US)

Hi KD, I'm up late too. I just finished some major changes to my pet Wikipedia page:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keith_Olbermann Rewrote most of the text and added in 2 articles and the OlbermannWatch site. I feel that it was appropriate to put that in there, because this is not supposed to be a fan site, but an encyclopedia entry. What do you guys think?
-q

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NOTE: A few weeks later, Marisa McNee does a little rant complaining about OlbermannWatch.com made it into the Keith Olbermann wikipedia page. Maybe she try reading her own site.

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Quanlin 12-04-2004 07:44 PM ET

"In closing, I'll be brief. The issue here is not whether I have made a few unsubstantiated statements or took a few liberties with Keith Olbermann's journalistic reputation -- I did. But you can't hold a whole blog responsible for the actions of one sick, perverted individual. For if you do, then shouldn't we blame the whole Blogosphere? And if the whole Blogosphere is guilty, then isn't this an indictment of the internet in general? I put it to you; isn't this an indictment of our entire American society? Well, you can do what you want to me, but I'm not going to sit here and listen to you badmouth the United States of America!"

Jeez, Bob Cox is such a tool.
-q

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MaryEllen 12-04-2004 07:50 PM ET

A tool is right--or, dare I say, a prick. He essentially quoted the end of the Student Council scene in Animal House . I doubt the man has ever had an original thought in his life.

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Marissa McNee posts as "A2" on Quicktopic Board on 12-04-2004 08:33 PM ET (US)

q- I saw your post on Mr Cocks' sight. Thanks. I guess I should just out myself and say "hello" I'm Marisa, the stubborn idiot that has managed to get in quite an argument with Mr. Olbermann watch. If you go to the section titled "Olbermann begins to backpeddle" you can see the comments. Bob has now actually started immitating Olbermann's blogs. He "scored" our argument round by round. hmmm, wonder if he got that from keith's coverage of the debates? What a prick! I guess I'll have to respond to him tomorrow. what better way to avoid the 5 papers I'm supposed to be writing before the end of the semester?

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MaryEllen 12-05-2004 12:21 AM ET

A2 (Marisa McNee)--Bob Cox is the most spineless, childish castrato to populate cyberspace. His diatribe against you is as ridiculous as the other nonsense he's posting over there. I admire your calm, logical rebuttals to his "hysterical, hyperventilating" rants.

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Marissa McNee posts as "A2" on Quicktopic Board on 12-05-2004 10:06 PM ET

Ah. I just checked, it looks like every other version of his name is taken. I like the idea of an unofficial fan site at olbermann.org is there an official fan site?

btw, I still hate Bob Cocks. he keeps writing snarky comments on his dumb site and he even sent me an email today because he got so irritated.

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Marissa McNee posts as "A2" on Quicktopic Board on 12-07-2004 02:17 AM ET

...And I agree about Olbermannwatch. After the last several posts I've seen, in response to my comments and on his front

page, Cox is obvioulsy engaged in an attempt at satire. Too bad he's doing it at the expense of someone else. I'd have respect for him if he really wanted to criticize Keith, but if he isn't going to take it seriously I don't think we should either. It's a joke to him and Mr. Cocks should probably just be a joke to us too. I'm not up for giving anymore brain space to someone who is flip about questioning someone else's integrity and professionalism...

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Shelley 12-22-2004 03:47 PM ET

Tell me again why I just went to Olbermann Watch? That man is loony tunes! He's got some post up about how KO exchanged e-mails with some alleged journalist (small market hoping to be big time it seems) calling KO to task. I got there via the link from the TV Newser website. Why is it that this TV Newser boy-child insists on linking to these right-wingnut blog sites that attack good journalists but never sees fit to link to Media Matters which does an extremely fine job outlining the outrages of the right-wing media in this country (which is the majority of the media in this country by the way)????? Yes,

I'm fuming. I know that neither TV Newser or the twit that runs OlbermannWatch is worth it but damn, I'm pissed!

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Quanlin 12-22-2004 06:25 PM ET

Good job, Shelley!
-q

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Shelley 12-22-2004 06:10 PM ET

Okay--I blasted TV Newser for constantly linking to these blogs who attack anchors and pointed out that he ALWAYS links to the ones that attack the left-leaning anchors but never does he link to one attacking the right wing. Guess what? The link to the hated website is now GONE. Hee-hee. Score one for our side. But I'm telling you, you've got to keep on these idiots constantly or this is the kind of crap they will try to pull and they honestly hope that no one will notice!

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MaryEllen 12-22-2004 08:06 PM ET

Go, Shelley! TV Newser needs a good verbal kick in the ass, IMHO. I can't bear to go to OlbermannWatch--they are just so far out of touch with reality that it's unnerving.

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Bleu girl 12-22-2004 08:16 PM ET

Shelley--At least TV Newser boy was open to suggestions, Bob Cocks is hopeless. The next time you are tempted to visit these site, just think of MVB's invective, "I would rather have fire ants chew my eyelids off than read his.....". I admit, I succumbed and read the email exchange between KO and whatever-his-name was. The guy seemed very young (and I do not mean this in a good way) and a bit braggy. Producers must be low on the food chain if they hire someone like that. Keith was cool and unflappable. I love him.

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Marissa McNee posts as "A2" on Quicktopic Board on 12-22-2004 11:24 PM ET

Did anyone else notice the different email address for KO on the Olbermannwatch site? (keith.olbermann@msnbc.com) Seems strange. Did they just post his personal work email address?

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Marissa McNee posts as "A2" on Quicktopic Board on 12-24-2004 01:09 AM ET

Hello ladies (and guys, are there any here?)-- I have some gossip about the Olbermann/Sileo exchange that was posted on the Olbermannwatch site. Anyone interested?

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Bleu girl 12-24-2004 01:13 AM ET

Always interested in KO gossip.

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==================================================

...this last post brings us back to the point I left off, on Christmas Eve, with Marisa attempting to engage me on the TV producer posting his e-mail exchange with Keith Olbermann. I did not hear back from Marisa McNee until the night of the Iraqi elections, 1/30/01, I received yet another unsolicited e-mail from Marisa McNee. This was my first exchange with her since learning that the entire time she had been exchanging e-mails with me she had been posting the most vile, foul-mouthed posts about me on her site few of which I am going to publish here (I think what I have already published on this site is suffecient to make the point).

Despite this, I decided to give her a chance to back up a statement she had made on her site the week before where Marisa described herself as 5',3"- 110lbs--size 4--married and divorced once--not so well endowed--big big big fuckin' brains-- and a lot a balls." As you will see, Marisa can "talk the talk" but isn't so big on "walking the walk".

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Marisa McNee e-mails Bob Cox (again):

Hi Bob,

Thought you would have weighed in on KO's coverage of the election in Iraq. Were you not aware there was a special Sunday night Countdown this evening? Just wondering.

Cheers,
Marisa

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Bob Cox replies to Marisa McNee's unsolicited e-mail:

I checked....we missed it; did you want to write it up?

Bob Cox

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Marisa immediately went to her galpals on her QuickTopic board with the news.

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Marissa McNee posts as "Tie Critic" on Quicktopic Board on 01-31-2005 03:48 PM ET

Okay all, so I have some random Bob Cox gossip. I just had a rather surprising email exchange with him. In regards to the fact that Olbywatch had not covered the Sunday night Countdown (which I found funny becuase they claim to be "watching Olbermann", so you would think they would've known there was a special) In anycase, I questioned him about whether they were choosing not to cover it or if they just didn't know it had happened. this was his response:

I checked....we missed it; did you want to write it up?

