Bruce Anderson Exposed

Liar Unlimited

The lurid history of Bruce Anderson and
the Anderson Valley Advertiser

By Mike Sweeney

Imagine my surprise when I noticed the December 31, 2003 issue of the Anderson Valley Advertiser. Spread across the front page was a giant headline, “I was a Communist for the FBI,” followed with, “By Mike Sweeney as told to Bruce Anderson.”

Since I hadn't spoken to Bruce Anderson for five years, and then only long enough to hang up the phone, it was apparent that he was attempting yet another shameless hoax. The phony first-person article went on and on for thousands of words, presenting an intricate first-person fantasy that had me “confessing” to about a dozen felonies. Nowhere in the paper was there a hint that the article was contrived by Bruce Anderson himself without the slightest input from me or the slightest connection to reality.

Apparently, the impact of this brazen hoax article failed to meet Anderson's hopes. So he produced another one the following week, under banner headline, “I bombed Judi Bari,” again with the attribution, “By Mike Sweeney as told to Bruce Anderson.” And again not a hint that the article and its lurid details were made up out of thin air.

Still unsatisfied, Anderson struck again the following week with “Judi Bari Tells All,” prefaced with an “Editor's Note” claiming Judi Bari, through her executor Darlene Comingore, left him the following letter with a “strict instruction that it not be made public until five years after her death.” Naturally, Judi did no such thing, and neither did Judi ever say, believe or do what was attributed to her in the fabricated article that followed.

The reaction to this tripled-headed hoax was predictable. The legitimate media studiously ignored him, as did long-time residents of Mendocino County who knew Bruce Anderson's habits. Some of his gullible readers, however, actually took the articles at face value, and became quite excited until more sober folks illuminated for them Bruce Anderson's bizarre 20-year history of hoax, lies and insults.

(continued at the website appearing below)