The ongoing cloak-and-dagger political shenanigans of one of America’s more esteemed non-union companies continues to undermine its argument on a bill pending before Congress. Here’s the issue in a nutshell:

FedEx Express uses airplanes and trucks to deliver express packages (the post office still enjoys a monopoly on first-class mail). UPS uses airplanes and trucks to deliver express packages. Yet FedEx Express drivers are governed under a more favorable labor law regarding unionization than UPS, and a bill to put both companies under the same law (H.R. 915) has passed the House and is now under consideration in the Senate.

Recognizing they’d lose if the PR battle if it’s fought over equal treatment under the law, FedEx Express recently launched an anti-UPS website – BrownBailout.com – which absurdly claims the law change amounts to a government-funded “bailout” of UPS; a claim which is infuriating conservatives who have been fighting real government bailouts since last fall.

Not only is the website misleading and disingenuous, FedEx has hidden the identities of the website’s developers and administrators though South Korean and Malaysian front corporations and refuses to identify who the actual authors are who write and publish the information on their site. The best we get are names such as media@brownbailout.com.

You gotta admit – no matter how much you like FedEx, or even if you work for the company – something’s fishy here. I mean, what exactly is it they’re trying to hide?

And it’s not just on FedEx’s “Brown Bailout” website that the company’s hired guns hide their identities. They’re doing the same when posting comments on this issue on other websites, including this one, as well. Such as “bob wolfe.”

But before we get to that, there has been one guy blasting away at UPS sorta publicly. His name is Rick Manning, a former Bush administration press secretary for the Department of Labor who has been making the inside-the-beltway rounds at conservative meetings and reaching out to conservative activists such as myself trying to drum up support for FedEx’s opposition to the bill.

Indeed, on June 17, 2009 at 11:57 am, Manning – whom I’ve never met and don’t know - emailed me some BS polling “results” put out that day by “Brown Bailout” from his Hotmail email address. More on that later.

In the meantime, I wrote a column titled “Rush to Defend FedEx is Wrong” and posted it here on “The Loft.” In response, someone writing under the name “bob wolfe” posted the following comment on June 19, 2009 at 1:54 pm:

“Of course, Chuck completely garbles the FedEx Ground worker issue. The people who deliver your Fed Ex Ground packages are independent contractors who purchase their routes and make money based upon the success that they have in expanding them. Unlike UPS route drivers who have a route, and are paid an hourly wage to deliver the packages. Both models work, but to compare them is like comparing apples and oranges.

“Chuck also thinks that Congress should risk disrupting the entire package delivery system in order to make UPS and their Teamster allies happy. The system works just as it is thank you very much, and Chuck Muth notwithstanding, Congress should just leave it alone.”

As Ronald Reagan would say, “Well, there you go again.”

You see, there are two FedEx delivery companies: FedEx Ground and FedEx Express. The bill in question has to do with FedEx Express drivers, as did my column. Mr. “wolfe,” however, intentionally tried to mislead the public by writing about FedEx Ground workers.

Mr. “wolfe” also falsely claims that the equalization bill would “disrupt the entire package delivery system” when it would do no such thing. All the bill would do is put all companies providing the same express delivery service under the same law. That law certainly hasn’t put UPS out of business, and won’t put FedEx Express out of business either.

Finally, Mr. “wolfe” maintains that “the system works just as it is” and “Congress should leave it alone.” Well, yes. The system works fine just as it is. If you’re FedEx Express. The law gives the company a competitive advantage over its rivals. So, duh, of course FedEx Express wants to keep things just as they are.

But aside from making false and misleading claims in this blog post, what really frosted my flakes is that “bob wolfe” turned out to be a fake name, too.

“bob wolfe” is actually Rick Manning.

You see, while Rick entered the fake name “bob wolfe” in posting his comment so that “bob wolfe” was the only name that appeared to the public on the blog, he entered his real email address on the back-end notice which comes directly to me whenever anyone posts a comment on one of my columns. And yep, it’s the exact same Hotmail address that Rick used to email me those bogus polling results just two days earlier.

Ah, what a tangled web.

But it gets better. Turns out Manning works for mega-DC lobbying firm Burson-Marstellar, whose CEO, Mark Penn, is also a chief strategist for Hillary Clinton. And Penn, you may remember, got in a little hot water with Big Labor during the 2008 presidential campaign after being accused of working for anti-union corporations such as FedEx.

So we have an anti-union former Department of Labor spin doctor writing, publishing and distributing false and misleading FedEx disinformation to conservative groups using a fake name while working for a big Democrat strategist who appears perfectly willing to sell out Big Labor in return for Big Bucks. Talk about strange bedfellows.

Five’ll get you ten that Burson-Marstellar – which coincidentally doesn’t disclose its client list - is somehow behind those South Korean and Malaysian front companies which are behind FedEx’s Brown Bailout website, and Rick Manning is not just “bob wolfe,” but media@brownbailout.com, as well.

Again, when you’re willing to go so far out of your way to spread false information – and do so anonymously – what’s that say about the validity of your argument. Ricky, my man, you got some serious ‘splainin’ to do.