Bob Cox

...any takers? :-)

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The Cat 01-31-2005 03:50 PM ET

LOL, Tie go for it girl! Make KO proud. : )

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Marissa McNee posts as "Tie Critic" on Quicktopic Board on 01-31-2005 03:52 PM ET

Cat, I'm not sure it would make KO proud as much as it would piss him off. Regardless of whether I write something positive about his coverage, it would still be a contribution to a site that treats him unfairly on a regular basis. Anyone else have thoughts on this?

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Quanlin 01-31-2005 03:55 PM ET

It's up to you, girl. Like with the other thing, I can see both points. I don't think it would hurt, but it probably wouldn't help either.
-q

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Psych 101 01-31-2005 03:59 PM ET

Well, if it's anything other than an awful, hateful, lie-filled review, he's either not going to post it or will take it down the second you post it so I wouldn't even bother.

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The Cat 01-31-2005 04:00 PM ET

Tie, you have a point.

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Quanlin 01-31-2005 04:01 PM ET

He might post it. You never know. He'd probably put a note to say that it was written by a "LeftyLoon" guess writer.
-q

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Marissa McNee posts as "Tie Critic" on Quicktopic Board on 01-31-2005 04:03 PM ET

I think he would post, and without a harsh comment even. Well, maybe. I'm writing back to him now, with my concerns about contributing to a site that I don't agree with in principle. We'll see what he has to say.

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MaryEllen 01-31-2005 04:14 PM ET

Tie--I got a similar request from Mr. Cox waaaay back when the site opened. You can probably imagine what I told him (I was reared by the same family of longshoremen who brought up Shelley). On the other hand, I got a fan email from another pro-KO poster who praised my writing (yes, I saved the post, I was so thrilled) and asked me to keep up the good fight. So it's a tossup--I agree with Q's take on it.

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Marissa McNee posts as "Tie Critic" on Quicktopic Board on 01-31-2005 04:37 PM ET

Hey ME-- so he asked you to contribute? I think he may have tried to ask me when I first started posting there as well, I think I assumed he was being sarcastic. I'm also pretty sure that I told him to go forget about it. Since then I've had sort of an ongoing email debate going with him. Maybe he thought he would just give it one more try? We'll see what he says.

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MaryEllen 01-31-2005 04:45 PM ET

Tie--I think he was being sarcastic but was also desperate for people to write things up. It seems like he has gotten enough people to drink the Kool-Ade to have plenty of contributors now.

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Marisa "big balls" McNee writes to me again, checks with galpals again, then chickens out.

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Marisa McNee e-mails Bob Cox (again):

Are you serious about this? If you are, my concerns are the following:

1) We've discussed this before, but I don't really agree with what you're doing on this site. As much as I am willing to pop in and have a discussion on the comments board, contributing content to the cause of "watching Olbermann" is a different thing entirely-- even if what I write is positive or fair towards KO. The name of the site, and premise behind it, implies a certain sense of criticism and disapproval. I don't know that I feel good about being a contributor given I don't agree with it.

2) On a personal note, I may potenitally be working at MNSBC this summer, and I would prefer not to go in having been a contributor to a site known for dogging one of it's major on-air personalities. Walking through the halls to the sound of whispers "that's the woman that contributed to Olbermannwatch" isn't exactly what I had in mind for this summer if you know what I mean. This may seem a little paranoid, but as you've pointed out before, Olbermann is well aware of the site.

Anyway, if you're serious, I'll have to think about it. When would you need it by?

If you have any thoughts on what I've said I'd be interested to hear them.

Marisa

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Bob Cox replies to Marisa McNee's unsolicited e-mail:

I am serious. I will post what you send. I would need asap...like today!

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/6890777/

Meanwhile I am putting up a placeholder post.

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Marissa McNee posts as "Tie Critic" on Quicktopic Board on 01-31-2005 05:20 PM ET

From Bob Cox: I am serious. I will post what you send. I would need asap...like today!

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/6890777/

Meanwhile I am putting up a placeholder post.
*************************************************

I have 30 minutes to make a decision about this. Thoughts?

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crispini 01-31-2005 05:25 PM ET

Bored at work, reading today, can't resist the opportunity to say: Tie, you should SO do it. How can you resist the opportunity to say good things about KO on that nasty blog? :)

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Marissa McNee posts as "Tie Critic" on Quicktopic Board on 01-31-2005 05:28 PM ET

Hi Crispini! So, my first inclination was that it would be a good way to protect KO. But my gut has been telling me something else for about the last hour or so:

I don't agree with what Cox is doing on the site. As much as I am willing to pop in and have a discussion on the comments board, contributing content to the cause of "watching Olbermann" is a different thing entirely-- even if what I write is positive or fair towards KO. The name of the site, and premise behind it, implies a certain sense of criticism and disapproval. I don't know that I feel good about being a contributor given I don't agree with it.

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The Cat 01-31-2005 05:31 PM ET

Tie, you should do it and maybe include a statement saying you don't agree with Cox's site or something to that effect.

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Marissa McNee posts as "Tie Critic" on Quicktopic Board on 01-31-2005 05:31 PM ET

Cat-- even given the exchange I had with KO?

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The Cat
01-31-2005 05:35 PM ET

Edited by author 01-31-2005 05:40 PM
If you don't feel right about it then you shouldn't do it. Trust your gut.

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crispini 01-31-2005 05:36 PM ET

Ah! That's new info, your email exchange w/ KO. In that light, I'd say NO as well.

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Marissa McNee posts as "Tie Critic" on Quicktopic Board on 01-31-2005 05:40 PM ET

Edited by author 01-31-2005 07:00 PM

That's what I think.

Thanks guys.

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crispini 01-31-2005 05:46 PM ET

I had a thought, although it might not really fit in with the concept of ignoring Cox, but it would certainly be fun to write reviews of each show as Cox does, but showing how the show is NOT biased, and post them here or at O.org. (I'd never have the bandwidth to do something like this but would certainly enjoy *reading* such a thing!)

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Quanlin 01-31-2005 05:48 PM ET

Okay, now that you've got it all figured out, I want to jump in and lay out the other side again (sorry). It's a rare chance, and it could open a useful dialog with the "other side" if it's well written. Maybe it could even win a few minds over. I'm always for dialog.
-q

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Marisa McNee e-mails Bob Cox (again):

Not so quick with the placeholder post, unless you plan to post regardless of what I do. I'll have an answer for you in about 20 to 30 minutes. I'm probably NOT going to do this, but I will think about it.

P.S. I just read your post on Dopp...very funny. And I'm serious. I even giggled a little; which is a first for me in regards to anything you've written on your site.

P.S.S Careful with the Dobson crowd, for the same reasons one might have cautioned KO about affiliating with the Bev Harris crowd. I was married to the son of a pentacostal preacher who's whole family worked (maybe still does) for Focus on the Family and Dobson Ministries, I've had dinner at the man's house, my inclination was to stay clear of him (and not just because I'm a lefty-loon, as you like to call me). Just a little friendly advice.

m

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Bob Cox replies to Marisa McNee's unsolicited e-mail:

linking to a post is not quite the same thing as affiliating with Dobson; by that criteria I am also affiliated with Dopp.

