A fledgling Knoxville news portal in the crosshairs of bloggers, conspiracy theories, and a charge that the U.S. president is wired has the hairs running.

The story starts off like this, courtesy of a blog on a Web site called IsBushWired.com:

Somebody claiming to be 'Brad Menfil' of Knoxville, TN, recently posted on Portland's Indymedia site that he was told by a Bush campaign worker named Scott Zale that Bush is known among many campaign workers to be wired. Here's the text of the post, followed by a rebuttal that raises more questions than it answers:

'I have contacts within the Republican Party. I was told by Scott Zale, a Republican operative in eastern Tennessee that he knows it to be a fact that Bush was wired. He said that within the Bush campaign, there are certain mid-level staffers that have leaked this tidbit because it was just 'too fantastic to ignore.'

Zale told me that the transmission device is popular with other high profile officials in the Bush administration. It helps everybody stay 'on message.' Zale said that Bush was only fed ready responses to just certain types of questions. He didn't know which questions those were but admitted that Bush just sounded (to him)to be more articulate at certain 'opportune' times.

Zale confided that he was told that the president wore a loose fitting jacket during both debates. The device protuded because Bush has a tendency to hunch over and shrug his shoulders a lot.

This is a true story as it was told to me. If you want to know more, please contact Scott Zale at the Bush-Cheney campaign headquarters in Knoxville, Tn. Thanks.'

IsBushWired called Bush-Cheney in Knoxville and confirmed that a Scott Zale was known there, though the woman who answered the phone said, 'he's hardly ever here. He has a day job.'

Meanwhile,somebody posting as 'Scott Zale' replied on the portlandindymedia site, under the headline 'Scott Zale speaks for himself':

Please shut down this blog. I was informed this morning by the national editor of the Knoxville Times that my name was invoked by a man named 'Brad Menfil' in regards to this out-of-control story.

It is true that I work for Bush-Cheney here in Tennessee. My office is in Gatlinburg, not Knoxville. Although I do happen to work at least two days a week in Knoxville. I am a staff accountant and one of my duties is to process local contributions. As part of that duty, I have to wire funds to the national committee in Washington D.C. So I do have national Republican contacts and have heard many things.

'Brad' is not his real name but I suspect he is or may be my counterpart in the Washington collections office. He has probably been to Tennessee about 15 times in the last 7 weeks, though he does not live here. I won't give his real name (even though he felt it was necessary to give mine).

The Knoxville Times called me at 6am this morning asking me to confirm or deny the 'Bush is Wired' story they read here at Portland IMC. My immediate response was, 'What is the Portland IMC?' and I then I issued a 'no comment'. Other than that, I did say that 'Brad Menfil' is not a real person.

Please stop speculating about this. Our president is a great man and can only get hurt by this. I suspect this isn't going to go away and I regret anything that I said to 'Brad' that may contribute to downfall of a great man and president.

Please drop this for the good of our country. We have bigger problems and should not be distracted by matters that don't ultimately determine the measure of an honest man. I want to say that the right answers are what matter most, not whether or not those answers were 'fed' my someone else. President Bush is a good messenger regardless.

Thanks, Scott Zale, Senior Staff Accountant, Bush-Cheney Tennessee.

The person writing as 'Brad Menfil' then posted back to Portland Indymedia:

'Scott Zale is right, 'Brad Menfil' is not my real name and I didn't hear this story from him, he heard it from me. Sorry Scott.
I do work for Bush-Cheney and I can onLy say that the substance of my first posting is correct, even though I used a fake name. I hope everybody understands why I would do this. I got a call from Scott this morning (actually, about 10 minutes ago). He said that he had been contacted by ABC and Fox after his own posting. I don't share his belief that ignoring this would be good for the country. I'm sorry I involved Scott and didn't have enough courage to use my real name. I hope the truth gets out and Scott is absolved.
Thanks for reading this, 'Brad Menfil.'

