BY KEITH ROLLMAN – The AtomicMonkey.WordPress site was my personal blog. It was not, as stated by Neil Abercrombie’s recent press release, a Mufi Hannemann campaign strategy.
Several weeks ago the PR agency for Mufi Hannemann expressed their concern that others might try to associate it with the Mayor so I took it down (over two weeks ago).
As far as I know Mayor Hannemann never even saw it and certainly didn’t have anything to do with it. Assertions to the contrary by Abercrombie are simply speculation.
Blogging is today’s choice for the expression of first amendment rights. I have been writing commentary and drawing political cartoons for some time (about 40 years).
One cartoon depicting the demise of Neil Abercrombie’s pony tail, and comparing it to a gecko snapping off it’s tail to get away, ran in the Honolulu Star-Bulletin in 1997.
I have known and disliked Neil Abercrombie since before Mayor Hannemann was out of High School.
Now I face the problem of having to defend my work, now that it is no longer available for people to judge it for themselves.
I must rebut what Neil Abercrombie says it was rather than what it really was.
Why didn’t Neil Abercrombie complain while it was up and running?
Atomic Monkey was parody, plain and simple. You might not like my style of humor, but blogs are not intrusive media…you have to seek them out.
I remember Neil Abercrombie when he HAD a sense of humor and dressed up as superman to run for the U.S. Senate…in fact it was in AtomicMonkey.
Almost everyone BUT Neil Abercrombie thought AtomicMonkey was pretty funny.
It was certainly tame and tasteful by today’s internet standards…no obscenity or profanity, and contained a invitation to correct anything that was factually in error.
Abercrombie never accepted that invitation or disputed a single fact for over three months, chosing only now to complain and try to exploit this as an issue.
Why not talk about his offshore drilling votes or same-sex marriage instead?
We all know the answer to that. It isn’t Neil’s thin-skined and oportunistic response that bothers me the most, it’s the reactionary mob mentality that he is trying to incite in this loyal followers about this horrible idea of a average citizen using his first ammendment rights to express his opinions.
One person, who obviously is operating without any facts, recently sent me an email accusing me of spreading “vicious rumors.”
Really, posting commentary on a political candidates public record is “spreading vicious rumors?”
Making fun of politicans is a time honored American tradition that’s been around as long as we have, and so far the U.S. Supreme Court has defended us from the Neil Abercrombie’s of the world, and our constitution right to depict them as we really see them.
Since you bring up full disclosure, yes I am the administrator of Neil Abercrombie’s Flickr page. I also occasionally contribute to the Abercrombie blog afg2010.com. I have also donated a whopping $25 dollars to the Abercrombie for Governor campaign. My twitter name is @nctrnlbst. I’m an Aquarius, and am not fond of long walks on the beach. Is there anything else you would like to know?
The point is that I posted using my name. Not a made up identity like Bob Weasel. If I have something to say, I say it as myself and not hide behind a false identity.
Relax @nctrnlbst, you can post under any name you want. And, anonymous political criticism is protected by the U.S. Constitution and re-affirmed by the U.S. Supreme Court. Incidentally, Ed, I’ve always use my real name here at HawaiiReporter, so your accusations seem a little out of place. If you are referring to the comment section of the dailies, where 95% of the people use screen names, yeah you got me! What is your point?
You are entitled to your opinion. It’s fine if you don’t like Neil. I have no problem if you don’t like Neil. The problem I have is when you or anyone thinks that it is okay to say negative things about people from behind the safety of an anonymous screen name. My point is, if you are going to say something bad about someone or say write a blog making fun of someone insisting the whole time that it’s okay because it’s just “political satire”, have the balls to sign your name on every post.
Ed, I appreciate your lowering the level of the attack rhetoric. Anonymity on the internet is the de facto standard regardless of the tone of the message. Over half of the (over one million) blogs currently online are anonymous. As I already pointed out, the vast majority of blog commenters at the StarAdvertiser are made-up screen names. As you also know there are many people, trained in social media at the Abercrombie campaign, who regularly attack Mayor Hannemann using multiple screen names. This is all perfectly legal. And, judging by the standards of the day, Atomic Monkey was certainly a “mainstream” G-rated interntet product, that allowed no profanity (unlike YouTube), and carefully documented the sources of its criticism of Abercrombie (unlike Neil’s “social media” team).
I chose to post AM anonymously so that the issues it raised would be the only thing available for counterpoint. Are you saying that Neil’s public record is something that cannot be discussed? Isn’t what he did while in the U.S. Congress for almost 20 years significant? Have you challenged a single statement about his record made by AM, or any of the numerous sources it referenced? No, Ed, you guys attacked me. You said “I’m a paid consultant” (I’m not), “I did this on taxpayer time ” (I didn’t), “It was all a smear” (it wasn’t)…and last but not least, to avoid the obvious accusation that “it was Mufi Hannemann’s project” (it wasn’t.)
Now, if you can get John Adams indicted (in absentia) for using “Publius” to publish the Federalist Papers, I’ll start to feel like I wasn’t just exercising a constitutional right to anonymous political free speech. There is a propensity for a certain type of politician in this world to demand free speech for themselves while on the rise only to try to deny it to others when they reach power. This is the enemy, Ed, not me.
“Suppose you were an idiot, and suppose you were a member of Congress; but I repeat myself.”
— Mark Twain (fake name)
Correction: The Federalist Papers are attributed to Hamilton, Madison and Jay…not Adams. There was, however, no “Publius.”
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