Via Sully, a number of conservative blogs are condemning Ed Whelan for outing publius: Volokh, Tom Maguire, Dave Riehl, Rod Dreher. Good for them. At least we agree on something!
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Come for the politics, stay for the snark.
Jesus, Mary, & Joseph how is that election even close?
Let us savor the impending downfall of lawless scoundrels who richly deserve the trouble barreling their way.
if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.
Let’s not be the monsters we hate.
“But what about the lurkers?”
The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.
Balloon Juice has never been a refuge for the linguistically delicate.
When someone says they “love freedom”, rest assured they don’t mean yours.
I’d like to think you all would remain faithful to me if i ever tried to have some of you killed.
I did not have telepathic declassification on my 2022 bingo card.
A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires
I’d try pessimism, but it probably wouldn’t work.
Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.
Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.
The revolution will be supervised.
Black Jesus loves a paper trail.
I’ve spoken to my cat about this, but it doesn’t seem to do any good.
Let’s delete this post and never speak of this again.
Peak wingnut was a lie.
Putin must be throwing ketchup at the walls.
Conservatism: there are some people the law protects but does not bind and others who the law binds but does not protect.
When your entire life is steeped in white supremacy, equality feels like discrimination.
Optimism opens the door to great things.
Presidents are not kings, and Plaintiff is not President.
Jay C.
Heh. At there ARE some things in the blogosphere that cross ideological lines. Too damn few. IMO, but there you go…
And in case it hasn’t been posted here, the best line on the whole affair I’ve seen was a comment on Volokh’s post:
Zifnab25
It’s bad form, and certainly not to be encouraged, but other than stigmatizing it, I don’t know what else you expect to do about it.
The real problem isn’t being “outed” nearly so much as it is dealing with the still-anon crazies that come after you.
DougJ
Me neither. But I was glad in any case to see the blogosphere stick together on this one.
bayville
Yeah, it’s nearly unanimous that Whelan is a douchebag. The key word being “nearly”
But try deciphering this clown’s rationalization?
lovethebomb
Sully is a fetus clutching asshole. It is little wonder that he and other bloggers don’t like blogger outings. They are, after all, bloggers. Blog this, you fetishist war mongering papist loving bell curve douche. That’s the classy version.
gwangung
@bayville: This is an argument that relies on the “worth” of the person being attacked.
I’m not sure it’s a good argument. Whether a person has that kind of worth or not, a) the choice is being taken away from that person (which is never a good thing), and b) “worth” never determines if a person gets harassed or stalked because of their internet postings.
Jay C.
And for another, unrelated rant:
Is there NO *&$^&*% way to fix this @&^%$ comment system to allow more than one line in a blockquote? (see comment #1)??
(and yes, I tried the bracket-p thing: didn’t seem to work – or at least not within four minutes)
Anton Sirius
Conor too, in his own oblique way.
I’d like to think something like this — something so ridiculously petulant and petty — could be the spark that finally gets the insane right shunned and marginalized.
When Whelan exposes himself with puerile crap like this it’s that much easier for people who previously considered him a ‘reliable source’ to just ignore everything he says from now on. And ditto for anyone who defends said puerile crap.
In that vein, why would anyone have anything to do with Whelan’s “Ethics” and Public Policy think tank in the future, when its president behaves in such a blatantly and proudly unethical manner?
mike
Since Sullivan used to make a name for himself outing gays, he fails the basic hypocrisy test. No serious commentator takes Silly Sully for anything but the Tory clown he is.
Napoleon
Does anyone know how Whelan could have known who he was to out him in the first place?
Zach
It’s telling that nearly all of the Whelan posts that precede this dust-up that I’ve seen excerpted here and there were quickly edited by Whelan because he inaccurately argued in haste and overstepped time and time again. You reach a point when you’re no longer being intellectually honest by editing blog posts and instead are just admitting to being intellectually lazy.
