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Punishing Prevatt, Flailing Fleischman

Posted by Alex Brant-Zawadzki in Main

November 27, 2006 7:11 PM

Permalink | Comments (9)

Chris Prevatt is a local blogger, an employee of the County Health Care Agency, and a man without a computer.

The County took Prevatt's computer as part of an investigation as to whether he used county time to post a blog entry on TheLiberalOC. The post in question displayed a photoshopped image of Supervisor Chris Norby as "Darth Norby", wielding a light-saber and garbed in the robes of a Sith Lord.

The investigation is ridiculous—Prevatt has already explained how he wrote the post in his personal time and had a fellow blogger post it later in the day. This is S.O.P. in the blogosphere. I've done it myself. I'm sure that Jon Fleischman has done it in his capacity as founder of Flashreport.org, a right-wing political blog.

Still, Fleischman suggests in the OC Register that the problem isn't when the blog was posted – it's what it said.

"I'd be awfully careful if I was a county employee to post critical stories about your boss," he said. Prevatt, Fleischman notes, "may be more than liberal, he may just be dumb."

It's scary, in a mafia or Communist kind of way, to think an employee ought to know better than to criticize the boss. It reminds one that Bill Hunt is still on administrative leave following his campaign for Sheriff. Hunt attacked his superior officer; Prevatt, a county employee, attacked the Supervisors. He attacked them for not taking more action against Tan Nguyen and suggested several alarming trends including a history of racism on behalf of Supervisor Norby:
Attorney H. Bryan Card pointed me in the direction of the sexual harassment case of Pamela Mokler against Chris Norby from 2005. In a sworn testimony on March 7, 2005 Ms. Mokler claimed that Supervisor Norby had said to her on one occasion when she was discussing outreach programs targeting Latino seniors "Why the [fuck] do you have to do something special for Mexicans?
In testimony under oath, Norby admitted to the "Mexicans" statement but denied dropping the F-Bomb.

Perhaps this explains why there is practically no discussion on FlashReport.org about the school for scandal that is Sheriff Mike Carona's administration; until recently, Carona was Fleischman's boss. Dan Chmielewski discusses this point over on TheLiberalOC.

I searched Flashreport and couldn't find any discussion of the controversies surrounding Sheriff Carona, but there were some Sheriff-related items. There's a vague post from Adam Probolsky, member of the Orange County Republican party Central Committee's Executive Committee. It pretends to discuss a protest against the Sheriff; he calls the activists "crazies" and claims "it wasn't clear why they were protesting". That's idiotic--Probolsky links to a Register story in that same post, the second paragraph of which clearly states that the protesters were calling on Carona to resign because of "sexual harassment allegations and problems with his reserve deputy program."

There's a post by Matt Cunningham, an Orange County election roundup from March. Cunningham mentions a Carona legal victory over his opponent Bill Hunt and, without any mention of scandal, opines that Carona is in great shape to win a third term. He also points to a post on OCBlog, which he says "has a good analysis" of the discussion—not surprising, as it was also written by Cunningham.

And there's a scintillatingly sycophantic pre-election post from Blogministrator Jon Fleischman himself: "Mike Carona: A GREAT Sheriff who should be Re-elected."

For over 900 words, Fleischman expounds on the glory that is his boss, Mike Carona. He tells of Carona's ironclad support for Republicans including Diane Harkey—odd, as Harkey lost her State Senate campaign to Tom Harman. Fleischman mentions his job in the media relations office of the Sheriff's Department, which he says gives him "an insider perspective of Sheriff Carona." He doesn't go so far as to acknowledge the piece as a press release, but if it walks like a kiss-ass and talks like a kiss ass, well, sometimes ass is being kissed.

He calls the Sheriff's opponents B-players, accusing them all of "worst kind of campaigning -- where they takes the lies and falsehoods printed in publications like the Orange County Weekly and spread them around as if they are true."
"There have been a number of news articles (primarily in the OC Weekly and in the LA Times) that have been negative about the Sheriff. Well, I can tell you as someone who is truly in a position to sort out fact from fiction -- most of what they have said simply isn't true."

That's how a spin-doctor tries to avoid getting sued for libel. Although he does say we print lies. Which is, of course, a goddamn lie. The OC Weekly has some of the best fact-checkers love or money can buy, and I challenge Fleischman to point out a single lie we've published.

Finally, Fleischman fawns over Carona's support of Flashreport.

