Watermelongate Solved
A young conservative says he was friends with Yellowstone County GOP Jennifer Olsen on Facebook, and that he received Olsen's racist Facebook post in his news feed. He even took a screenshot of the incident.
Russ Hart, who is a student, also says that he sent Olsen a message questioning her about the offensive photo (showing an animal trap with a watermelon as bait, and entitled as an "Obama trap"), asking her "are you kidding me?" and that Olsen responded "I just couldn't resist, LOL."
He has presented the evidence to Adrian Jawort of the Billings Outpost. Jawort was the first print reporter to break the story in the Billings Outpost, Montana's leading independent weekly.
Good Job, Adrian. Outpost editor David Crisp also has some good commentary on the whole debacle on the Billings Blog.
This would suggest that Olsen, head of the Yellowstone County Republican Party, is full of crap (as we have all suspected she is) when she makes her vague allegation that the photo might have been posted to her account without her authority.
It was Hart who sent the screenshot of the whole incident to Nicole French who runs the Montanafesto blog, who published it two weeks ago but, like a good ethical journalist, refused to reveal her source even as she was taking incoming fire, from many Republicans including Olsen. Now the source (Hart) is talking publicly. French thus appears to be vindicated. Olsen had accused her of "fabricating" the screenshot.
The Yellowstone County GOP, meanwhile, has claimed that it will not take action against Olsen until it has "completed an investigation" of the matter. But you will excuse me for chortling at the image of an "investigation" mounted by a bunch of Tea Partiers walking around wearing sidearms.
X-posted at the Montana Cowgirl Blog.