The mystery of @ButchOtter drew attention on Twitter, in the halls of power

An Idaho Tax Commission employee said Friday that he was the target of a state inquiry into who created the Twitter account @ButchOtter, which for weeks churned out off-beat political commentary without the governor’s consent.

Idaho Attorney General’s Office spokesman Bob Cooper said the office was not investigating any employees for creating the Twitter account, but it did respond to tax commission officials’ request for assistance on a personnel issue.

Wyatt Werner, 30, who has worked in IT desktop support at the tax commission for more than a year, told the Statesman he was put on probation for six months for inappropriate Internet use. He said he was taken into a conference room where a print-out of all of his social networking profiles were laid out on a table, and that he was told he’s now “locked” out of Twitter and online blogs at work.

“I feel like I’m a bit thrown under the bus,” said Werner, who admitted checking social networking accounts on breaks at work.

Werner said he wasn’t the fake online Otter, but he put the AG investigator on the phone with one of his partners in the Boise tech firm Pronetos, Shane Carlson.

Carlson acknowledged creating @ButchOtter — all Twitter accounts begin with “@” — about five weeks ago.

“I said, ‘It’s called satire,’ ” Carlson told the Idaho Statesman Friday.

Werner believes he was targeted by state officials who thought he was behind the faux Butch Otter Twitter account.

Otter’s spokesman Jon Hanian said the governor’s office received a tip Monday about the Butch Otter Twitter account.

“It said someone at the state tax commission was representing the governor on Twitter and doing it on the taxpayers’ dime,” Hanian said.

He said the information was forwarded to the state tax commission and Department of Administration. The state sent a complaint to Twitter that someone was impersonating the governor, said the Department of Administration chief of staff Teresa Luna.

Twitter closed the account Thursday, and the state re-opened it — but this time for real. Company officials at Twitter did not return calls and e-mails Friday.

Every Twitter account includes an iconic picture that is transmitted with each posted message, or Tweet. The original @ButchOtter featured a black silhouette of an AK-47 and the line: “This is my voting machine.” The new @ButchOtter features a photo of the governor and first lady.

“We are doing the input of the messages with info provided by the governor’s office,” Luna said. “We expect in the next few days we will be giving them the tools they need to do it themselves.”

The official version met with some reluctance among the Twitter community, which places a premium on personality.

“I liked the other @butchotter better... Had a better sense of humor,” one Tweet read Friday.

Folks used to the light-hearted feel of the network didn’t think the fake name was a big deal.

“There are parodies of public officials all over Twitter and SNL (Saturday Night Live),” said Chris Blanchard, another of the co-owners of Pronetos.

Carlson lives in the southern Idaho town of Albion, where he is a member of the city council. He said he’s a Republican who feels compelled to engage in political commentary, which included his parody of the governor.

“We live in a state with a one-party system that has a tendency to think too highly of itself,” Carlson said.

He and others say there’s no way anyone would have mistaken the fake Butch Otter on Twitter for the real governor.

The first message posted on the account noted that the “C.L.” of Otter’s name stands for “Coors Light.” (In real life, they stand for Clement Leroy.)

All of the messages posted on the account disappeared when it was closed, leaving fans and the creator himself scrambling to find copies. Carlson recalled one example from after the governor visited Midvale: “Midvale, they better watch out or I’m not going to pave their roads.”

Katy Moeller: 377-6413