[Foundation-l] Statement to the Associated Press

[Anthony]

On Sun, Mar 9, 2008 at 9:17 PM, Felonious Monk
<feloniousmonk.wikipedia at gmail.com> wrote:
> Mr. Merkey--
>
>  But back in 2006 you were saying something entirely different:
>
>  "I can share with the community that Mr. Wales deletion and rewrite of the
>  article was in no way was based on any legal solution or legal resolution --
>  he did it solely of his own initiative and as a courtesy after performing a
>  through review of the entire history of the article."
>
>  http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Election_candidates_2006/En/MerkeyArchive
>   I'm wondering what the AP will think of your past statement, which totally
>  contradicts your statement to them shared here. There is no middle ground
>  between the two. Either you being untruthful then or you are being
>  untruthful now. Which is it?
>
>
>  Paul Mitchell, FeloniousMonk

Merkey's recent statement actually contradicts itself to some extent,
in that he first says that the "influence" was granted "in exchange
for a substantial donation", and then it later says that it was done
"as a courtesty" [typo is not mine].  The "in exchange for a
substantial donation" part suggests a quid-pro-quo, but the rest of
the statement as well as that original statement only suggests that a
donation was made and then Jimmy did exactly what he would have done
anyway (Merkey even states in the most recent statement, that the
influence was simply used to make sure the article would "adhere to
Wikipedia's stated policies with regard to internet libel").  There's
quite a bit of middle ground, actually, and the fact that the phrase
"as a courtesy" is used in both statements leads me to believe that's
a direct quote from the email exchange that took place.

Of course, Jimmy has decided to call Merkey's recent statement
"nonsense", rather than clarifying what about it was incorrect.
Should we take this to mean that Jimmy claims that *none* of the
statement was correct?