On Blogging Anonymously – NRO Outs Liberal Blogger
Earlier this weekend, National Review’s Ed Whelan caused somewhat of a controversy by outing liberal blogger Publius, who writes for Obsidian Wings. It seems that publius is in fact the pseudonym of law professor John F. Blevins of the South Texas College of Law.
Whelan emailed Blevins asking him whether he was indeed publius. Blevins basically admitted it, explaining he preferred to blog using a pseudonym because of professional reasons.
Why was Whelan so interested in Publius’ real identity, you ask? Well, because the latter had the guts to criticize him.
Conservative blogger Tom Maguire is not amused:
Ed Whelan of the National Review outed the once pseudonymous “Publius” of Obsidian Wings due to what looks like nothing more than pique. Not cool at all.
Conservatives like AJ Strata and Dan Riehl agree that Wheal behaved childish and that they regret him outing Blevins.
I agree wholeheartedly. Although I prefer people not using pseudonyms, it is simply wise for quite some to do so nonetheless. Especially if you are working for a university or a college, or a law firm, etc., it may be best to take on an alias. Nobody should see his career be destroyed, simply because he shares his political views with the world.
However, I cannot help but point out that conservative bloggers once again prove themselves to be more civilized than their liberal counterparts. Make no mistake about it: if Blevins was conservative, and Whelan a liberal, liberal blogs would have run with this story and they would’ve done everything in their power to get Blevins fired. That’s how they operate. Unlike conservatives, they truly believe that the end justifies the means.
So: Whelan should not have done this. It speaks rather ill of him that he decided to go after Blevins personally, just because the latter believed Whelan’s writings to be extremely low quality. On the other hand, I can’t help but feel that the tears from liberal bloggers are nothing but crocodile tears.
“I cannot help but point out that conservative bloggers once again prove themselves to be more civilized than their liberal counterparts.”
Just amazing. A conservative outs a liberal, and you manage to conclude that, once again, the evidence shows that conservates are more civilized than liberals.
And you further lie about “getting people fired” – as if conservatives have not engaged in many, very loud campaigns to get people fired.
Totally immune from the evidence of the real world. Truly amazing.
Whelan is a paid hack. Many at NRO are also paid hacks. This could jeopardize Publius’ bid for tenure a the law school.
For all the talk here about BOTH sides doing something, here’s an idea, how about just acknowledging that one from your side did something stupid instead of sniping back and trying to deflect?
“However, I cannot help but pore point out that conservative bloggers once again prove themselves to be more civilized than their liberal counterparts. Make no mistake about it: if Blevins was conservative, and Whelan a liberal, liberal blogs would have run with this story and they would’ve done everything in their power to get Blevins fired. That’s how they operate. Unlike conservatives, they truly believe that the end justifies the means. ”
This makes no sense. Can you even supply an example of a conservative blogger being outed by a liberal? I can supply you several examples of liberal bloggers being outed by Conservatives, and they certainly are trying to intimidate these outed writers and cost them their jobs and as much pain as they possibly can in real life. That’s the entire point of outing them.
The idea that a bunch of wingnuts aren’t currently trying to cost Publius his job over this is a joke. The emails to South Texas College are flying.
Taking yet another example of a Conservative blogger outing a liberal blogger as an example of how Conservatives are somehow “more civilized than their liberal counterparts.” is rather amusing.
“Conservative blogger Toby Maguire”
Spider-Man is mad, too.
Heh. Fixed that error Gary. Thanks.
“Make no mistake about it: if Blevins was conservative, and Whelan a liberal, liberal blogs would have run with this story and they would’ve done everything in their power to get Blevins fired. That’s how they operate.”
Examples please.
If you’re worried about your provocative comments biting you in the ass professionally, then it’s probably wise not to post provocative comments on the web.
A mountain is being made out of a molehill here. His real identity was published. So what? Man up and have the courage of your convictions, or quit posting criticisms of others. Its pretty lame to criticize Whelan and then defend publius for criticizing others behind a pseudonym. If you’re not willing to defend what you say, then don’t say it. If publius is afraid of what the tenure committee thinks of his posts, then he probably shouldn’t have published them. What publius wanted was the freedom of action without consequences. Sorry, life doesn’t work that way. There is no right to hide behind an Internet pseudonym while you criticize others.
And what about people who find every single disagreement to be “provocative”, Douglas? And what about people who work in fields dominated by a “required thought” ideology, where having the wrong political opinions can result in denial of tenure or even denial of jobs? And don’t you find it just a little hypocritical that your comment critical of anonymity is itself shielded by anonymity?
I think that outing people as a form of ideological warfare is about the most unethical thing that happens in the blogosphere, because it escalates meaningless conflicts to be ones that actually harm people. I will add, however, that I found some of those outraged at this incident to be a bit hypocritical insofar as I know from very direct, first-hand experience that they come from sites that feature writers and commenters that have themselves used outing as well as direct threats against other people’s professional lives as tactics in ideological warfare and the editors on those sites have never said or done anything to criticize or counter those tactics until now.
