I don't mean to start excess threads on the site, but I felt that this conversation with Mr. Slager was significant enough to warrant a separate discussion.  It's pretty long, so here's the Executive Summary:

Mr. Slager emailed me last night and "challenged" me to post a response that he wrote to one of my recent analyses.  Well, technically he challenged me to print it, but I can only assume that he meant to post it, as there's really no reason for me to print it out.  We exchanged emails where I accepted his offer, but had a few questions for him first (basic things like did he want to properly format it for this site and did he want to address any other issues that I have raised in the past).  He responded by accusing me of changing the subject (even though I said, and I quote "I  would be happy to post your response for you") and claimed to know my secret identity.  I challenged him to reveal that identity, and he basically told me to go screw.  Based on this, I'm not going to post his entire letter, but if you want to see it, send me a PM and I will send to you.  If Mr. Slager does decide to respond to my questions, I will post the entire letter, as I promised in my first response to him.  What follows is a little snippet of his letter and a factual response, as well as the contents of our email exchange, so you can see the utter lunacy I've been dealing with since last night.  The content is verbatim from what he sent me, but I did make some changes around formatting.

Slager's letter in the Courier:

A few sentences were edited a short time after the item appeared because it was, frankly, poorly worded and clearly caused confusion among some readers. We apologize for that. We corrected the problem quickly.

My Response: Close, but not quite.  The $120k swing was the crux of Slager's argument.  I'm the blogger that Bob referred to (at least I think I am - I know I pointed out the discrepancy).  Yes, he "corrected the problem", but even when the math didn't work, he kept pushing the agenda. 

The letter Slager emailed to me: This is yet another arrogant assumption on ACO’s part. The correction came after the Observer received a call from a reader. I have conceded that a portion of it was poorly worded. But because the argument was initially a little convoluted doesn’t inherently make the premise inscorrect.

It was “poorly worded”?  Let’s take a look at exactly what that wording was – nothing but facts here.  Ms. Bicki stated just after 7:00 AM on 8/10/09 that “(t)hese funds have generated approximately $60,000 in donations to the Wareham Free Library since the Foundation was first formed in 2007.” It is quite clear from this wording that the donation was made to the library.  (source: Important Library Foundation Statement) While Mr. Slager would argue that things can be “interpreted” (as he does later in this letter), the fact is that Ms. Bicki stated that the funds went from the foundation to the library.  Sometime between this post and about 2:30PM on the same day, Mr Slager wrote “On the fake Wareham Observer web site, Bicki wrote that since the corporation was formed it has collected $60,000 in donations” and “Adding the $60,000 in donations the former trustees received over the past two years to the $381,000 they reported in 2007, they should have $441,000 in assets. The difference between that figure and the $200,000 they reported to the judge would represent a loss of $241,000.”  This was the math that he used to justify his claims of a $250,000 loss.  His misrepresentation of Ms. Bicki’s statement accounted for half of that justification.  And yes, I have a digitally signed and dated copy of this file.

Now, let’s look at the removal.  Mr. Slager claims that he received a call from a reader.  This is possible, but impossible to prove either way.  However, if we again review the facts that can be proven, we see that I corrected Mr. Slager’s bad math at 6:43PM the same day (source: Today's Slager Library Hit Piece - Draft 2).  Mr. Slager’s incorrect statements were still on the site when I published my post.  Again, I have a copy of this complete with timestamp and digital signature.  However, within an hour, Mr. Slager had updated the language to say “On the fake Wareham Observer web site, Bicki wrote that since the corporation was formed has made $60,000 in donations.”  (emphasis added) That’s not a clarification of a poorly-worded sentence.  That is a complete 180-degree turnaround from the original statement.  Mr. Slager also completely removed his paragraph of bad math that “proved” a $241,000 loss, without making any notification of the update.  It was as if the wording was never there.  Was it strictly a coincidence that the timing worked out so well?  If it was simply coincidental timing that he made a change to his post shortly after I showed that it was wrong, it’s just one of many coincidences of the same type.  As 007 would say, once is happenstance, twice is a coincidence, the the third time it’s enemy action.  Coincidences like this have happened well over a dozen times.

Now, Mr. Slager would use this as an example of a “red herring” argument – he tries to change the subject from the fact that he made up some math to support a claim for which he has no evidence.  He tries to admit to a case of poor wording, but this is akin to Mark McGwire copping to taking Andro (a legal supplement that was sort of like steroids, but not as bad) to avoid getting busted for doing steroids.  Mr. Slager says “yes it was misworded” and avoids the much larger argument around his bending of the truth to support his anti-trustee agenda.

