Elections

Parody Twitter account pokes fun at Kirby Delauter, the county councilman who threatened a reporter for using his name

delauter3Who’s Kirby Delauter, you ask?  Delauter happens to be a member of the Frederick County, Maryland, Council.  Recently, Delauter threw a hissy fit and threatened a Frederick News Post reporter who dared to mention him in a news article.  In short, Delauter thinks he’s immune from being mentioned in the media.  You can catch up on that — and the smackdown that took place here.

Delauter, who, by the way, happens to be a Republican, ended up becoming a laughing stock on the Internet, and the focus of a parody account on Twitter.

Will this presidential election be the most important in American history?

Bethany Rodgers, by the way, is the reporter the real Delauter threatened.

The account continued — and remember, this is a parody.

Naturally, the real Delauter was the object of world-wide scorn.

https://twitter.com/BecketAdams/status/552627885266071552

NPR also jumped in on the act:

It even caught the attention of the BBC.

Here’s an image of what started the ball rolling:

Delauter2

An editorial at the Frederick News-Post said:

Knowing Councilman Kirby Delauter as we do, we weren’t surprised that he threatened The Frederick News-Post with a lawsuit because we had, he says — and we’re not making this up — been putting Kirby Delauter’s name in the paper without Kirby Delauter’s authorization. Attorneys would be called, Kirby Delauter said.

In fact, we spent quite some time laughing about it. Kirby Delauter, an elected official; Kirby Delauter, a public figure? Surely, Kirby Delauter can’t be serious? Kirby Delauter’s making a joke, right?

There’s something interesting about the editorial, however.  As the BBC observed, “the editors printed the politician’s name – and variations on it – dozens of times. And the first letter of every paragraph spelled out ‘KIRBY DELAUTER.'”

Now that is sheer genius.

So you’re probably wondering, why is a conservative blog bashing a Republican official?  The answer is easy.  This Republican is out of his mind if he thinks he can keep his name out of the media.

As Twitchy said, he fell victim to something called the “Streisand Effect” when blogger Popehat began making fun of him. The “Streisand Effect,” Twitchy explained, “refers to the unintended consequence of further publicizing information by trying to have it censored,” citing KnowYourMeme.com. “Instead of successfully removing the information from the public, it becomes even more widely available than before as a backlash against the censorship attempt.”

And so, he deserves every bit of scorn being heaped on him.

We did a little digging and found a few videos of Delauter in action:

And the mockery continues:

All together now:

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Joe Newby

A 10-year veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps, Joe ran for a city council position in Riverside, Calif., in 1991 and managed successful campaigns for the Idaho state legislature. Co-author of "Banned: How Facebook enables militant Islamic jihad," Joe wrote for Examiner.com from 2010 until it closed in 2016 and his work has been published at Newsbusters, Spokane Faith and Values and other sites. He now runs the Conservative Firing Line.

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