IsBushWired looked at the Knoxville Times online. It didn't look at all like a real newspaper, as Glenn Ward, editor of The South Knoxville and Seymour Times Sentinel confirmed. 'I've never heard of it,' he said. Looking at the website, he agreed that it seemed to be a lot of clippings taken off news wires. So, who called Mr. Zale at 6 in the morning? Or did anybody call Scott Zale at all? Scott Zale seems to exist, but who can be sure? Maybe somebody else used his name to write to Portland Indymedia.

Update: Webmasters, thanks for your work in digging up the provenance of the Knoxville Times site; many of you reported that it was created 8/19/2003 in Australia by a John Mcevoy, who owns a company Mainstream Capital EC, headquartered in Manama, Bahrain, with offices in Sydney, Australia. A PRWeb July press release announced it was launching a new search engine called 100.com.

Curiously, when I first looked at the Knoxville Times site Monday afternoon, there was no masthead, no information about ownership, not even an email address or the word 'Tennessee' in the title. Following my posting about the 'fake' newspaper Monday afternoon, the site added a box explaining, 'The Knoxville Times is essentially a local Knoxville newspaper, but with a national and international perspective....The biggest advantage we have is that we are an online newspaper, which means we are constantly refreshing our stories as more and more information comes to hand.'

The 'newspaper' box goes on: 'We like to think if you're looking for breaking news out of Knoxville, Tennessee, the United States, or the world, you'll look for it first at the Knoxville Times.'

Hmmm. I don't think so. It's a genuinely weird front for something or other. Who is John McEvoy, anyway, and who's the editor?

The Zale letter also reads in part like an official Bush-Cheney production, whereas 'Brad Menfil's' second letter sounds faintly genuine -- if there's a real person in any of this. But I wouldn't bet on it. It could all be fiction cooked up by Karl Rove and Co. We won't waste any more time on it unless a credible source gets in touch with us with a great deal of information that checks out.

END OF BLOG

John Mcevoy of Mainstream Capital EC said Thursday, 'A Scott Zale says he was phoned at 6am one morning by the national editor of the Knoxville Times. This is the start and the finish of any involvement in this by the Knoxville Times. Our site is one of many we have for major cities and countries of the world. For the Knoxville Times we feature local news and weather, supplemented by Tennessee state, national, world, business and technology news. Aside from a small component, all of our news comes from news feeds. We also have movie reviews, hotel reviews, a news poll and classic comments. We also offer, as with our other sites, complimentary daily emails of local headlines, RSS feeds, and a facility to add headlines to external Web sites. What we are doing is quite simple, but not unique,' Mcevoy said.

'We do not have offices in these cities and we do not have national editors ringing up people to confirm stories,' Mcevoy added. 'To be clear nobody from the Knoxville Times rang Scott Zale or anybody else in connection with any story about President Bush being wired.'

'We have been unfairly caught up in a controversy by somebody who may or may not exist in a blog posting that has not been verified by anybody,' Mcevoy said.

'Despite the person involved with IsBushWired (there are no ownership details on the site Mcevoy says) saying he contacted Bush-Cheney in Knoxville and the editor of a local Knoxville newspaper to confirm aspects of the story, there was no such effort to contact us, despite the Contact Us form on our Web site, and my email address being freely circulated through blogs.'

Mcevoy added, 'the Knoxville Times site, as with all our news sites, has had a masthead since it was activated. It has also always carried an About Us statement which outlines its online newspaper status. It has also always carried a Contact Us form.'

On the controversy itself Mcevoy said he did not want to get drawn into it. 'It may be more productive though for bloggers to seek verification of various aspects of the story rather than hype up conspiracy theories. For example I don't see umpires or referees who are wired,' he said, 'running around major sporting fields with large devices on the humps of their backs. These days,' he added, 'such devices are fairly sophisticated, small and usually worn around the waist.' (Mcevoy aside from his involvement with Mainstream Capital is an A Grade district rugby league referee in Sydney and is 'wired' during games).