“An anonymous liberal blogger with an uncanny knack for sharp insider information who has used the state Capitol computer system to write political commentary is coming under fire from fellow progressives for making fun of gays to score political points,” as the AP’s Matt Gouras reports.
However, the real juicy information contained in this article has little to do with the fact that this insider-info-fed blogger is angering the gay community. The real story deals with the fact that it appears the figure behind “Montana Cowgirl” is a well-connected insider using the state computer system and an anonymous blog to launch some of the most viscious political attacks this season. The attacks and blog postings by “Montana Cowgirl” have also become part of the daily talking points for leading members of the mainstream media when building their daily news coverage.
Here’s more details from Gouras’ report, which you can find in full by clicking here:
Past posts by the blogger have even released on the Internet potentially incriminating Department of Labor enforcement documents sent to one of Schweitzer’s political critics – even before one of those letters was received by the businessman being investigated. The Labor Department said those documents were never released to a member of the news media or public.
The blogger also has arduously defended the governor, and lampooned even those fellow Democrats whom Schweitzer has been at odds with – such as senior U.S. Sen. Max Baucus.
The Department of Administration, provided with detail on the IP address of some posts, was able to identify that the blogger had been accessing – all day long at times – the state wireless guest system through a hookup in the Office of Public Instruction using an Apple Macintosh laptop.
The Labor Documents aside, it was just under a month ago that “Cowgirl” posted an entry stating that a Montana legislator had been busted in photographs with “a very young girl.” So far, no news has officially cropped up, and the spokeswoman for the US Attorney’s office in Montana says an official comment is not available.
But questions over the identity of the anonymous blogger remain. OPI Spokeswoman Jessica Rhoades says it isn’t her, the Governor’s office says they’re unaware of the bloggers identity. One prominent Democrat even jokingly mentioned one theory suggesting that Governor Brian Schweitzer’s (D-MT) brother Walt is the potential blogger. Walt Schweitzer says that is not the case, and added that even he has faced the ire of the Cowgirl blogger in some of her (or his) posts.
Whether it is the Governor’s brother, or someone who remains mostly a political unknown here in Montana- speculation abounds over the Cowgirl identity. The cartoon on the banner for the blog’s website features a smiley, bustey blonde. Speculation, for months, has centered already on someone high up in the Governor’s office or another state agency. But could the real “Montana Cowgirl” be a reddish-brown haired transplant from Massachussetts? That is certainly the speculation of at least three sources who posed this exact scenario to me, pointing to a Livingston, Montana woman whose facebook profile expresses her “like” of “pissing off Republicans,” and whose WordPress website expresses a “love of the entire Obama clan” and poses the question to the site’s readers: “Who is this Cowgirl?” They added that a fake Facebook profile was created under the name of “Sven Svengali” to attack conservative Montana Supreme Court nominee Nels Swandal, of the Livingston area. The term Svengali apparently originates from the literature of French-born novelist George du Maurier. De La Cruz apparently studied French literature.
If De La Cruz is indeed “Montana Cowgirl” it would paint a fascinating picture of a woman who has conducted a CIA-like covert operation, hiding her identity from the media and politicos alike-leaking some of the campaign season’s top political stories. So I figured, why not call her and find out? So I did. Despite her apparent knowledge of politics on her website, she not only said that she is not “Montana Cowgirl,” but added that she hadn’t heard of the site. When asked, De La Cruz said she didn’t even know if Dennis McDonald was a Democrat or Republican.
So it seems everyone has a theory as to who exactly “Montana Cowgirl” is. Nonetheless, the question remains- how does a blogger have access to such critical, secretive insider information? Just who is the Montana Cowgirl blogger?