So in the end it would seem that Mr. Slager is clinging onto his use of “poorly worded” to describe the original report.  If by “poorly worded”, he really meant “reported the opposite of what was actually true in an attempt to substantiate his position”, then yeah, it was poorly worded.  Realistically, though, he materially misrepresented the truth.  Whether it was due to malice or incompetence, only Mr. Slager can know, but a claim of poor wording is disingenuous.

This is just one example of over two dozen claims that he made in his letter, none of which check out.

Now, onto the email conversations.  I won't comment on them much, as they speak for themselves.  All emails are directly copied/pasted, with the only change being the removal of email addresses.  Note that the formatting's kind of ugly, due to the transfer to this site from GMail, but that shouldn't take away from the content of the messages.

Email #1 from Mr Slager.  Note that it might look a little weird because there is no text in the body of the email.  It is simply a subject and a file attachment.  The attachment was the letter that we apparently both knew I wouldn't print.

from    Slager
to    Me
date    Fri, Sep 4, 2009 at 7:31 PM
subject    A gift for you. We both know you will never print this.
mailed-by    aol.com
   


ACO.doc    ACO.doc
51K   View as HTML   Open as a Google document   Download

And my response:

from    Me
to    Slager
date    Fri, Sep 4, 2009 at 11:18 PM
subject    Re: A gift for you. We both know you will never print this.
mailed-by    gmail.com
   
11:18 PM
   
Mr Slager, I must say it was nice to come home this evening to a note from you.  I hope you are looking forward to a wonderful long weekend after a stressful week in the office.  I do have a few questions, though.

   1. When you say "We both know you will never print this", do you mean that we both know I won't post it on warehamobserver.com?  I'm not sure where you are challenging me to "print" it.  I can print it here at home, but I'm a bit of a tree-hugger and don't want to waste the paper.
   2. Assuming that you meant to say "post" and not print, I have to ask how this does not fly in the face of your lawyer's advice to not engage in discussion with people on the site.  We definitely don't want you getting in trouble!  You have been engaging in debate with people on that site for weeks, if not months, so I'm just trying to look out for you.
   3. A while back, IHS posted your claimed statistics for one month as: 17,192 VISITORS, 57,805 PAGE HITS, 443,498 STORY HITS.  Do you stand by these numbers?  As I've mentioned, I don't read your paper, so I don't know if this was accurate.  If these numbers aren't accurate, what are the accurate numbers?
   4. Are you ever going to respond to my last email, specifically my offer to take you up on your challenge to join your site if you remove the fees, the challenge for evidence of your claims about Hammatron, and the question about your accusations around Billw's numbers?  Or should I assume that the answers to those questions aren't good for you, so you're going to ignore them?
   5. Would you like to address anything else that you have ignored in the past?  Suggestions include, but aren't limited to the items below (feel free to just answer this as a yes or a no)

    * You providing permalinks to your stories so that they can be referenced
    * You noting when articles are updated, and what those updates are
    * Your ridiculous math about Bill's website numbers
    * The fact that you said the audit was taking so long b/c K&P was going through the results
    * The fact that you blatantly misrepresented the first ammendment to your readers while trying to stir up energy for a boycott of the OVM
    * The fact that you claim "semantics" on wording issues, but consistently word things in a way that supports your agenda (e.g., saying the trustees "played" the stock market instead of "invested in" makes them look like reckless gamblers, or implying in your headline that it was only the Trustees that settled)
    * The fact that your view of a critical article contains 5 sentences critical of the board, 3 supportive, and focuses the rest of the time bashing the opposition, and the math shows that your articles have been overwhelmingly supportive of the board and negative towards their "opponents"? (https://warehamwater.cruelery.com/viewt … 050#p54050)
    * Why you attack the Wareham Recall people for not revealing their names, but have no issues with Cape Verdeans for Free Speech remaining anonymous
    * Any of my original 9 questions from my email several months ago
    * Other topics of your choosing

If you answer those questions (answer them, not just respond to them), I would be happy to post your response for you (assuming that's what you meant to say), and respond to it (of course).  All I ask is that you resubmit it to me in a format appropriate for posting.  I could just copy/paste it, but all of the formatting will be lost, and I'm sure you wouldn't appreciate it nearly as much.  Warehamobserver.com uses bbcode formatting - please send this back to me as a plain text file with the following rules.  If you choose not to do so, I can copy/paste, but I'm not going to do your grunt work.