P.S. to Rudi: Since Publius is an ideological liberal writing for a strongly liberal site, it is unlikely that he will face any negative consequences in finding tenure in academia. That doesn’t change that outing him is morally and ethically wrong, but it does undermine the justification for selective outrage in this case while ignoring other cases, as seems to be the current pattern of reaction in the liberal blogosphere.
P.P.S. also to Rudi: Since you yourself have a record of supporting one of the persons who had used outing and real-life threats in the past and since I know for a fact that you were aware and supportive of at least one of those incidents, your stance here is more than just a little hypocritical even though I agree with it in substance. Perhaps now that a liberal has been put into the cross-hairs, you have a little more affinity for the victim than you had when a leftist was the aggressor.
He does work for South Texas College of Law. I would be surprised if an e-mail campaign to have him removed has not yet begun and I would be further surprised if there was not an active campaign to deny him tenure.
Who did Rudi support outing?
Unless South Texas is uniquely an outlier (and there would need to be specific evidence to demonstrate that), I assume that it follows the general pattern of academia to be overwhelmingly liberal in ideological orientation. That pattern holds even for schools in extremely conservative areas. For example, the University of Texas at Austin is one of the most liberal voting districts in the entire country and one of the most leftist campuses in all of academia. The fact that it is located in otherwise conservative Texas doesn’t make it conservative at all.
It is also possible that hiring and tenure at law schools is less prone to ideological bigotry than hiring tenure in the fields I am more familiar with. But given the strength of the evidence that ideological bigotry uniquely against conservatives is a problem broadly in academia, I would need to see some pretty persuasive evidence — far more than just the conveniently selective skepticism that liberals seem to always display when this particular issue comes up in whatever form.
On one occasion, Rudi was supportive towards someone who outed two of the writers on this site by taking their private emails and publishing out-of-context quotations from them on his blog while slandering the individuals by name in very sweeping and abusive terms.
Not long after that incident, Rudi went out of his way to try to create another conflict involving the same individuals by posting what amounted to “let’s you and him fight” comments.
There was also another recent incident where one of Rudi’s ideological allies in the comment threads directly threatened to send slanderous emails to a writer’s professional superiors to punish them for having what that person considered objectionable political views. Rudi was not involved in that, but there is also no evidence from Rudi’s pattern that he would object or criticize a fellow leftist if he had known.
I guess because I have so recently been a victim of a threat of professional “outing”, I take this issue very personally. And because of his record for hostility and bias, I do not consider Rudi to be a friend or ally in such a situation. I find Rudi’s sudden discovery of protectiveness towards this particular victim a bit convenient, that’s all. Rudi has not directly participated in any outing I am aware of, but I can’t see his current objections as being principled. I think that the only reason Rudi cares right now is because a liberal is being targeted. If a conservative was being targeted, I think it likely that Rudi would either be supportive of the outing or at the very least would remain conveniently silent rather than criticize a liberal for behavior that he finds outrageous from a conservative.
Jason,
South Texas College of Law is in Houston. That is very different political ground than Austin. As I said I will be surprised if the college is not already receiving emails and letters calling for his removal. Let’s wait and see if an email campaign materializes to have him removed.
I have not seen it in the several schools where I have attended, researched, or taught. That could be because I have little contact with faculty outside of the science and math departments and politics was rarely ever discussed and certainly not in class. My wife was in theater and I had friends in business. From what I have seen through them, the theater departments was mostly of the left and the business departments were mostly of the right.
I thought all of the writers on this site used their real names. This is a bad act, less so if the emails in question were directed to him, but it still should not have been done (particularly if context was not included).
That is objectionable in a very similar way. Was the treat followed through with and, if you don’t mind, what were the consequences? I do hope that if the threat was followed through with your superiors gave it the appropriate (lack of) attention.
This incident and your principled response makes me wonder about your thoughts on Professor Watch List and similar groups and their actions.
LOL Guilt by vague association!!
Second point – I was unaware of yours and the chiefs blog war back in September of 2007. You also continue the nastiness even though SM isn’t there at the FauxModerateVoice anymore.
Third point – I would object to ANY threats to you or MvdG because you are both starting, or soon beginning an attempt at an academic career.The threats from Whelan, whose is established and really beyond any threats to tenure or his status at NRO is ZERO.
MvdG and others claim examples of conservatives bloggers outed – please show the evidence.
The issue behind the outingwas a bad joke at a legal conference. Whelan doesn’t have a problem with his bosses “judical activism”. If Publius was established and beyond tenure threats, then I would see this as two old men behaving badly in a mudpit. But, Whelan is the BULLY here, regardless of any ideologies. FIRE and Bonnell is an example were tenure provides a saftey net and 30 years or so of experience provides an academic and financial safety net. If Mullens outed you to threaten your chance at tenure I wouldn’t go public, I would send some private emails and urge others to do the same.
