To anyone who has followed this truly bizarre case from day one, the simple truth might seem difficult to fathom. But the following facts are… nothing but the truth.
Very strange.
It all started in 2005 when Maine blogger and perennially unemployed website developer Lance Dutson inexplicably attacked the Maine Office of Tourism for driving up bid costs on the Google Adword program.
This accusation just did not ring true, especially given the undeniably snarky tone in which it was delivered. So I did some checking up, and this is what I learned.
Dutson was completely wrong about Adwords. Yet he claimed to be an SEO (Search Engine Marketing) expert. Did he know he was wrong?
Alas, the MOT’s (IMHO clueless) ad agency sued him anyhow, and from that moment on, Dutson was a folk hero, incapable of doing wrong… at least not as per his easily inflammable “webrat” groupies. Right wing Mainers assuaged their cabin fever and gratified their Baldacci bashing appetites by taking up the Dutson cause.
The lawsuit (which was of course quickly dropped) assumedly enraged young Mr Dutson, so he followed all those erroneous Adwords “Pay-per-Gate” charges with still more lies. In a loud exhibition of paranoia, (or self aggrandising attention seeking?), Dutson raved that everyone in Augusta was out to get him. He twisted the facts to fit into this “persecuted investigative journalist” image.What a hero!
The trouble is that Dutson was always perfectly aware that his lies were lies, There were several occasions in which he himself admitted that a certain charge was not true. But the next day he would appear to forget these admissions. Lance Dutson maintained the mendacious attack, and on he ranted.
Anyone following the links to the “Proof” that he offered would of course find no proof whatsoever – sometimes the links even disproved his accusations. But none of his readers bothered to read the links. They only read his charges, they believed every word, and reacted violently.
Rising right wing internet impressario Robert Cox believed Dutson’s lies without even having read through Dutson’s blog – even after I and several other people informed him about what Dutson was doing.
(Actually, it would appear that Cox really had no interest whatever in Dutson’s honesty – only in his celebrity.) Cox adopted Dutson as a “Cause Celèbre” (his own words) and arranged for Dutson to attain yet more exposure… as the first blogger ever to “live blog” a major media event – the Scooter Libby trial.
Needless to say, Dutson’s vacuous followers – and even “legitimate” press pundits – increased tenfold. His readers just believed every lie that he uttered. I pointed out Dutson’s lies in several comments on his blog, but he deleted every comment I had ever made. Other people who tried to expose the truth received similar treatment by him.
The MOT director (who has been serving “At the Pleasure” for 12 years) was dismissed by Augusta “amid allegations of corruption” . Right wing bloggers crowed. But the truth is that the dismissal was only political, and had nothing to do with the phony charges. The change had been planned long before Dutson entered the scene.
Finally, as a reward for his long campaign of lies and false accusations, Dutson was given a $25K position as Susan Collins’ webmaster.
I belatedly learned of the same mendacious sympathy-garnering techniques employed by Susan Collins in 1996 and again just this year. Is that where Dutson learned these sophomoric tactics?
UPDATE- 3/08 : We can safely assume that my latest blogs here are the reason that he has finally removed each and every lying post about the subjects. Once he hit the “Big” time, he finally got caught. Assumedly, someone out there actually took the time to read.
“Water seeks its own level”
Lance’s wife Janet is sleeping with Perry Gates. The two chair the Camden Downtown Business Group – while they were working in businesses not even in Camden, but Lincolnville and Rockland.
Perry, the trust-a-farian, failed at selling bottles of Maple syrup in Camden, so he’s got an axe to grind. Mind you the axe is dripping with the blood of sugar maples. He’s using up the remainder of his trust fund from mommy and daddy on his new nutty pancake house in Rockland. Got to love the new-year round businesses in town!
Guess Perry doesn’t know how to use a calculator, as in: “Gee golly, my rent costs $2,400 a month that is $28,800 a year. So let me see if Nietzsche and my existential dead god will help me sell over 2,400 bottles of syrup in a year.”
Now Janet who is sleeping with the postmodernism syrup twit… works for Windsor chairmakers in Lincolnville.
Guess Lance’s lance doesn’t work well.
Watch out because he’ll be attacking more people once he figures out how he has been cuckold.
And you know Lance is sitting at home in his batman jammies – with a sippy cup of coffee, plotting his revenge.
Comment by Thomas Walters — January 27, 2008 @ 4:14 pm |