    * to put text in a box like I do with your writing, put it

in quote blocks like this

* for italics, use italic boxes
    * for bold, do this

Most of the rest of the formatting is fairly straightforward - full details are available at https://warehamwater.cruelery.com/help.php#bbcode

As an aside, this would all be much easier had you either accepted my challenge, or just posted yourself on warehamobserver.com.  I'll do this one time, just because your response was so easy to refute, but I'm not going to be your forum-posting lackey.  Nice baiting with the "We both know" line, but that's not going to work going forward

Some (many) of you may disagree with my decision to go forward with posting his letter if he answered my questions, but I felt it was a worthwhile effort.  I basically asked him to confirm what his request was, to explain to me how this wasn't going to get him in trouble with his lawyer, to confirm his website stats, and if he was going to respond to my last email that he ignored.  I also gave him an opportunity to add more content to his letter, given that he was going to get an open forum.  This is what I got in response:

from    Slager
to    Me
date    Fri, Sep 4, 2009 at 11:27 PM
subject    Re: A gift for you. We both know you will never print this.
mailed-by    aol.com
   
11:27 PM
   
   Ahhhh, as expected you didn't address a single thing in my note to you. All you can do is try to change the subject. That's the lack of courage I expected from you. Debating you isn't even fun. It's no challenge at all. Time to crawl back under your rock.

   P.S. I know who you are.

   Cheers.

I won't editorialize on the ridculousness of this email here, because I did so in my next note:

from    Me
to    Slager
date    Fri, Sep 4, 2009 at 11:40 PM
subject    Re: A gift for you. We both know you will never print this.
mailed-by    gmail.com
   
11:40 PM
   
Mr. Slager,

It is wonderful to hear from you again so soon.  I must admit, though, that your response is confusing.  Did you read my entire message?  Specifically the part that said "I would be happy to post your response for you (assuming that's what you meant to say), and respond to it (of course)".  Nowhere in your original message did you say anything about expecting a response via email, so one can only assume that your response is another attempt to dodge my questions.  I pulled together a few responses to your claims and accusations this evening, and will finish over the weekend.  Now are you going to answer the questions as originally posed, or simply continue your pattern of dodging and weaving?  Is it safe for me to assume that if you don't answer them, you will make a public claim of victory over me as I didn't have the "courage" to post your comments?  Just want to know what sort of poo I should expect the monkey to throw

PS- Who am I?  Am I Hammatron5000?

He must have been up late Friday night, because it didn't take him long to turn around this:

from    Slager
to    Me
date    Fri, Sep 4, 2009 at 11:58 PM
subject    Re: A gift for you. We both know you will never print this.
mailed-by    aol.com
   
11:58 PM
   
   Let's make this interesting, shall we? We'll put your so-called analytical skills to the test. If you can tell me what your wrote in your previous e-mail that revealed who you are, I will tell you anything you want to know. To be fair, you can have until tomorrow morning to figure it out. I'm going to call it a night. We'll see if you're bright enough to figure it out.
   Cheers.

At this point, it was obvious that he was full of poo (perhaps getting ready to fling it), so this morning I sent back the following, calling his "I know who you are" bluff:

from    Me
to    Slager
date    Sat, Sep 5, 2009 at 7:48 AM
subject    Re: A gift for you. We both know you will never print this.
mailed-by    gmail.com
   
7:48 AM
   
Mr. Slager,

What a wonderful morning it is when I awake to a message from you!  I must say, you have done an excellent job changing the subject here.  To get us back on track, I will offer you two options.

1. You can answer my original questions, after which I will post your letter either in its current formatting, or, if you choose, with proper BBCode formatting. Once the letter is posted, as I stated in my original email, I will respond to all of your points.  For the record, I asked five questions, three of which are yes/no (numbers 3, 4, and 5), one of which can be answered in about three words (number one), and one which requires a bit of explanation (number two).  These questions should take less time to answer than you have already invested in trying to change the subject.

OR

2. You can publish your crack research on who I am.  I'm sure, though, that if you choose this option you will do the responsible thing and call me beforehand to confirm your research.  After all, as you say, newspapers have a responsibility to fact-check before printing things.  Go ahead and look up my number and give me a buzz - I'm awake and awaiting your call. 

