COLUMBUS, Ohio, June 2 (UPI) -- Tweets with liberal messages purporting to be from William Batchelder, the Republican speaker of the Ohio House, were created by a hacker, his staffers say.
Mike Dittoe, communications chief for the Republican caucus in the House, said he learned there was a problem Monday night, The Columbus (Ohio) Dispatch reported. He got a telephone call from a Batchelder Twitter follower.
Tweets apparently coming from Batchelder's account criticized Republican Gov. John Kasich and had kind words for former Gov. Ted Strickland, who lost to Kasich in 2010.
Dittoe said staffers alerted Twitter and got the fake posts erased.
Batchelder, 68, who has been in the state legislature for 35 years, has described himself as "inept" with modern devices and once famously called laptop computers he had spotted on other legislators' desks as "little televisions." His solution to the hacking problem was simple.
"Well, I won't do any more of this ... Twitterimg. We'll avoid that at all cost," he said. "I didn't know I had such a device."