JGabriel
Interesting. I’m not so surprised to see Volokh on that list, nor Dreher, though he could have gone either way, but I’m definitely surprised to see Riehl there. I don’t want to criticize the guy while he’s actually done something decent for once, so I’ll just leave it at that.
As for Maguire, well, I’ve always thought he was just as much an asshole as any other winger, despite protestations by emptywheel, et. al., to the contrary – I guess he proved them right. Glad to see it.
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Gus
I didn’t think Dreher’s was such a condemnation. More a bland essay on anonymous blogging.
Persia
@mike: Are you talking about some other guy with Sully in his name? Or mixing him up with Larry Kramer or something?
I don’t always agree with Sullivan and the man’s done many unadmirable things. But can we at least try to lurch reluctantly toward accuracy?
JGabriel
Jonah Goldberg (via bayville):
No, Madison, Hamilton, and Jay chose anonymity because their heroism (like their success) was not universally acknowledged or agreed upon at the time. Among other reasons, they decided it was better to air their views without the political baggage that might have been attached to their names in some quarters.
I guess it goes without saying the Goldberg is fucking jackass, right? I mean, aside from the pure joy of it.
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comrade scott's agenda of rage
And why does this matter? What real (by that I mean effective) consequences does Whelen suffer? All I see is Daffy Duck walking away from the genie in the lamp in “Ali Baba Bunny” going “consequences, shmonsequences…” only without getting turned into midget duck living in a hole in Pismo Beach.
Steve V
Incidents like this always prompt concern-trolling wankathons from righty bloggers about the nature of blogging, their distaste for anonymity and their grudging acceptance of it sometimes. But this is an instance that is particularly unsuited for the usual navel gazing. I mean, publius’s “offense” was so incredibly trivial. I can accept that an outing might be appropriate in certain cases, but it’s just so obvious that this wasn’t anything near an appropriate case justifying an outing. Maguire and Riehl (of all people) give the most appropriate responses. The rest of them seem too afraid to just say “Ed Whelan was an asshole,” presumably out of partisan identification.
Shinobi
I just hope that Publius doesn’t have to deal with many negative consequences of some douchebag’s actions.
I mean, what recourse does he have? He got outed and this could cause his family members to have problems at work, him to have trouble at work, strife within his family, so on and so forth. And Whelan just gets to smirk at himself.
Times like this I wish I believed in god or karma.
Calming Influence
If you’re looking for something fun to do, Google Whelan douchebag.
4,170 hits. In 0.52 seconds.
Jay C.
Why should it “go without saying”? IMHO, Jonah Goldberg IS a fucking jackass – of the first order; and it should be said as often as possible in every venue available.
Anyway (no link, sorry) Mr. Goldberg (a.k.a Doughy Pantload) finished off his pompous screed with the observation that Prof. Blevins deserved to be “outed” for, in effect, profaning the sacred pseud of “publius”: i.e. he is just a lowly blogger, while Madison, Hamilton and Jay were/are intellectual demigods, or something.
IOW, if John Blevins had posted his blogging under the name of “Lugnut” or “Bogstitch”, exposing him would have been less OK – but using “publius” was too-too, so screw him.
Fucking jackass.
Larv
JFTR, it’s Dan Riehl, not Dave.
cleek
oh well then, if the great Jonah Goldberg says his point still stands, then by God, it still stands!
Zuzu's Petals
@bayville:
And of course with the exception of Jonathan Alter, all the NRO types are lining right up behind Whelan. Reading the tortured logic, you realize … they really are beyond embarrassment.
HyperIon
Rick Moran at Rightwing Nuthouse doesn’t waffle on this at all.
I guess it’s not an ideological thing.
gwangung
Publius’ co-blogger, von, has an especially trenchant arguement on ObiWi.
bago
@cleek: Indeed, it was central to his point.
Mr Furious
Worst apology since Harry Whittington…
Asshole. At this point he should’ve stuck to his guns. Makes his offense that much worse.