April 17, 2006

(from VolunteerVoters) Wow, according to a blog for Tennessee Republican Ed Bryant's U.S. Senatorial bid, a Democratic conspiracy is behind the largest Christian university in Tennessee and Bill Hobbs mutually agreeing to part ways after Bill Hobbs self-published an invitation for the public to join him in denigrating Islam. Who knew?

It's been noted elsewhere that Spragens is soon going to be leaving the Nashville Scene to take a job as Congressman Jim Cooper's press secretary. Kopp managed Cooper's failed U.S. Senate campaign against Fred Thompson in 1994 and continues to maintain close ties to the Nashville Congressman. He's blogged about his close relationship with Cooper many times. All of this leads me to believe that Kopp engineered the Spragens article in an effort to hurt Hobbs and link him to Jim Bryson because he viewed the pro-Bryson effort in the blogosphere as a threat. My only question is whether or not the smear Kopp orchestrated against Bill Hobbs was part of his work as a paid consultant for Gov. Bredesen?
[Blogging for Bryant - He Did It For The Children... - 04-17-05]

For some people, the fact that Bill Hobbs himself published a hand-drawn cartoon denigrating religion in the most widely available medium for global public consumption on the planet, along with a broad invitation for the world to join him, isn't a reality worth factoring into their conspiracy theories.

Mind you, the cartoon would never have been seen had Kopp and Spragens not taken it upon themselves to get it published.
[COMMENT on VolunteerVoters - JB - 04-17-06]

more...

Kopp found an offensive cartoon that had never been publicized or viewed, took it out of context and ensured that it was published in the Nashville Scene for anyone to see and has the audacity to claim he "did it for the children!"
[Blogging for Bryant - He Did It For The Children... - 04-17-05]

UPDATE 2:11pm: Incase you haven't seen Bill Hobbs making the rounds in comments on various blogs, here is a excerpt of a comment on Tennessee Political Pulse.

The bottom line is I stupidly put an offensive cartoon online and left it there where Kopp found it. It was Kopp, not me, who shared it with the world, allegedly on behalf of the smiling Muslim kids in his neighborhood. (*cough*).

And then his political ally at the Scene wrote a slanted and partially inaccurate story and the rest is history.

If I had been a PR advisor telling Belmont what to do in this situation, rather than the employee involved, I would have told them to part ways with the employee - even though I think Mike Kopp is a sleazeball for what he did.
[COMMENTS on Tennessee Political Pulse - "Bill Hobbs" - 04-17-06]