I report stuff about Keith on OlbemanWatch...and if Keith picks a fight with Dobson I am going to report both sides (I know that is a weird idea for some but I don't just talk about being open to opposing points of view...I practice it).

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Psych 101 01-31-2005 06:00 PM ET

Crispini--That's a great idea. We could call it "Watching Olbermann"! Seriously, as we all know, KO covers stories that the rest of the MSM just ignore.

And Tie-I probably wouldn't do it but that's just me. I posted a couple of anti-letters against Cox on the site in the beginning and then decided it just wasn't worth my time or effort to mingle with the kool-aid embalmbed. But I will admit to popping over there to see what BS he's trying to claim about KO now.

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The Cat 01-31-2005 06:08 PM ET

Q has a good point.

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Marissa McNee posts as "Tie Critic" on Quicktopic Board on 01-31-2005 06:31 PM ET

Edited by author 01-31-2005 06:33 PM

Q-- you make a good point. But I had already sent an email to Cox telling him "no". It might be useful to consider opening a dialogue with Olbywatch, but at this point I don't feel totally comfortable with giving credence to the site. The more I think about the email exchange the more I feel like KO's opinion on the matter was quite the opposite-- no dialogue with the man, period. And, at the moment, I'm feeling like a give a shit about what KO would think about this.

Here's the email I sent to Cox:

I take your points about Dobson. I wasn't saying you WERE affiliated, just passing along some personal thoughts about the man since I know him. I think what I meant was that while you do "report" both sides of the ongoing argument, you're editorial comments on the subject make you appear to be in the Dobson camp on this one. My suggestion was that perhaps you should think carefully about pitching a tent in that camp. That's all.

As for my contribution to Olbermannwatch, I just can't do it. I appreciate the offer, and I am impressed with your obvious willingness to allow other opinions on your site, but nevertheless I just don't feel right about it. I am fine with posting comments on your site, but not about being an "Olbermann Watcher"-- I don't feel like he needs "watching" in the sense of the word suggested by your site. I think it would be best if you, or another of your contributors, just read the transcript and wrote an Olbywatch Guide from there. The transcript offers a good look at what he said and what he covered. That said, I did watch the show so I will offer up this bit of info: He was somber, and serious. No throwing of papers or snark in the tone of voice. You can decide for yourself based on transcripts whether he was fair, but it was evident in his tone and manner that he took the election in Iraq quite seriously.

Thanks again for the offer. I'll try to keep it in mind when posting my left-wing loony rants on your site. :-)

Have a good week.

m

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Marisa McNee e-mails Bob Cox (again):

I take your points about Dobson. I wasn't saying you WERE affiliated, just passing along some personal thoughts about the man since I know him. I think what I meant was that while you do "report" both sides of the ongoing argument, you're editorial comments on the subject make you appear to be in the Dobson camp on this one. My suggestion was that perhaps you should think carefully about pitching a tent in that camp. That's all.

As for my contribution to Olbermannwatch, I just can't do it. I appreciate the offer, and I am impressed with your obvious willingness to allow other opinions on your site, but nevertheless I just don't feel right about it. I am fine with posting comments on your site, but not about being an "Olbermann Watcher"-- I don't feel like he needs "watching" in the sense of the word suggested by your site. I think it would be best if you, or another of your contributors, just read the transcript and wrote an Olbywatch Guide from there. The transcript offers a good look at what he said and what he covered. That said, I did watch the show so I will offer up this bit of info: He was somber, and serious. No throwing of papers or snark in the tone of voice. You can decide for yourself based on transcripts whether he was fair, but it was evident in his tone and manner that he took the election in Iraq quite seriously.

Thanks again for the offer. I'll try to keep it in mind when posting my left-wing loony rants on your site. :-)

Have a good week.

Marisa

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Bob Cox replies to Marisa McNee's unsolicited e-mail:

well you had your chance.

my experience is the most strident people clam up when they are given the opportunity to be heard that they profess to be clamoring for...it is easy to stand on the sidelines and jeer,...a little tougher to put forward your own ideas and take your lumps.

I don't have to endorse Dobson's agenda to agree that he has a point that there is something wrong with advancing agendas by manipulating kids. http://www.thenationaldebate.com/blog/archives/2005/01/on_manipulating.html

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Marisa McNee e-mails Bob Cox (again):

Okay, so, I've been more than gracious about your offer, and with all due respect, I deserve the same. To send an email that says "well you had your chance" is inappropriate. I never asked for the chance. You offered, and I considered the offer as a resonable request. It is also way way way out of line for you to now label me as a hypocrite. I've been very open and honest with you, even devulging personal information, about why I don't feel comfortable with this. It is unfair of you to turn around and accuse me of being afraid to "take my lumps" when I have been very clear about why I won't do this. I take my lumps on your site all the time. I have no fear about speaking up on the issues I feel strongly about, I'm just not willing to be an "olbywatcher."

Standing on the sidelines and jeering is hardly where I have ever stood on this issue. If you remember correctly, I was the first pro-olbermann voice to have popped up on your site. And was quite willing to take more than a few lumps from you personally, in public on your site. I think I deserve more respect than what you're giving me. I don't think there is any evidence to suggest I have trouble putting forward my ideas, thoughts or opinions. You misunderstimate my strength of character and tenacity...and my age for that matter.

I am quite open to the idea of a dialogue about whether some pro-olbermann contributors would be a good thing for your site.

But quite frankly it would require you to step back a little and think about being a more considerate acqaintance.

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Marissa McNee posts as "Tie Critic" on Quicktopic Board on 01-31-2005 06:40 PM ET

Edited by author 01-31-2005 06:41 PM
Update: Fight with Mr. Cox has ensued. He sent ungracious and childish comments in reply to my very respectful email to him.

I'm so glad i didn't do this, he's a sore loser and a brat.

This is what he sent me:

well you had your chance.

my experience is the most strident people clam up when they are given the opportunity to be heard that they profess to be clamoring for...it is easy to stand on the sidelines and jeer,...a little tougher to put forward your own ideas and take your lumps.

I don't have to endorse Dobson's agenda to agree that he has a point that there is something wrong with advancing agendas by manipulating kids.

on edit: I removed the link. Fuck him, I will not allow his link to be on this board.

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The Cat 01-31-2005 06:44 PM ET

Tie, you were right in not contributing to his site. The guy is a major prick. Does anyone know anything about him other than he's a miserable a--hole?

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Marissa McNee posts as "Tie Critic" on Quicktopic Board on 01-31-2005 06:49 PM ET

He lives in New York State. Rochester I believe. And went to Notre Dame undergrad, UCI (I think) for an MBA....wishes he had gotten a Master's in Public Policy like me.

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NOTE: Marisa putting personal information about me on her site. Seems "threatening" to me!

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Marissa McNee posts as "Tie Critic" on Quicktopic Board on 01-31-2005 06:50 PM ET

Edited by author 02-01-2005 12:58 AM
My reply to Cox:

Okay, so, I've been more than gracious about your offer, and with all due respect, I deserve the same. To send an email that says "well you had your chance" is inappropriate. I never asked for the chance. You offered, and I considered the offer as a resonable request. It is also way way way out of line for you to now label me as a hypocrite. I've been very open and honest with you, even devulging personal information, about why I don't feel comfortable with this. It is unfair of you to turn around and accuse me of being afraid to "take my lumps" when I have been very clear about why I won't do this. I take my lumps on your site all the time. I have no fear about speaking up on the issues I feel strongly about, I'm just not willing to be an "olbywatcher."

