Some of you may recall a recent lively thread here on Newsom’s power affair with his campaign manager’s wife. Well, it turns out the sex revelations came on the heels of a scandal, the nature of which may be familiar to Humboldt County residents. Apparently, the SF mayor’s press secretary, Peter Ragone, attacked local reporters on blogs using fake names.

From the SF Bay Guardian:

Ragone had been caught posting to SFist and other blogs under several fake names and then lying to me and other journalists to cover it up. Just as the controversy over Ragone was coming to a head Jan. 31 — when Newsom told reporters he was “disappointed” with Ragone but dismissed the incident as no big deal — the San Francisco Chronicle broke the story that Newsom had an affair with an employee, Ruby Tourk, who was the wife of his campaign manager and longtime close adviser, Alex Tourk.

….

In Newsom’s absence, Ragone’s problems began to unfold, starting with a Jan. 25 post by SFist editor Jon Shurkin, who had discovered multiple commenters posting from Ragone’s computer, all using the same petty style to attack the SFist’s Rita Hao and other Newsom critics. Ragone then did the same thing on KGO-TV’s blog, going after reporter Dan Noyes.

Of course, anonymous posters attack people all the time, as we well know. Would it have been as scandalous if Ragone had simply posted as “anonymous?” Was he trying to give the impression that he was Joe Sixpack? In the editorial, the Bay Guardian refers to Ragone’s conduct as “scorched earth tactics,” but I’m thinking that’s a bit melodramatic just from what is described in the article. Maybe tomorrow I’ll try to dig up the SFist story for the actual content of the posts. Too tired right now.

I like the sex scandal more.