A Huppenthal/Stormfront Connection? Probably Not, Says Phoenix New Times’ Stephen Lemons

In an earlier post, I asked whether Huppenthal visited or made commments on the white supremacist website Stormfront.org. Stephen Lemons of the Phoenix New Times looked into it and decided the answer is, probably not. Lemons is a good journalist who was one of the first to write about Huppenthal’s anonymous posts and certainly doesn’t pull any punches. More likely than not, he’s right on this one.

At the beginning of my earlier post, I made it clear that any connection between Huppenthal and Stormfront was based on speculation and inference, but I wasn’t willing to discount the possibility. After all, before Blog for Arizona went public with the story of his anonymous comments, few people would have believed Huppenthal was capable of writing the outrageous, hateful screeds he’s admitted to. The question remains, is there more of the same, or worse, still out there waiting to be uncovered? Only Huppenthal knows the answer.

Lemons got Huppenthal on the record about this through his Arizona Department of Education spokesperson Jennifer Liewer,

“The Superintendent has told me this is absolutely NOT him,” she replied. “He said that he would never visit a site like that. He said that his postings were limited to policy debates.”

Honestly, I would be surprised if Huppenthal never visited Stormfront since his name was mentioned eight times on the website, and his commenting activity indicates he kept a close watch on posts where he was mentioned. Since I learned of the allegation, I’ve visited Stormfront a number of times, and that certainly doesn’t make me a sympathizer with its views. If Huppenthal kept his eyes averted from the site even though he was mentioned, that would be an exception to his usual rule. However, for me, this matter is put to rest unless more information comes out at a later date.

This article appears in Jul 3-9, 2014.