A while back, pseudonymous blogger "Teddy Roosevelt" popped up* in the Virginia blogosphere to oppose the rhetoric from Bloggers 4 Sayre. He delivered a shocking bombshell (superfluous writing used for dramatic effect): On June 2, Teddy alleged that "Elle" of In-Politically Correct is really Ann Taetzsch, Staunton Republican Committee Chairperson, and "General Grievous' Dog" is really Augusta County Chairman Kurt Michael. Several other Virginia bloggers picked up on the news and repeated it, and it now seems to be regarded as established lore.

Unfortunately, Teddy didn't offer anything in the way of proof, and, as a rule, I don't think it's wise to take the word of an anonymous blogger without at least some kind of track record. It's interesting that General Grievous' Dog quietly folded up shop and snuck out of town a month before the allegations, and I haven't seen any Bloggers 4 Sayre explicitly deny the report (although I saw a comment on The Richmond Democrat suggesting they had), but that's not entirely damning evidence by itself (I don't remember them explicitly confirming or denying the reports about SWAC Girl or John Maxfield, either).

This finally brings me to the point of this post. By accident, I found some evidence the other day that might corroborate one of Teddy's claims, and some evidence that might refute the other. Maybe this is already known but I haven't seen it mentioned anywhere, and in the interest of elevating the level of discourse in the blogosphere a little bit higher than he-said-she-said, I'll outline it below.

While looking up completely unrelated information, I stumbled onto this sentence in the Staunton Republican Committee 2007 news archive, written by Lynn Mitchell (aka. SWAC Girl) about a January 13 SWAC-GOP breakfast with Bob Goodlette:

"Staunton Chairman Anne Taetzsch was ill with the flu and missed the meeting."

I remembered seeing something about the flu on In-Politically Correct recently while looking for Virginia bloggers endorsing presidential candidates. I went back to Elle's comments about Sam Brownback on January 15, and I backed up one post, to January 13, the same day as the aforementioned SWAC-GOP meeting. Elle's entry for that day is entitled, "I hate the flu!"

"I am achey and my head hurts and my lungs hurt. I am hopped up on cold and sinus meds and I am a whiny 2 year old right now."

Now I'm not saying this is rock-solid confirmation that "Elle" is indeed Anne Taetzsch, but it's a noteworthy coincidence, and it's a little more substantial than just taking Teddy Roosevelt's word for it.

On the other hand, I have my doubts about Teddy's claim about General Grievous' Dog.

According to that same SWAC-GOP news item, "Augusta Chairman Kurt Michael was not there because of his mother's illness. (She passed away Monday morning, January 15.)" I checked a local copy of General Grievous' Dog's RSS feed (one advantage of using a desktop feed reader :), but there were no unusual interruptions in GGD's posts during that time period.

Again, this is not proof of anything, but I have a hard time imagining that an Augusta Republican would continue his blogging attacks while skipping out on important committee meetings to care for his dying mother. That doesn't mean the account couldn't have been used by Dr. Michael after January, though.

* Teddy disappeared just as quickly.

UPDATE 7/16: Interestingly, John Maxfield (supposed secretary of the Staunton GOP committee) tacitly confirmed Teddy's claim that Augusta GOP Chairman Kurt Michael was posting pseudonymously as General Grievous' Dog (by scolding The Richmond Democrat for posting Michael's employer's web site), and changed the subject when questioned about it.