Rare Honesty
The Moderate Voice’s Pete Abel published a post critical of Governor Sarah Palin on Tuesday. He called it “A Conservative’s Four Point Case Against Sarah Palin.”
Within no time, however, readers made clear to him that one of the points was wrong. Being the honest and polite person he is – he really is, no sarcasm used – he edited his post immediately after realizing he treated Alaska’s governor unfairly. The fourth point was retracted, the title of the post changed into “A Conservative’s Three Point Case Against Sarah Palin.”
The debate about his post continued unabated, however. Readers also debated the three other points, accusing him of treating Palin unfairly.
Again being the honest man he is, Pete then published a post the following day explaining he can no longer stand by his original ‘anti-Palin’ post. In it he admitted something a lesser person would never admit. “In the end, though I’m still not a Palin fan, I suspect my rush to judgment may have blinded me to certain nuances about her record — nuances that I’d otherwise gladly investigate and consider, if it were another candidate,” he wrote.
“It now appears that my ‘research’ on Palin was really not research at all, but a seek-and-destroy mission, seizing anything that supported my pre-determined views. Shame on me. That’s not what a so-called moderate should do.”
The post is a refreshing change in the normal tone of the debate in the ‘blogosphere.’ The blogosphere is clearly divided among partisan lines, with virtually no blogger willing to say anything even remotely positive about ‘the other side’s candidates.’ Posts are not intended to be honest, truthful and fair and balanced (no pun intended), but to discredit the other side, and to destroy people’s image.
Pete’s approach to the job, though, shows that there is certainly hope for at least some blogs, some part of the blogosphere. Perhaps dishonesty rules in 90% of it, but the other 10% makes it worthwhile to log on to the Net, and start surfing news and opinion websites and blogs (not exactly the same).
I wouldn’t call Pete a conservative, he certainly is moderate though – and more often than not – tries to see most sides to an issue. Indeed something fresh in this age.
Too bad he closed his blog to work at TMV.