Techonology blogger John C. Dvorak isn't shy. He now fancies himself an investigative journalist with an exclusive expose on alleged lapses in the biography of federal CIO Vivek Kundra. The headline declares Dvorak's conclusion, Kundra is a "Phoney." Dvorak's chief allegation is over Kundra's academic credentials, which drew follow on response and defense elsewhere in the blogosphere.
Tim O'Reilly, the publisher who has taken a shine to electronic government of late, tweeted, "Anyone who has spent more that a few minutes w Kundra knows he is qualified and doing a great job. Can't say same for Dvorak."
Kundra's employer, the Office of Management and Budget, also came to his defense. OMB spokesman Ken Baer told BeliefNet, "This is a total fabrication and gross distortion of Vivek Kundra's record."
When you are explaining, you're losing. Kundra is spending this week explaining. That is too bad because while the original post may be what now passes for investigative journalism, it falls short of old school journalistic norms in some significant ways -- sourcing and confirmations are suspect and non-existent respectively.
The original post is flawed although it raised Dvorak.org to 39,226th spot on alexa's traffic rankings, which may have been the point of the exercise to begin with.
The comments on the post are perhaps the most disturbing part of the story. The commenters display overt hostility toward government in general and the administration in particular -- perhaps no surprises there. We also see more than a little professional envy from people who think they are better qualified for Kundra's job than he is and a fundamental misunderstanding of the role of CIO -- not surprising either but an insight into what is wrong with what is euphemistically called the IT community.
Some, not all, but some commenters took Dvorak's post as an opening to opine on Kundra's character based solely on race and an attendant guilt by association.
Wrote one,
"The Indian Mafia called India, Inc. strikes again! First they cleaned out Silicon Valley, then Wall St., then Detroit. Now they are going after the last lucrative sector: government contracting. You can bet this fraud will be granting all kind of billion $ contracts to India, Inc. companies. Maybe he is an India Inc. plant ... We had better wake up quick America."
Wrote another,
"I also don't have support from the India mafia, which seems to thrive on promoting each other rather than do any real work--see the problems with an Indian contractor for the DC government. Although Kundra may have had no ties to that contractor, he was part of this self-promoting DC-area Indian circle."
And another xenophobic zinger broadens the brush stroke,
"... people lie, especially on resumes, especially foreigners."
Absolutely inexcusable. With critics like these, Kundra should stop explaining.
