Rathergate anniversary - 28 days and counting - Michelle Malkin gets some instant justice

An interesting event happened today at Michelle Malkin's blog. The post is noteworthy for many things, but buried in the middle is a copy of an e-mail from an employee of a large law firm:

X-Originating-IP: [216.105.154.202]
From: "Mitchell, Patrick" Patrick.Mitchell@ogletreedeakins.com
To: "'malkin@comcast.net'"
Subject:
Date: Thu, 11 Aug 2005 11:41:22 -0400
X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2657.72)

YOU STINK you nasty C***! Eat S*** and DIE b***!!

[I edited the e-mail for content.]
Michelle identified and hyperlinked the law firm and then let the blogosphere do the rest. She never requested any action of any kind. But the readers must have picked up on the hyperlink and bombarded the law firm with complaints. By early afternoon, Michelle received an e-mail from the firm's managing partner, who apologized and explained that the employee had been fired.

As of 9:30 P.M. (eastern time), Michelle Malkin's blog had received 100,000 unique visitors today alone. If only a fraction of those visitors followed the hyperlink to the law firm and e-mailed a complaint, the e-mail traffic would have overwhelmed the firm's staff. I can't help but laugh at the thought of the firm's gradual discovery that something was amiss as thousands of e-mails poured in complaining about one employee and one foul e-mail. I am surprised that the firm's servers, not used to blog-like traffic, didn't crash under the volume.

Only in the post-Rathergate world could such instant justice exist.

Click here for previous editions of the Rathergate countdown.