Standing on the sidelines and jeering is hardly where I have ever stood on this issue. If you remember correctly, I was the first pro-olbermann voice to have popped up on your site. And was quite willing to take more than a few lumps from you personally, in public on your site. I think I deserve more respect than what you're giving me. I don't think there is any evidence to suggest I have trouble putting forward my ideas, thoughts or opinions. You underestimate my strength of character and tenacity...and my age for that matter.

I am quite open to the idea of a dialogue about whether some pro-olbermann contributors would be a good thing for your site.

But quite frankly it would require you to step back a little and think about being a more considerate acqaintance.
****************************************************

I'm super pissed off.

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The Cat 01-31-2005 06:55 PM ET

Go on with your bad self, Tie!

This guy is representative of most of the right-wing nuts out there. What an arrogant SOB!

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Marissa McNee posts as "Tie Critic" on Quicktopic Board on 01-31-2005 06:59 PM ET

Thanks Cat. I'm sooooo glad I didn't do it.

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Tie Critic 01-31-2005 07:02 PM ET (US)

Update: In the interest of privacy, all prior posts regarding email interaction with KO have been edited or deleted. I needed to devulge in order to get good advice, but I certainly don't have to leave it just sitting out there for all to read.

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NOTE: Marisa posting an e-mail exchange she had with Keith Olbermann without Keith's permission, so much for her concerns about Keith's privacy and copyright laws!

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Quanlin 01-31-2005 07:56 PM ET

Edited by author 01-31-2005 07:57 PM
Tie,

...I don't know what Cox is trying to do. If it's really a dialogue, a debate, you could say...even a national debate, you could say...he's doing a piss poor job of it. His attitude is all wrong. I had one more idea about the O.o place. Athough I still hate the idea of identifying with a group, I'm definitely considering getting rid of individual stamps on messages or edits, in order to eliminate ad hominem attacks. he whole point is to argue the issues, or KO as an issue, but not to fling personal insults around. That's going to hobble Cox's ability to operate quite a little bit, don't you think? Without names, people will have to resort to insulting the whole opposite side, which is one step closer to arguing the issues, IMO.
-q

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MaryEllen 01-31-2005 08:03 PM ET

Tie--you go, girl! Cox is such a single-minded moron. I tried to keep posting over there but a. I think it raised my blood pressure and 2. there was absolutely no objectivity or pretense to be objective. It's just a slam board. I do admire you for continuing to post. And congrats on your call--that's exciting!

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Psych 101 01-31-2005 08:08 PM ET

Tie--go get 'em girl! The man is an ass.

Q---I agree with ME on this. KO is very much a love him or hate him kind of guy and honestly, I wouldn't want to go to a board where I'd have to read crap about my man and see my blood pressure rise as I defended him. This explains why I limit my visits to the site whose name shall not be mentioned!! You know-the one whose owned Tie just reemed!

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Bob Cox replies to Marisa McNee's unsolicited e-mail:

Marisa,

I have been busy and not had time to reply to this e-mail but let me respond now:

You wrote: "I've been very open and honest with you" and "I think I deserve more respect than what you're giving me".

Respect is earned not deserved; you have done nothing to earn my respect but plenty to deserve my contempt. You have made a series of false, misleading or incorrect statements about me and information I have published on OlbermannWatch.com which has been amply documented already on my site.

You are not honest.

I have already addressed the Tom Sileo-Keith Olbermann e-mail exchange. You have made a false allegation (that Sileo asked me to remove the e-mail exchange from my site) and were not honest when challenged on this. You made a false/disingenuous claim to the effect of your "communicating with someone who communicated with Tom Sileo" and that person not being Keith Olbermann.

You have put forward the falsehood that I am the person who made the e-mail exchange public despite knowing full well that Sileo made it public by pasting the exchange into the comment section of OlbermannWatch.com (I later re-published them as part of a post I wrote commenting on the exchange Sileo had posted).

You are a hypocrite.

Your supposed concern in the matter was my publishing Keith's e-mail exchange with Sileo without Keith's permission (something I did not do) yet you have published e-mail exchanges with me without my permission. This despite my respecting your wishes not to disclose your identity.

You are a coward.

All of the contributors to OlbermannWatch.com are listed publicly and available to anyone who wants to communicate with them via e-mail, comments or trackback. You, however, continue to hide behind a veil of anonymity. When offered the chance to publish your views to an audience far wider than anything otherwise available to you you hide behind a supposed concern that people at MSNBC would be upset with you writing supportive statements about Keith Olbermann.

In closing, let me add that I have no intention of publishing our e-mail exchanges or disclosing personal information about you but if you continue to lie, misrepresent, selectively edit and publish our e-mail exchanges you can expect the same "courtesy" from me.

Bob Cox

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Marisa McNee e-mails Bob Cox (again):

Thanks for taking the time to reply. After reading your email I think perhaps we have some things to clear up. As per your usual behavior, you take snippets of conversations or comments made in emails so that they lose there original context or meaning and then choose to respond to only those particular snippets without any regard for the original meaning or context of the conversation. Perhaps it is laziness, or genuine ignorance, but at this point I suspect it is simply intentional dishonesty and an affinity for "spin".

In your email you provided me with the following quotes: "I've been very open and honest with you" and "I think I deserve more respect than what you're giving me".

You then responded to those comments as though they had not had any specificity as to the context of why I was making the comments. You when on to rant about the entirety of our interaction since we very first had contact. Point taken. We have indeed had some issues in the past, which I believe have caused us both to feel that the other is less than honest. However, the quotes you provided for the basis of that argument were conveniently shortened in order for you to make your point. The original comments were quite clearly intended to address the specific context of the particular issue at hand; which was whether I would choose to contribute to OlbermannWatch. What I actually said to you was the following: "I've been very open and honest with you, even divulging personal information, about why I don't feel comfortable with this."

I think it is quite obvious from looking at the whole quote that I was talking about my willingness to divulge personal information to you and the seriousness with which I considered your offer. I was simply asking for you to be equally gracious in the expression of your opinions rather than taking your usual ham-fisted approach. If you really believe I have done nothing to deserve your respect and deserve only contempt, well, I suppose you are entitled to you opinions.

As per my honesty (and your mischaracterization of the Olbermann/Sileo situation): I didn't make a false accusation. I told you what I had heard and asked you if it was true. And qualified every statement I made to you regarding the situation with the words "if Sileo did ask you to remove the emails," this statement alone makes it perfectly clear that I was unsure as to whether the request had actually been made. I did not suggest that you made the emails public. I've gone back and looked at every email exchange we had on the

So you somehow think that this makes everything you've done to M okay? Yeah, let's see tell that to the cops. I'm sure they'll be "so" impressed with you.

Well this is pretty hilarous. "M" says publicly she is "alarmed" about what has been published, so "alarmed" she is going to the police to have them take Mr Cox off to the pokey.

Meanwhile, she's been Inviting Mr Cox to Google her in emails, adding:
"Let's be clear, you could show the entire portfolio of every post and email that has ever been sent to you or posted on that stupid website of yours, and it wouldn't do a bit of harm to my reputation. There's not a chance on God's green earth that you could ever do anything that would even remotely influence my life."

OK. Bailiff, next case please.

"Perhaps we can "discuss" that tomorrow."

Oh for pete's sake!

Can't you two just get a room!

Just wake me up when it's over.

