TransCanada Lawyers Ply Trade on Blog Comments?

So the following somewhat snarky (and, of course, anonymous) comment appears right away on this morning's TransCanada post:

I was wondering when this site would get to the McGovern numbers. But I certainly wasn't surprised this site made light of the margin of error. With that in mind, what Corey doesn't tell you is that a full 60% of South Dakotans would still be in favor of pipeline if the results were skewed lower.

Wouldn't it also stand to reason that the support West River might rise with the expansion of this project? The support East River is slightly higher than West River already and that side of the state has a publicly announced project closer to completion. There certainly remains the possibility that west river support will rise when they hear more about the economic development to state and country.

Finally, why didn't they use this route right away on the first Keystone line? How about because they converted existing natural gas lines in Canada to lessen the cost of the original project and save resources. Responsible journalism, which is a concept that blogs are adament they don't have to comply with, would have uncovered that nugget.

I complimented the commenter for helping uncover that nugget as part of what I might start calling "collaborative community journalism." But then I got curious. My site stats indicate that the comment time and date coincided with a visit and a click on the comment button by someone on the mail.zdclaw.com server who this morning made his 82nd return visit to the Madville Times. (Click graphic for full image.)

ZDC Law? I get more curious. ZDC Law is Zimmer, Duncan, and Cole, LLC, based in Parker, SD. ZDC Law partner Dennis Duncan has been "Representing the interests of national clients such as... TransCanada Corporation" by testifying against SB 138 and SB190, South Dakota legislation that would have protected South Dakota interests against mistakes by TransCanada.

Now this is just what my site stats and Google searching tell me. For all I know, someone might have hacked into the mail.zdclaw.com server to hide theie identity. It might have just been some ZDC Law intern or kid on a job shadowing trip goofing around with the company computers.

But what do I know? I'm not a responsible journalist. I'm not even getting paid to write this stuff....

But if my suspicion is correct, I would love to see the itemized bill to TransCanada: "Blog Lobbying -- 5/6/2008 -- 55 minutes -- $200"? Make 82 visits, and that could be a lot of moolah. Maybe the commenter knows whereof he/she speaks in mentioning the economic development TransCanada may already be bringing to at least a few fine folks in our state.

Wow -- maybe I need to get on the Big Oil bandwagon so TransCanada will pay me to spread its propaganda.

I generally won't bust anonymity here: if you want to comment anonymously, that's your business. But readers do have a right to know if someone's comments are paid propaganda. And folks selling a message for a business interest should buy an ad.