If you choose option (1), I will look forward to continuing this conversation with you, and continuing the debate in a responsible fashion.  If you choose (2), the next communication from me will be the inevitable call for a retraction when you're wrong.  I am guessing you will, however, choose some unnamed option (3) where you will claim victory over the hate bloggers because I wouldn't post your "letter".  Should you decide to continue down this path of attempting to change the subject, I will not continue this ridiculous back and forth.  Remember, you're the one who wrote an article called Please Stop Changing the Subject, and the subject here is getting your letter printed.

I look forward to being enlightened by your responsible reply to this message.

Then came the most laughable email of all from him.  As predicted, he choose option (3):

from    Slager
to    Me
date    Sat, Sep 5, 2009 at 9:33 AM
subject    Re: A gift for you. We both know you will never print this.
mailed-by    aol.com
   
9:33 AM
   
Wrong answer. Thanks for playing.

Finally, this response hasn't been sent yet, because I wanted it up on this site before it went to him.  This will be my last-ever communication directly to Mr. Slager, but that won't stop me from debunking his lies here on the site. 

Mr. Slager,

It is apt that you ended your email to me by saying "Thanks for playing", as you obviously intended this to be a game all along.  Obviously, you have no idea who I am, and that was merely another of your many threats, claims, and accusations that have nothing backing them up.  You "challenged" me to print your version of the story, then refused to answer five basic questions about it.  You talk a big game, Mr. Slager, but any time your spin-filled view of Wareham is disturbed by facts out of which you can't spin yourself, you back down and resort to things like this.  My phone never rang today, and I can't say that was surprising.

It's funny, really.  When I first got involved in this process, I emailed you because I wanted both sides of the story.  I had read your claims about the hatebloggers' "attacks", and I had sympathy for you.  My questions were to try to get to the truth.  I should have known by your unwillingness to answer those initial questions that you would continue to weasel your way around the truth, and around anybody who questions your "partisan" (to use your term) agenda.  I have given you several opportunities to answer basic questions about some of the things that you have posted that have stretched the truth or worse, but you have dodged, ignored, or responded with untruths at each opportunity.  It's obvious to anybody who reads your work that, for all of your claims of seeking the truth, your true mission is simply to further your agenda, truth be damned. 

One has to wonder if you lash out the way you do in a feeble attempt to drive traffic to your website because it is getting so heavily eclipsed by Bill's.  I'm guessing your pageviews for August were what, about 35% of what Bill reported?  Is that why you refuse to post your Webalizer output?  And of the hits that you reported, what percentage were from main page and news.php page (really, the only places you have user content, as opposed to login/logout, admin pages, polls, etc)?  Is it more than 10%? I'd be shocked if it was. One also has to assume that the vast majority of traffic to your site comes from a select few, given how few people are listed as being "online" by the site at any given moment.  That number is typically at or below 20 people at once (even during your Sunday Chats), so I'm going to go out on a limb and say that your top 20 users in August probably did about 1/3 of your hits.  For all your talk about having a "silent majority" on your side, I'd bet dollars to donuts that over 50% of hits to your site came from just 60-70 individual users.  You probably showed pretty good growth in pages month-on-month from July to August, but much (perhaps all) of that growth would have come from the chats that you started.  Those will generate hundreds, if not thousands, of pageviews from very few users.  You probably went up what, 30, 35 percent in page views?  I'd bet, though, that your unique visitor growth didn't crack 10%.  Some "silent majority" you have brewing over there.  It must just kill you that the second hit on Google for your name is my Modest Proposal.  Taking all of this into consideration, I suppose I understand why you're so angry all of the time, and why you attack people who disagree with you.  I suppose if I were in a situation like I just described, I would make things up all the time too.

Respond to this email if you wish, or don't.  I honestly don't care.  This is the last email I will send to you - in the future, I will "Bradyize" any communications I choose to make to you by posting them on www.warehamobserver.com.  Additionally, this communication is already posted there so that the town, and hopefully your few loyal readers, can see the games that you play and your cavalier attitude towards the truth.

Thanks for your great editorial recently about our efforts to Take Back Wareham.  Your writing really was quite eloquent, and it captured our position well.

Sincerely,
ACasualObserver

For anybdy who's still reading this, I hope you enjoyed yourself as much as I did.  I have learned a lesson, though - arguing with Mr. Slager is like arguing with a dining room table, and I won't be doing it any longer.  I will, however, continue to debunk the myths that he spins on his website so that other readers, and the Wareham population at large, can see what he's really made of.

Goodnight, and good luck.

Auto-edited on 2020-08-11 to update URLs