Bob-- I've asked you to remove the stuff about my father, instead you have gone on to now make the link that creates the threat. I spent three hours with the Ann Arbor police this morning. Tomorrow they are going to contact the Westchester DA and your ISP. I'd prefer if we could resolve this by you just doing what I have requested-- especially becuase I've aplogized for having called you names. It really would be best for both of us if this could be resolved between us, without the police or lawyers involved. THat just seems silly to me. I would love to be able to call the Ann Arbor police and tell them to forget about, the issue had been resolved. I sent you an email in an attmept to explain the concern over my father's information, you have now responded by posting yet MORE information about my father.

I guess you will have to decide what to do about this. Just becuase you may have the legal right to be doing something, doesn't mean you OUGHT to be doing it.

Paul and Cecilia-- I'm surprised at the both of you. That given my father's line of work you would think this is some kind of joke. It isn't.

Oh, and I NEVER published an email from KO. Not part of it or all of it. Period. The suggestion that I did is blatantly false.

JD-- I am alarmed at what Mr. Cox has written about my father, much less alarmed at what he has written about me. I've made that quite clear. When I made those statements it was prior to Mr. Cox posting the information that he has in the past week. At the time-- and despite whatever names I have ever called him-- it was inconceivable to me that Mr. Cox would ever do something that could potentially put someone's life in danger. Apparently I was wrong, there was something Mr. Cox could do that would influence my life, he could post comments that put one of my family members at risk. My mistake for having believed that Mr. Cox had a stronger moral foundation than that. My hope is that after some sleep he will realize that my father had nothing to do with this and will take all of the information about him off this site.

Marisa,

I said I would consider removing the information about your father but now you have gone ahead and involved your local police and district attorney's in two states. At this point, I am not inclined to voluntarily doing anything. Too bad, if you had just waited a few hours we might have been able to resolve things. Oh well, I guess you know best.

m,

Please don't get me wrong. I don't condone Bob's actions.

Today's attack dog nature of politics is as old as politics itself, but the internet or as "W" would say, "internets" provides a cloak of secrecy as it increases both the speed and penetration of attacks. The web permits perverts to pose as innocents. It lets sponsored splinter groups look like legitimate political entities. It allows true war heroes to be mercilessly debauched through an elaborate system of filters, by unapologetic war zeroes. The perpetrators pocket rewards doled out by highly-placed party bosses as their accusers, counting their ill-gotten gains, scurry off into obscurity. No one answers, no one gets punished, except for the victims.
It's a sick, perverted system. And in my opinion, the GOP has refined it to a high art. (Sorry, guys...you can say all you want about what jerks Kerry/Edwards were for allegedly "outing" the junior Cheney even though her family openly discussed her sexual preference and I'll agree with you that it was a mean-spirited, stupid, tasteless, ill-advised tactic, but you guys played MUCH dirtier througout the election. So don't give me "everybody lied. Both sides played dirtier than ever.") If you condone what USA NEXT and others of that ilk did (and does), then all I gotta' say is, "it sucks to be you". And if you don't understand why that is, I assure you that one day you will. One one level, I want to say it's too bad--that we democrats should have met you head-on, fighting fire with fire, but on another, I want to say, "NO, damnit--this simply has to stop. Where will it end?"

That said, m, it seems you've participated in some annoying behaviour. I'm no expert, so I place little value on that observation. I know well the power of both words and appearance. I don't feel that your "transgressions" warranted Bob's response. As a blogger, he should be accustomed to such phenomena and be able to respond professionally, objectively, without getting too heavily invested in emotion. But he's human, too, and to me, it looks like his pride may have gotten the better of him.

That it all had to unfold in front of us is indeed unfortunate. Upon reflecting on it a bit, I've come to one overpowering conclusion and that is, despite the awsome power and potential of the internet to improve and enrich our lives, I'm grateful that when I was your age, all I had were print publications, libraries, the US Mail, phones, Radio, TVs and typewriters. The infinite ability that we humans possess for turning useful tools into weapons never ceases to amaze.

I hope you can resolve this to your mutual satisfaction and that everyone involved can find something constructive to take from it.

m,

Please don't get me wrong. I don't condone Bob's actions.

The attack dog nature of politics is as old as politics itself, but the internet or as "W" would say, "internets" provides a cloak of secrecy as it increases both the speed and penetration of attacks. The web permits perverts to pose as innocents. It lets sponsored splinter groups look like legitimate political entities. It allows true war heroes to be mercilessly debauched through an elaborate system of filters, by unapologetic war zeroes. The perpetrators pocket rewards doled out by highly-placed party bosses as their accusers, counting their ill-gotten gains, scurry off into obscurity. No one answers, no one gets punished, except for the victims.
It's a sick, perverted system. And in my opinion, the GOP has refined it to a high art. (Sorry, guys...you can say all you want about what jerks Kerry/Edwards were for allegedly "outing" the junior Cheney even though her family openly discussed her sexual preference and I'll agree with you that it was a mean-spirited, stupid, tasteless, ill-advised tactic, but you guys played MUCH dirtier througout the election. So don't give me "everybody lied. Both sides played dirtier than ever." And I say this not because that statement is false, it's not. It just fails to completely characterize what happened). If you truly condone the actions of groups your leadership hires; groups like USA NEXT and their ilk, then all I can say is, "it sucks to be you". And if you don't understand why I feel this way, one day you will. The end, simply must not always justify the means. Moral values, my ass. One one level, I want to say it's too bad--that we democrats should have met you head-on, fighting fire with fire, but on another, I want to say, "NO, damnit--this simply has to stop. Where will it end?"

That said, m, it seems you've participated in some annoying behaviour. I'm no expert, so I place little value on that observation. I know well the power of both words and appearance. I don't feel that your "transgressions" warranted Bob's response. As a blogger, he should be accustomed to such phenomena and be able to respond professionally, objectively, without getting too heavily invested in emotion. But he's human, too, and to me, it looks like his pride may have gotten the better of him.

That it all had to unfold in front of us is indeed unfortunate. Upon reflecting on it a bit, I've come to one overpowering conclusion and that is, despite the awsome power and potential of the internet to improve and enrich our lives, I'm grateful that when I was your age, all I had were print publications, libraries, the US Mail, phones, Radio, TVs and typewriters. The infinite ability that we humans possess for turning useful tools into weapons never ceases to amaze.

I hope you can resolve this to your mutual satisfaction and that everyone involved can find something constructive to take from it.

Here is a fascinating set of exchanges that sheds real light on who is being honest and who is being deceitful:

Mr Cox: You sent an e-mail to Keith and he told you that Tom told him that Tom asked me to remove the e-mails.

"M": Now who's the tin foil hat wearing conspiracy theorist? If you've got proof of any of your allegations, let's hear it. Stop distracting from the original discussion with paranoia about how I've been sending Keith emails, and grand dillusions [sic] that if I sent an email he would actually respond....That was quite a little story you concocted, and you seem so sure of yourself.

Then "A2" on Quicktopic Board on 12-24-2004 01:25 AM ET (US): ...I sent an email to KO. He responded, or someone did. We exchanged a couple of emails and apparently Keith had no idea those emails had been published and he wasn't real happy about it. Rumor has it Mr. Sileo requested that Mr. Cocks remove the emails, and he hasn't.

And the final link in the chain of dishonesty, "M" posts: As for my "internet personalities," well, A2 and Tie Critic over on the QT boards...those are me.

