September 03 ,2009
On August 31, we asked whether or not Peter Fleckenstein, a Phoenix, Arizona-based former Marine who blogs and twitters against the administration's healthcare plan under the name Fleckman, was the man behind an extraordinary right wing disinformation campaign that put out a widely distributed email that was highly critical of the Democrat's health care bill. The problem with the email, according to factcheck.org, a project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center, was that the email was full of lies--at least 26 of them.
According to Factcheck, the email contains 48 claims of which 26 are outright falsehoods, 18 are at least somewhat misleading, and only four are true.
At the time we posted, we were unable to reach Fleckenstein and ascertain his exact relationship to the email.
Now we have--and his response only raises more questions.
In our first report, we noted that Fleckenstein both disclaimed responsibility for the mass email, saying he "never wrote it," and, on another page of his site claimed credit for it: "I've done this analysis and provided the fruit of my efforts here for free. I want all of you who read this to share it with as many people as possible. I have now come across sites that have advertising or services that generate income. No biggie, I love capitalism, but some have been using my work as their own. So I'm requiring that if any person or entity uses my work in any form then they must link to my blog and attribute my hard work to me. It's still free but please give credit where credit is due."
So what's the real story?
With the inestimable help of Twitter, we finally reached Fleckstein, and asked him if he was behind the email.His reply?
"Oh my @craigunger Ur ignorance precedes you - Educate thyself - http://bit.ly/HlKeo."
Finding Fleckenstein's reply a bit cryptic, we asked again: "But you won't answer if you started that campaign. Yes or no?"
This time, Fleckenstein answered, "Oh my @craigunger ur ignorance STILL precedes you - Educate Thyself - http://bit.ly/9d75Y"
When we asked for the third time, however, Fleckenstein went further: "Veteran psychiatrist calls @craigunger mentally ill - http://bit.ly/lWMlM."The message went out to the many thousands of people who follow Fleckenstein on Twitter.
Meanwhile, Fleckenstein still has not answered whether or not he is behind the massive email campaign which has spread so much disinformation about health carel.
The impact of such disinformation should not be underestimated. A few days ago, we googled the statement--demonstrably false-- that "The 'Health Choices Commissioner' will decide health benefits for you. You will have no choice." Then, it was posted on about 18,000 websites.
Today, September 3, less than a week later, the result is 46,100. No wonder the public has turned against health care.
