Cornyn Staffer Was A Prolific Sockpuppet, Hitting At Least 10 Private And Media Blogs Dating To 2005

Yesterday, Burnt Orange Report unmasked prolific commenter “Buck Smith” as actually being Dave Beckwith, a Cornyn staffer who evidently splits his time between working in Cornyn’s federal Senate office and on the Cornyn campaign. The Cornyn campaign has defended Beckwith, saying he is simply doing the same thing everyone else on blogs is doing, although having a legitimate reason for using a pseudonym is a bit different than using one because you are a paid political operative.

Beckwith, however, didn’t just comment at one or two blogs (Burnt Orange Report and DailyKOS being two most people are aware of. In fact, he trolled sites belonging to mainstream media outlets, and sockpuppeted across nearly a dozen Texas-based and national blogs.

The day after the March primary, March 5, Beckwith as “Buck Smith” had a lengthy exchange with The Seminal’s Jason Rosenbaum, where he opened with a back-handed attack at State Rep. Rick Noriega’s wife, Houston City Councilwoman Melissa Noriega:

Jason, with all due respect, I don’t understand what Noriega is saying. I know he wants to accent that he’s been in Afghanistan — that’s 90 percent of his campaign thus far — but beyond that, he’s lost me.
Is he saying that if he or his soldiers get in trouble, and need intell help, that he’d prefer that help be delayed indefinitely while lawyers argue? Would that make his wife less anxious? I wonder how many professional military would agree with that.
That scenario is exactly what happened last year in Iraq. Here’s a column on this very subject. I guess we’ll find out which approach Texans prefer — rescue the soldiers immediately, or empower the lawyers to footdrag while arguing over legal red tape.

However, it appears Beckwith began his pro-Cornyn sockpuppeting crusade long before this year’s election. Among the earliest comments found of “Buck Smith” relating to Cornyn date from 2005 and were posted at longtime blogger Greg Wyeth’s Greg’s Opinion, in which Beckwith contends Cornyn has never made a mistake:

The Cornyn statement about judges was leaped upon by the Demo smear machine because Cornyn has proved himself extremely effective in little more than two years in the Senate. No freshman Senator is more influential. He’s a star — that’s why he’s being mentioned for the Supreme Court — and they want to stop him now. He almost never makes mistakes…in fact, I’ll bet you can’t name another he made in the Senate race or in the Senate.

So keep belaboring the Judges remark. It’s increasingly obvious you have little else on him.
As for McCathyism, the only example I’ve seen lately is from Harry Reid. On the Senate floor, he said he’d heard there was something in judicial nominee Henry Saad’s FBI file that creates “a problem.” But that file is locked away, Reid couldn’t see it, Senators are prohibited from talking about it, and even Saad himself doesn’t know what’s in it. So nobody can defend this smear. Can you think of a more blatant example of McCarthyism?

Also in 2005, Beckwith/Buck Smith issued a $100 challenge similar to the one he issued about his own firing on Eileen Smith’s In The Pink Texas during a spirited row with many of the site’s commenters over, among other things, whether John Cornyn had actually uttered the phrase “box turtle” in a speech, in which he also called the Blog’s author “Girrrllll”:

Yellow Rose: if Cornyn uttered any reference to a person marrying an animal, please post the citation. If you’re successful in locating and posting it, I will donate $100 to your favorite candidate. Here’s a clue: he never did so, but waste a few hours trying to find it anyway.

Pink Lady: Many political mistakes are blamed on staff error. But sometimes the fault lies with — staff error. I know the truth doesn’t control In The Pink — the blog is too well written to be entirely truthful — but it ought to count for something.

Perhaps this quote will come back to haunt Beckwith:

Many political mistakes are blamed on staff error. But sometimes the fault lies with — staff error

In June of 2006, Beckwith/Buck Smith was sockpuppeting at Keep Austin Blue:

Speaking of “out of touch,” Sonia, how about this web site? The vote you cite was a joke. Iraq has no intention of pardoning terrorists. So the Dems put up this resolution urging Iraq not to pardon terrorists. The Republicans put up a resolution commending Iraq for not pardoning terrorists. It’s all a game so that one party can try to make the other party look bad.

The only people who fell for it are Sonia, David and (maybe just to mislead people) “Keep Austin Blue.” Most people in Texas are smart and can see right through these games.
By the way, I saw Cornyn deliver an extremely moving tribute to Kristian Mechaca and his family on the Senate floor yesterday. If you spent more time watching Cspan and less time reading left-wing blogs, you’d be better informed.

And, last month, Beckwith/Buck Smith was trolling on Texas Monthly’s Burka Blog, criticizing the blog that eventually outed him:

The kid bloggers over at BOR went wild when the first Rasmussen poll came out a month ago. Four diary entries, plenty of “Texas realignment under way” comments, and citations to about three dozens blogs chortling that Cornyn was in trouble. But when Baselice came out with his non-robo poll two weeks ago, there wasn’t a word about it on BOR. I wonder how the kid bloggers will cover the updated Rasmussen poll?

Beckwith/Buck Smith has also done some sockpuppeting at Gulf Coast blog South Texas Chisme in a post about the border “wall.” Too, Beckwith has corrected Dallas Morning News blogger Karen Brooks for mislabling U.S. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison. Even an online news magazine in San Marcos wasn’t safe from the Beckwith/Buck Smith sockpuppeting extravaganza; nor was a site called BloggerNews.

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