So the "paranoid", "concocted" story that "M" was desperately denying for weeks, turns out to have been true all along. When she admitted that she was "A2", she unwittingly provided the final piece of the puzzle that shows her to be a person whose word is not exactly her bond.

You're a stalwart, JD and I commend your diligence. My eyes rolled up into my head pages back.

Can't we just make it stop?

But that's really not up to us, is it?

Paul and Cecelia,

Last night when I was posting the "mother of all comments" I was wishing I could see the expression on your faces when you realized what an absurdly monstrous comment had been posted to the site.

You do realize you don't HAVE to keep reading this thread? Or is it like a car crash and you just can't resist rubber-necking?

I have to go, the SWAT team from Pre-Crime is outside my house....RUN!!!!!

The car wreck analogy is a good one. Someone's cred has sustained major injuries.

...whew, turns out they were coming to get my neighbor...I'm safe for now so I can finish my comment...unless Marisa has called out the National Guard...hmmmm....well, I'll have to chance it...

Does anyone else find it amusing that she-who-claims-not-to-be-Marisa is now busily engaged it yet more trolling activity posting comments on the site. I guess not-Marisa read the part in my monster comment about trying to help the TV producer by keeping the e-mail exchange post off the home page and has now determined that this is a useful course of action. For some reason the thought of a penguin trying to fly popped into my head.

I get a kick out of noticing that the common thread that runs through Marisa's behavior is that while she wants to be free to make all manner of vile, disgusting, defamatory comments about little 'ol me she appears obsessed with demanding that OlbermannWatch cease publishing altogether or removing various posts and comments about Keith Olbermann or Countdown Ratings or Bev Harris of BlackBoxVoting or the Sileo-Olbermann e-mail exchange or comments that reference her or comments that reference her father and so on. Even better, if she doesn't get her way, she threatens to call the New York State Police, the Ann Arbor Police Department, Batman, Robin, her local District Attorney, the Westchester District Attorney and . Well, OK, Batman and Robin are not real people but you get the idea.

Bob,

The car crash analogy isn't adequate. It's more like an enormous black hole sucking in all light and matter.

I am not an expert on Movable Type. I wonder what happens if I delete all of the disgusted spam comments? Will it bump all of the recent comments back down a notch?

Only one way to find out.

So, with apologies to "Disgusted" beautiful poetry let's see what happens.

She is like a cat in the dark and then she is the darkness. Keep on trying Bob baby. I am your worst fucking nightmare.

Marisa,

FYI. Using an AOL account over your residential DSL service to post as "Disgusted" as opposed to using your direct internet connection via SBC Communications is not an effective disguise because the trace route on both still shows as the last hop back from my server being in Southfield, Michigan, the local data center outside of Ann Arbor.

Well, I guess it would be effective if anyone believed that there would be two loony liberal woman so obsessesd with OlbermannWatch that they would spend their days posting comments on the site. Hmmmm. Well you are at the University of Michiagan..so I guess that COULD be an effective disguise but....bad news. I ain't buying it. So, I banned "Disgusted" so you are just going to have to post as "m" or create more user names via your AOL acccount. If you spam the site as "m" then I am going to have to ban your IP address from SBC and then you really will have trouble having any voice on the site.

The good news is that if you do it enough the network admin folks in Dulles have a pretty effective "abuse" policy that will get you banned from AOL too. I need a few more examples to show them that you are being persistent enough to warrant action on there part so please keep it up!

I have to admit that I was a little disappointed to find that you were not using a server at the University of Michigan because that opens up a whole new avenue for me to respond to your behavior. Not to worry, I'll be checking your IP addresses looking for a match.

In the meantime I have this:
http://www.senderbase.org/search?searchString=69.212.44.28

Report on IP address: 69.212.44.28

Other information about this IP address
Sender Category NSP
Network Owner Pac Bell Internet Services
Domain ameritech.net
Date of first message seen from this address 2005-01-23
CIDR range 69.212.0.0/18
# of domains controlled by this network owner 1260
Geography data
Country US
State MI
City Southfield
Postal code

Marisa,

FYI. Using an AOL account over your residential DSL service to post as "Disgusted" as opposed to using your direct internet connection via SBC Communications is not an effective disguise because the trace route on both still shows as the last hop back from my server being in Southfield, Michigan, the local data center outside of Ann Arbor.

Well, I guess it would be effective if anyone believed that there would be two loony liberal woman so obsessesd with OlbermannWatch that they would spend their days posting comments on the site. Hmmmm. Well you are at the University of Michiagan..so I guess that COULD be an effective disguise but....bad news. I ain't buying it. So, I banned "Disgusted" so you are just going to have to post as "m" or create more user names via your AOL acccount. If you spam the site as "m" then I am going to have to ban your IP address from SBC and then you really will have trouble having any voice on the site.

The good news is that if you do it enough the network admin folks in Dulles have a pretty effective "abuse" policy that will get you banned from AOL too. I need a few more examples to show them that you are being persistent enough to warrant action on there part so please keep it up!

I have to admit that I was a little disappointed to find that you were not using a server at the University of Michigan because that opens up a whole new avenue for me to respond to your behavior. Not to worry, I'll be checking your IP addresses looking for a match.

In the meantime I have this:
http://www.senderbase.org/search?searchString=69.212.44.28

Report on IP address: 69.212.44.28

Other information about this IP address
Sender Category NSP
Network Owner Pac Bell Internet Services
Domain ameritech.net
Date of first message seen from this address 2005-01-23
CIDR range 69.212.0.0/18
# of domains controlled by this network owner 1260
Geography data
Country US
State MI
City Southfield
Postal code

I chatted with my web hosting provider today and he informed me that Marisa McNee called the company yesterday demanding that OlbermannWatch.com be shut down because of "some law" she claims makes it illegal to post information about an OB/GYN online.

Of course, there is no such law. There is, however, something called The First Amendment to the Constitution to the United States. Not to mention that OlbermannWatch did not "post" information about Dr. McNee but is LINKING to a public web site that is displaying publicly available information about Dr. McNee. The image of Dr. McNee is being served up by the same site.

Perhaps Marisa will call the Stanford University Medical Center for "breaking the law" and get them to take down the web page dedicated to Dr. McNee.

Marisa claimed to the web hosting company that the matter had been reported to the Ann Arbor police department and that the New Rochelle police department would be contacted on Monday (not sure why since the local PD is a 24/7 operation). No mention of the DA's office which Marisa had claimed would also be coming after me. While there is no law that would prohibit OlbermannWatch from publishing any of the information contained on the site there are laws against filing false police reports, make defamatory comments and harrassment.

My web hosting provider informed Marisa that he could not shut down a web site based on her "say so" and that he would require a court order. Marisa apparently did not have one. Marisa spent the better part of an hour on the phone, continuing to demand the site be taken down, before terminating the call.

So, I am still a free man as of writing this comment.

"The First Amendment says nothing about a right not to be offended. The risk of finding someone else�s speech offensive is the price each of us pays for our own free speech."

Jeff Jacoby
syndicated columnist, 2004

Mr C, I'll come see you on visitors' day.

Marisa now claims that she has also reported the person she spoke to at the web hosting provider to her local police. Remember, Marisa "Free Speech" McNee will have you locked up by the thought police if you dare to refuse her commands.

