I happen to think CJ Pearson is an obnoxious, media-created fraud. But he's only a kid, so I cut him a little slack for just trying to fashion himself as an African-American version of Family Ties' Reagan wannabe Alex P. Keaton. It's certainly garnered him a lot of attention and more than a couple of appearances on Fox News.

Unfortunately, Pearson also discovered the unpleasant truth about political discourse in general when he claimed to get a ration of death threats and generally unpleasant treatment after he started a Twitter war. Whether there were any actual threats is still in dispute.

One kid's "threats" spelled opportunities for others, and there are no hungrier opportunists on the planet than Republican political operatives. Like a shark to the kill, former Karl Rove pal and current Republican operative Ali Akbar* leapt to Pearson's "rescue."

Akbar, whose self-identification with online video marketing goes back to at least 2010, has been managing Pearson's online presence. Last week, the young Mr. Pearson got into a Twitter flame war with 'Mona Brown' @MonaB2010, a spat which turned into an all-too-familiar social media drama. Claiming that Mona had threatened his family with harm and lawsuits -- a claim that even other conservatives dispute -- Pearson then received fawning attention from Fox News, conservative politicians, and right wing websites. Meanwhile, Akbar began fundraising in his name at Rally.org under the auspices of Vice & Victory and the National Bloggers Club, collecting thousands of dollars. As I've reported here at BU before, neither organization exists as a legally-owned Akbar property. Little wonder that the Peach Pundit, who has done the best reporting so far on this tempest-in-a-Twitter-teapot, questions the legitimacy of the whole episode.

This entire situation is so utterly weird, you may be tempted to ask what you’re seeing, and maybe even wonder if you’re being drawn into a scenario that seems to be constructed for a specific purpose.

Of course it was constructed for a specific purpose. Grifters gotta grift, after all. And CJ Pearson needs some serious attitude-adjusting about what it means to forge his parents' signature on a representation contract, too.

In June, Pearson signed on with DBC Management Company, an "event, personality, and asset management company" that is one of a constellation of political ventures belonging to Dustin Beth, a University of Wisconsin student whose initials form the DB in the name of the concern. This week, DBC Management had to write off Pearson as a talent upon discovering the lad had forged his father's signature on the contract. Luckily for us, the Peach Pundit blog obtained a copy of Beth's dismissal letter, which contains this key paragraph:

(Y)our relationship with Ali Akbar was concerning to me from the beginning and as your presumptive business manager- I warned you that doing business with Ali would not be in your best interest. Despite these warnings, you were confident that Ali would only be managing your online presence however this has proven to be yet another fabrication.

Indeed! Poor, persecuted young Mr. Pearson's fake victimization narrative caught up with him this week when Mr. Beth finally contacted his parents to discuss the alleged experience with online bullying -- and learned instead that C.J. has been hoodwinking everyone the whole time time. "(O)n several occasions you flagrantly lied as to why your parents were not able to meet via telephone to discuss the plans for your future as well as discuss the contract," Beth's termination letter reads. "When I spoke to your father...He also stated that he was not aware of any of the Twitter threats that you received (or frankly many of the things you have been doing)."

This might not be a story at all, but for the fact that Akbar seems to have a penchant for reaching out to teenage boys and encouraging them to do things that might also raise their parents' eyebrows. Can it be long before we hear about another scandal involving Republicans and boys?

BU showed you Ali Akbar's deleted gay dating Grindr.com profile a long time ago. Of course, there's a big difference between hypocrisy among consenting Republican adults, and playing Josh Duggar with young black conservative boys, so exactly what does does Mr. Dupree mean  by "untouched," I wonder? I've reached out for a better understanding of this sudden revulsion for Akbar and these hints of impropriety among the black conservative band of the Twitter spectrum. In the meantime, consider these old tweets regarding Akbar's peculiar relationship to a black male who was a minor at the time:

In the meantime, CJ Pearson seems to be sidelined by the same guy who claimed to want to "help" him.

Your Republican Party at work. Preying on children, even when the children claim to be one of them. For shame.

*Yes, that's his real name.