Sunday, April 27, 2008

Greg did not create Black Velvet Bruce Li

The Washington Post had an article chronically the 1-year anniversary of Help Save Manassas. A good portion of it was little more than re-worded statements they got from Greg in an interview (Aside: it is a sign of a lazy reporter that rather than verifying facts from an interview, they simple stick the words "xxx said", or "xxx alleged", or "according to xxx".)

So I can't be sure whether this particular error was from Greg's interview, or more likely just another sign of laziness on the part of the reporter.

However, since the reporter is not the only person who has made this same false statement, and others probably believe it to be true (not being students of web history), a correction is in order. From "Taking a Stand on Illegal Immigration":

Letiecq, also the creator of the conservative blog Black Velvet Bruce Li,


For the record: Greg is NOT the creator of Black Velvet Bruce Li. (Also, BVBL is not a conservative blog, but that's another issue).

BVBL was created by a blogger who called himself Black Velvet Bruce Lee. That blogger was focused not on conservative politics, but on false personal attacks on Steve Chapman. Greg simply went along for the ride. And when BVBL was threatened with a lawsuit over the defamatory comments made on the blog, the blogger BVBL erased all his posts and went into hiding.

Greg simply commandered that site for his own use, taking the popularity while trying to avoid the legal consequences (I guess it remains to be seen if he is successful in that 2nd endeavor).

Later Greg re-hosted the site, and because of repeated requests to stop infringing on the Bruce Lee trademarks changed the name from "Lee" to "Li" and to remove Bruce Lee's image from the header.

It is interesting because other people make the mistake of saying that Greg was the one who created the "Help Save xxx" organizations. But as this article gets right, Greg didn't create that, he took it from other organizations:

Letiecq united unhappy residents around the region, he said, by forming Help Save Manassas. He noted that similar groups were in place: Help Save Herndon and Help Save Loudoun.


Oddly, while some might think it a compliment to be falsely credited with creating a successful franchise, Greg has used people's honest mistake in the matter to discredit them for sloppiness.

Which is fine, and why I espect he'll have also corrected the Washington Post's major blunder on his web site.

5 comments:

Unknown said...

I can't imagine Greg stating that he started the blog. I can imagine that the Washington post just assuming that.
We discussed this very issue last year at Blogs United. He explained the very points that you are making. He made it quite clear that he was not the the originator of that blog. He explained the whole Bruce Li/Lee problem.

He did make the blog more popular. He is listed as #3 this week in influence.

James Young said...

I'm not sure what the truth is. I agree with Phil: I can't imagine Greg stating that he started the blog. To the contrary, I believe that he has denied it. And if true, I can think of a number of likely suspects, though it's possible we'll never know.

I'd certainly like to get Greg under oath before asking the question, as I assume Chapman's attorney has done.

Citizen Tom said...

Charles, Greg is usually careful to avoid direct lies. Nonetheless, it does not make much difference. For all practical purposes, it would appear Greg created BVBL. Nobody seems to know who this other character might be. Given the lawsuit, I presume there is doubt this fellow even exists. But I admit I know relatively few of the details.

Given all the trouble it has caused him, I wonder why Greg kept the BVBL name. He did not need it. For better or, more likely, worse, what keeps people coming to BVBL is the content, not the name.

Tom Kinsolving said...

Don't know how often you like to expose some of the dirt on public education in general and, in particular, right here in Prince William.
But if so, I have a new blog that you might be interested in posting a link to:

www.pwcschoolhousesham.blogspot.com
Hope you can use it.

-- Tom

Unknown said...

Hi