=====================================

Marisa McNee as Tie Critic
03-16-2005 04:03 PM ET (US)
I've just lowered the boom on our "friend." For those of you that weren't aware, I had previously received a threatening email from said "friend," the threatening comments from the email are now posted on his site for his supporters to see-- along with a warning for him to remove any and all personal information about me or my father.

We'll see what happens next, the next step might actually be a phone call from me to the New York State police.

MaryEllen 03-16-2005 04:56 PM ET (US)
LadyK--thank you, you just made me laugh out loud twice! I haven't seen Tie's post yet, but I will ASAP when I get home. You go, Tie!

MaryEllen 03-16-2005 06:27 PM ET (US)
From KO's Hartford Courant interview:

"No matter what your political orientation is, if you don't stick up for freedom of all opinion, eventually the wheel will turn, you'll be the minority and you'll have written the rules by which you yourself are squashed."

Beware, Mr. Cox--the wheel is turning.

Tie Critic 03-17-2005 01:37 PM ET (US)
Well, it appears(and I say this tentatively) that the situation with our "friend" is coming to a close. Go check and see for yourself.

The personal attacks on me will stay-- which is fine, he makes himself look like a liar when he does it-- but the threats and information about my father will go.

That is, of course, if he keeps his word. We shall see...
============================================

NOTE: I never said I would take down the information about Dr. McNee only that I would consider it.

============================================

Quanlin 03-17-2005 02:01 PM ET (US)
Tie, doesn't look like much progress to me. Still see your dad up there. JJ, here are the highlights. Roy Cohn was a lawyer and a bully, and Joseph McCarthy's right-hand man in the blacklisting of communists and homosexuals in the early 50s. He was a closeted homosexual his whole life (less closeted as he aged) and died of AIDS in 1986, claiming that it was liver cancer.
-q

============================================

NOTE: Roy Cohn is yet another "code name" for me on Marisa's QT board

============================================

MaryEllen 03-17-2005 02:36 PM ET (US)
Mr. C. doesn't have a sixteenth of the the intelligence nor a scintilla of the power Cohn had. Cohn was brilliant though manipulative and evil. He enjoyed destroying people's lives for sport. No wonder Joe McCarthy and J. Edgar Hoover loved him (platonically speaking, as far as I know).

Although I loathe Cohn, comparing Mr. C. to him is insulting. I'd compare Mr. C. to, oh, say, Dan Quayle--another Republican brainiac.

Disgusted with Mr. Cox 03-18-2005 08:46 PM ET (US)

For the last time-I am not M and she is NOT me.

After this, no posts all day long until late at night........she must have been very busy yesterday w/ other activities!! Hmmmm....wonder what in the world she was up to for all those hours......maybe exams or lots of phone calls or sumpin'!

Marisa McNee as Tie Critic 03-19-2005 07:02 PM ET (US)
Edited by author 03-19-2005 07:08 PM
Hi all-- so, as some of you may know, the situation with Bob Cox has not been resolved. I had not been commenting on this situation publicly, but as the situation has become more dangerous I decided I would speak about it now.

Bob Cox has refused to take down the personal information about my father despite my most sincere attempts to get him to remove it. In fact, my attempts to get him to remove the information only resulted in Bob Cox subsequently posting more information about my father in a way that has made the situation alarming. The situation is further complicated by the fact that Bob Cox has become delusional and thinks everyone is me and I am everyone. So despite not having posted at his site since his refusal to remove the threatening language and personal information, Bob Cox is convinced that I am still attempting to make contact and is becoming increasingly enraged.

All of this, has led me to file a police report with my local police department for an incidence of stalking. Once a detective is assigned to the case, the local police department will be contacting the local police department of the city where Bob Cox lives. I have also spoken with the DA's Office in the county where he lives, they are looking into the matter. I also contacted Bob Cox's ISP and made a report. I am expecting little result from the ISP as Bob Cox made it clear that his ISP was a contributor to his site. I requested that the ISP ask Bob Cox to take down the threatening language and info about my father. I also gave them the case # for the stalking report. They assured me they would approach Bob Cox. I also made it clear that I was a huge proponent of free speech and DID NOT WANT the site taken down.

=====================================

NOTE: LOL. As noted previously, all, or close to all, of Marisa's unsolicited communications to me have revolved around her demands that I take down the OlbermannWatch site or information posted on the OlbermannWatch site.

=====================================

That I was making an effort to respect the free speech rights of Bob Cox and that the personal information and attacks against me were well within his rights and I had no problem with it. Well, as of this morning our Bob Cox has posted huge lies all over his site, claiming that I demanded that his site be removed. So, either the ISP lied to Bob Cox, or Bob Cox is just lying to his readers (given his past record, I'll let you decide which one is lying).

=====================================

NOTE: ROFL. If Marisa was not calling my ISP to demand that he take down the OlbermannWatch site then why was she calling him? To chat?

=====================================

The man from his ISP also made sure to tell me that he "had friends at the University of Michigan," which I took as a direct threat on my personal safety-- and subsequently reported it to my local police department.

=====================================

NOTE: Wow! Now she is claiming to be filing police reports against my web hosting company too! Johnny Dollar, YOUR NEXT!!!

=====================================

Thanks again to everyone for all your support in this matter. I decided to speak about this publicly on the board becuase I am concerned for the personal safety of anyone who may have contact with him and choose to express an opinion he does not agree with. And I want everyone here to know that he should be avoided at all costs-- he is at best extremely inappropriate, and at worst potentially dangerous.

=====================================

Welcome to cloud cuckoo-land

=====================================

MaryEllen 03-19-2005 07:44 PM ET (US)
Oh, Tie. What an a--hole. I'm sorry this loon has taken after you. He really must have a paranoid borderline personality disorder or some such psychological pathology. I've seen the most recent info posted on his site and could hardly believe it. I've been on some real hardball messageboards but have never seen anything like this.

Take care of yourself. If there's anything I can do, please email me.

Disgusted with BC 03-19-2005 07:48 PM ET (US)
I attempted to post yesterday on Mr. Cox's site but he has not put every post there on a per message review. Let me just say that I was quite surprised to see that my last message had been severely and selectively edited to cast me in the worst possible light.

=====================================

Not sure what she-who-is-not-Marisa is talking about here. I did ban the IP address she-who-is-not-Marisa was using via her AOL account because she comment-spamming the site. I did delete a bunch of the song-lyric spam comments but I did not "edit" any of her posts.

=====================================
As some of you might know from reading the thread there, he believes that M and I are the same person. I was attempting to explain to him for the 100th time that this was most surely NOT the case, but none of that info was posted. Only the last line, again, totally designed to make me look bad and to somehow, in his twisted and warped logic, to make what he is doing seem justified. This is all indeed quite troubling and is in fact, downright scary. Stay safe Tie.

Keith'sHotGirl/Sara 03-19-2005 08:02 PM ET (US)
Sorry to delete the curse bombed post, guys, I can't get worked up about all the right wing freaks without putting a few f bombs, s missles, bs rockets or ah dyamnmites. It just makes me mad that the right wing is pulling a bomb on KO and the left and put their dirty tricks on them.

Psych 101 03-19-2005 08:20 PM ET (US)
To hear Mr. C tell it, indeed, apparently, we're all Disgusted and we're all M too--LOL. Either he's being "attacked" by one woman disgused as many different posters or there is some organized "plan" to take him down--his delusions vary from moment to moment. He can't quite seem to decide which on any given day, as evidenced by his rambling, incoherent, and paranoid postings. And he calls us Looney?????