I think that it speaks volumes about Sheriff Carona that he has been very supportive of my efforts to start and maintain this website. Often times I will pen controversial things, and while neither he nor you, I'm sure, agree with all of them, I think it shows a commitment on Carona's part to the causes in which we believe that he has been so supportive.

So what, it shows a commitment towards causes he supports? There's a neat trick. And of course the goon supports your blog, Jon—all you do is blow smoke up his ass.

 

Comments (9)

  1. Debby Bodkin says:
    November 27, 2006 22:11

    Unfortunately, the most important causes, free speech, press, opinion and petitioning government with grievances, without retaliation... You know, those guaranteed freedoms that do not exist in the OC.

    It is quite refreshing to have the ability to blog on the OC Weekly site, without waiting days and sometimes weeks, to see if one's opinions will be posted for public viewing. I stopped counting how many opinions have been submitted to the OC Register and the "Join the Discussion" blogs that are never posted.

    What is the point of blogging if censorship and "pick and choose" philosophies determine what comments are politically acceptable enough to be posted for public viewing.... what a joke. The Flashreport is just one of many blogs that caters to a self-serving agenda.... again, this is personal opinion but it sure is great to be able to "blog" without censorship!!!! How great it is that some still believe and practice in accordance with the freedoms guaranteed to all Americans.

  2. Jubal says:
    November 28, 2006 07:11

    The OC Weekly has some of the best fact-checkers love or money can buy, and I challenge Fleischman to point out a single lie we've published.

    Alex:

    I don't speak for Jon, but you guys do make factual errors. I can't say it i's a lot, but I've seen it on several occasions.

  3. the serrach says:
    November 28, 2006 09:11

    good stuff alex. the "I think that it speaks volumes..." line is a gem. that carona would be supportive of a website that extolls his (percieved) virtues really shows that they guy is a straight shooter.

    i also love that, Prevatt's bosses (or whomever is running the "investigation"), in an effort to insure that he is productive on county time, have ...wait for it... taken away his computer!

    douchebags all.

    and yeah jubal, all news sources make factual errors. that's quite a bit different than what your pal accused them of.

  4. The Liberal OC says:
    November 28, 2006 09:11

    [...] The Orange County Weekly's blog The Blotter picked up on Prevatt's story: The investigation is ridiculous—Prevatt has already explained how he wrote the post in his personal time and had a fellow blogger post it later in the day. This is S.O.P. in the blogosphere. I've done it myself. I'm sure that Jon Fleischman has done it in his capacity as founder of Flashreport.org, a right-wing political blog. [...]

  5. Dan Chmielewski says:
    November 28, 2006 09:11

    Great post Alex; thanks for digging deeper into the blogsphere to come up with those gems. Matt -- there is a difference between a factual error and a lie. I had a factual error in my post at TheLiberalOC.com yesterday when I confused FlashReport contributions as "story contributions" and not "financial contributions" but even with the factual error, the point was Jon used county resources for a private endeavor and should rightfully reimburse the county for costs incurred. All papers make factual errors from time to time; so do online media like Drudge. Jon accused the Weekly of spreading lies. Alex simply called him out on it.

  6. Alex Brant-Zawadzki says:
    November 28, 2006 21:11

    Matt-

    If we published lies, don't you think we'd be successfully sued for libel?
    Specifically, if Fleischman could point out a lie in the stories to which he referred in the post, that would be most appreciated. But any lies will do.

  7. Arturo Garcia says:
    November 29, 2006 13:11

    Blog on your own dime

  8. Jubal says:
    November 30, 2006 13:11

    Guys:

    Ask Jon for clarification, because he didn't say the OC Weekly prints lies. Alex inferred that from his quote -- which I think can be fairly interpreted as saying the OCW makes factual errors. That's how I took -- and Alex felt the need to boast about the Weekly's fact-checkers, which goes more toward answering the "factual inaccuracies" interpretation rather than the "Fleischamn says we lie" interpretation.

  9. Alex Brant-Zawadzki says:
    December 2, 2006 17:12

    Matt;


    "the lies and falsehoods printed in publications like the Orange County Weekly"

    "...news articles, primarily in the Weekly ... most of what they said isn't true."

    You say he didn't call us liars, but he cited us an an example of publications containing lies and falsehoods. He said the majority of our Sheriff's coverage is not true. What, you think the OC Blogosphere is too stupid to draw that kind of connection and therefore it's not a logical inference?

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