There was a fascinating little story in the Trib today. It seems that some of our Representatives are busy re-editing the unflattering things written about them on Wikipedia. The people who run “the world’s largest” online reference source even put a two-week hold on edit changes emanating from Capitol Hill’s server.
Minnesota Representative Gil Gutknecht who is in a tough race with an Iraq war veteran kept trying to erase the entry under his name that pointed out that twelve years ago he promised to term-limit himself and retire from Congress.
Caught by a 15-year-old in trying to hide this embarassing little detail Guthnect’s spokesman bad-mouthed Wikipedia saying that its authors were untrustworthy. Since Gutknecht is one of Wikipedia’s authors he knows what he’s talking about.
All of the politicos (there are several more in additional to Gutknecht) who have attempted to hide or twist the truth in their Wikipedia entries are scumbags. Period. More deceitful, two-faced antics. Then there is Mark Kennedy trying to appear to be so independent, yet he’s as straight-line Bush/party as anyone has ever been. Let’s hope none of these guys gets a job with Websters. The new dictionaries will be telling our kids that honest means convincing, lying means storytelling, and cheating means winning.