I guess this is the galpals idea of "civil" disobedience although I have been "promoted" to the "most selfish son of a bitch I've ever seen in my life". Boo-hoo.

MaryEllen 03-19-2005 07:44 PM ET (US)

Oh, Tie. What an a--hole. I'm sorry this loon has taken after you. He really must have a paranoid borderline personality disorder or some such psychological pathology. I've seen the most recent info posted on his site and could hardly believe it. I've been on some real hardball messageboards but have never seen anything like this. Take care of yourself. If there's anything I can do, please email me.

MaryEllen 03-19-2005 07:45 PM ET (US)

Oh, Q--I'd make that my new wallpaper if it weren't so repellant (but funny as hell).

Disgusted with BC 03-19-2005 07:48 PM ET (US)

I attempted to post yesterday on Mr. Cox's site but he has not put every post there on a per message review. Let me just say that I was quite surprised to see that my last message had been severely and selectively edited to cast me in the worst possible light. As some of you might know from reading the thread there, he believes that M and I are the same person. I was attempting to explain to him for the 100th time that this was most surely NOT the case, but none of that info was posted. Only the last line, again, totally designed to make me look bad and to somehow, in his twisted and warped logic, to make what he is doing seem justified. This is all indeed quite troubling and is in fact, downright scary. Stay safe Tie.

Keith'sHotGirl/Sara 03-19-2005 08:02 PM ET (US)

Sorry to delete the curse bombed post, guys, I can't get worked up about all the right wing freaks without putting a few f bombs, s missles, bs rockets or ah dyamnmites. It just makes me mad that the right wing is pulling a bomb on KO and the left and put their dirty tricks on them.

Quanlin 03-19-2005 08:10 PM ET (US)

Yeah, Sara, we're all Disgusted, like I said.
-q

Psych 101 03-19-2005 08:20 PM ET (US)

To hear Mr. C tell it, indeed, apparently, we're all Disgusted and we're all M too--LOL. Either he's being "attacked" by one woman disgused as many different posters or there is some organized "plan" to take him down--his delusions vary from moment to moment. He can't quite seem to decide which on any given day, as evidenced by his rambling, incoherent, and paranoid postings. And he calls us Looney?????

Sara, I liked your first post--LOL.

MaryEllen 03-19-2005 09:54 PM ET (US)

Hmmm, wonder why Mr. Cox doesn't think it might be a MAN who's "attacking" him.

Quanlin 03-19-2005 10:38 PM ET (US)

From Cox's bio page on NationalDebate, it looks like he's living off of his wife's work. After earning his MBA, he started a transcription service in '97 or so, but I couldn't find any mention of it post-'99. Aw, it died...
It was called MobileWord, which nowadays refers to a word processor that runs on PDAs. His new career, or activity anyway, consists of bitching about real media outlets like NYT and Countdown.
http://www.thenationaldebate.com/blog/arch...bio_robert_cox.html
-q

Coxwatch 03-20-2005 01:40 PM ET (US)

Edited by author 03-20-2005 01:47 PM
Speaking of irrational behavior--a great example is Bob Cox and his paranoid fantasies. Bob, Roy Cohn is NOT another code name for you on Marisa's QT board. (Roy Cohn was an incredible prick, but I wouldn't insult his memory by comparing him to you. You seemed oddly flattered by the analogy which, if you read carefully, wasn't one.) Nor is this M's board. And you banned me, dumbass. I am apparently one of your phantasmagorical "she-who-is-not-Marisa" people. And my ISP is not AOL (so much for your computer expertise).

Why don't you just ban everyone but Cecelia and Johnny Dollar? Then you can have the syncophantic audience you crave. Although even Cecelia cautioned you about this latest vendetta. Hmmm, maybe you should ban her, too? There's a shade of disloyalty there--can't be too careful.

Do you jerk off when you assemble those rants? (It would account for the misspellings and grammatical errors, not to mention the circular logic. I guess you can't type well with your left hand.) It sounds as though you're sexually excited by what you imagine are so many women thinking about you. Think again, Bob. I would have to care to think about you. I don't. I'm just responding to that incredible pack of lies you have posted at your site. Its incoherence begs clarification by a person in their right mind.

Or is it your only reason to get up in the morning? Seriously, Bob, see a psychiatrist. You can be helped.

PS. I can't WAIT for this to show up on Olbywatch!!! I'll be a star!

Psych 101 03-20-2005 02:00 PM ET (US)

For the record, I'm board admin here at QT and I can tell you for a fact that I am not M, we are two entirely different people in two entirely different states in entirely different regions of the country. But for his purposes, I guess we are all M!

Re the definition of cyberstaking that was posted here last night-it is very clear that Mr. C has gone to a great deal of trouble in trying to find "support" for his insane claim that we are all one person and are all posting on any number of message boards across the net and has spent a great deal of time and effort compiling posts made at different boards, including, but not limited to, both QT boards (old and new), the Yahoo Group, and Television without Pity. I guess he's too lazy to go through the DU posts--LOL.

The kicker for me was when he posted old messages from the now defunct Yahoo group. Not only did he try to claim that some of us were from that other group (to my knowledge, none of us are)--but he also ALTERED the date on one of the messages to somehow provide support for whatever fictional delusions he appears to be operating under. He claimed a post was from December 2004, which is a hell of a trick considerng the last post at the Yahoo Group was made in October 2004.

But distortion and flat-out lying are this man's stock and trade. He's told so many lies he wouldn't know the truth if it kicked him in the ass. Clearly, someone needs to loosen up their tinfoil hat-it's clearly cutting off circulation to his brain

Jyl 03-20-2005 02:12 PM ET (US)

Psych, are you able to tell who's subscribed here? (I am) Just wondering if BC is? Only asking because even if someone deletes a post (as Keith'sHotGirl/Sara just did) it still comes by email, so it doesn't necessarily get deleted out of sight of cyberstalkers...

Psych 101 03-20-2005 03:22 PM ET (US)

Edited by author 03-20-2005 03:33 PM
The parnoid delusions continue I see. C is continuing to insist that there is a plot to take "down" his website, never mind he's so stupid that he's actually posted the text of e-mails from M requesting that ONLY certain information regarding her family members be taken down and no where in any of these posted requests or her e-mail comments does she ask that his SITE be taken down. Only certain information. Another lie from Mr. C.---the latest in a long, long, long list of lies.

I mean, there it is, in black and white, for everyone to see that M has in no way requested that his SITE be taken down, only certain information that he chose to post about her family members.

He's obviously trying to set up some "free speech/first amendment" argument here, totally forgetting I guess that the 1st Amendment does not cover threats, harassment, or STALKING. Oh well, I'm sure he'll be able to explain EVERYTHING to the cops, including why he has clearly followed this woman (and all of us) from website to website to website, and has reposted our posts from this board and others onto HIS website. And why he's felt justified in editing down comments made to his board, and altering dates on posts from other boards. It should make an interesting defense as he tries to lie his ass off to uphold his right to "free speech". Turns out though that free speech might not be as free as he thought it was.

Since the galpals seem to have a lot of time on their hands - and since this seems to touch on Marisa McNee's concerns - let me offer them this link to chew on: The Nuremberg Files CS201 Final Project by Eric Silverberg, Carrie Charpentier, Adam Goldman, Karina Luevano, and Jeffrey Petit

Well it's been five days since Marisa called the cops on me and I'm still a free man.