The Astroturfing of Brian Flemming's Weblog?

I have to admit, I'm flattered. "Nate," likely from the Center for Consumer Freedom, an industry front group created by a PR agency, has now been joined by "Jack," a fellow with similar point of view , in the comments on this post about KFC's cruelty to chickens.

"Nate" and "Jack" think I'm being paranoid, but it's not paranoia if they really are out to Astroturf your blog.

That said, I admit I can't be 100% sure that Nate and/or Jack are not just actual concerned citizens whose concerns happen to fit a certain PR firm's positions and tactics to a T. Coincidences happen.

That said, here's some evidence for their operativeness:

1) Neither has condemned the torture of chickens or suggested industry practice should change.

2) However, Nate is extremely exercised about PETA's "terrorist" activities and "criminal" associations (evidence for which is not at this point on offer).

Put those two points together, and you get a weird desire to shift the subject from KFC to PETA. And not to shift to PETA's tactics in this particular case, but rather to shift to the subject of PETA's alleged "criminal" associations with blah blah blah...

This behavior is consistent with the stated goal of the PR firm--Berman & Co.--hired to smear groups like PETA on behalf of the meat industry:

In a 1999 interview with the Chain Leader, a trade publication for restaurant chains, [Rick] Berman boasted that he attacks activists more aggressively than other lobbyists. "We always have a knife in our teeth," he said. Since activists "drive consumer behavior on meat, alcohol, fat, sugar, tobacco and caffeine," his strategy is "to shoot the messenger. ... We've got to attack their credibility as spokespersons."

Still, if Nate and Jack just happen to be really big meat-industry fans, or just really big PETA-haters, it would be unfair to characterize them as operatives of the Berman & Co. PR firm.

I don't know much about sleuthing IP addresses to find out where people are, but the HaloScan commenting system does give me the IP address of people who post. Does anyone know how to use this information?

UPDATE: Removed Nate's IP address per his request. Turns out that, while he's in DC, he's not likely with the Berman & Co. PR firm, despite his citation of their "research" and the coincidentally similar tone of his rhetoric.