Saturday, December 06, 2003

A Lott Of Time On His Hands?

Tim Lambert suspects that "a reader from Swarthmore, PA USA" posting anonymous reviews at amazon.com is one John R. Lott, Jnr. There are six reviews on Amazon with that identification, including one posted using Lott's full name, one ostensibly written by a pro-gun-controller, one bashing Michelle Malkin (who previously bashed Lott), one by an author who Lott has debated, and one bashing an AEI-er (where Lott is a "scholar"). Very interesting.

I suppose there is one other possibility: someone other than Lott wrote all six and falsely claimed to be Lott in the last one. But there's an abundance of coincidences here.

The AEI-er, Kevin Hassett, co-authored at least one National Review article and one New York Post op-ed (note: .pdf file) with John Lott. Also, Hassett's a graduate of Swarthmore College (where Lott, a resident of Swarthmore, spoke in September), and Lott shows up a lot on Tech Central Station, which is the astroturf-cyberrag fronted by Hassett's "D'oh 36,000" co-author, Jimmy "James" Glassman.

What does it all mean? Beats me.

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