LOL FIRE doesn’t have anything in their database about South Texas.
http://www.thefire.org/index.php/states/TX
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22south+texas+college%22+site%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.thefire.org%2F&btnG=Search&aq=f&oq=&aqi=
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22south+texas%22+site%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.thefire.org%2F&btnG=Search&aq=f&oq=&aqi=
I would guess that supervisor would laugh off the pissy emails. Now if anyone could prove blatant lies or plagiarism, it would be a different story. You and Friedman can say the world is flat – just prove it with logic and facts…
Great to hear that you would object to your ideological allies doing the same thing Whelan did, Rudi. I choose not to make public the threats that were made against me in private, but it is nice to see that you would at least consider publicly condemning them if they were public. It would be more persuasive if there was ever a single incident that I could recall of you defending a conservative from an unfair attack by a liberal, but your claim to be willing to do it at some undefined point in the future is better than nothing.
BTW, I hold no “nastiness” towards TMV, even though the continue to publish Mullen’s slanderous and dishonest screeds regularly and have supplemented that with other abusive extreme-left contributors like Kathy Kattenburg. I do include them in my criticism of the “faux moderate blogosphere” because I believe they have shown a pattern of disproportionately hiring far-left contributors, consistently focusing exclusively on anti-conservative stories, and consistently ignoring stories critical of liberals. Even though it might be intolerable for them to talk about or respond to, it IS in fact fair to point out a clear pattern of ideological bias on a site that advertises itself widely as the premier source for “left, right, and center” perspectives. I don’t consider it “nastiness” to hold them to the same standard to which they regularly hold others.
But I do still read TMV, carry it on our blogroll, link to it, and subscribe to its RSS feed. My criticism is derived from disappointment in their choice to not be what they could be and what they say they are, not “nastiness”.
P.P.S. The recent direct threat to target me professionally did not come from Mullen. It came from a commenter (he is still welcomed at TMV, though I suspect Whelan would not be) and included a rather creepy level of cyber-stalking layered on top. And yes, my superior would have laughed very hard (in fact, he did, when I told him about it). But all that is beside the point of whether the behavior is worth condemning publicly when a conservative does it but only worth lesser actions (or silence) when a liberal does it.
By the way, in my attention to the personal chord that this story has struck with me, I overlooked the point that I gave to the person that threatened me: Blevins actually might have a cause of action against Whelan here for tortious interference. Anyone who considers using threats to contact someone’s professional livelihood in the pursuit of a personal or ideological blogosphere vendetta should consider first whether they want to wind up in court:
The elements of the cause of action are pretty simple and appear to my amateur eyes to be directly applicable to a situation where a blogger or commenter strips anonymity from a blogger and then uses that to affect the real-life employment of the blogger:
Because it involved a direct threat to contact the employer with the stated intention of getting me fired instead of just an outing alone, the situation that happened to me may have been even more directly applicable than Publius’ case. But after I finish law school and pass the bar (nothing I say now should be considered authoritative legal advice in any way), I would be very interested in taking any such case pro bono, if only to establish a strong deterrent against any continuation of such viciousness in the blogosphere.
BTW, those who criticize anonymity when commenting on public affairs should consider the fact that one of the most influential documents in the history of U.S. foreign policy — the “long telegram” that formed the foundation of the U.S. policy of containment towards the Soviet Union — was written anonymously.
JA – You cite two liberals at TMV, but most recent additions are moderate or right of center. TMV is a mix of both left and right.
PATRICK EDABURN
MIKKEL FISHMAN (more technical or economics)
JERRY REMMERS
TONY CAMPBELL
Also interesting that the Federalist Papers were also published under the pseudonym Publius:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federalist_Papers
Rudi,
I have also noticed some of the new additions. But the fact that those you identify as “right of center” rarely publish pieces that diverge from the left-leaning dominant themes and, when they do, are compelled to repeatedly caveat and go overboard in the name of even-handedness and criticizing BOTH sides at least equally (preferably criticizing Republicans more) and other such indicators, from my perspective, undermines the legitimacy of your claim. And the fact that the left-leaning posts rarely if ever contain caveats or care to criticize BOTH sides is also an indicator of systemic bias, from my perspective. Indeed, the left-leaners I criticize often go beyond merely “liberal” to far-left, and often times are very abusive in ways that would never be tolerated from conservatives.
But, like I said, I do not hold “nastiness” for TMV. I actually admire much of what they have built. I just am critical of what I see as a serious and persistent skew and double standards that adds up to false advertising from the site that claims to be the flagship of the moderate/centrist blogosphere. Because they do claim the flagship position, what they say and do at TMV affects the rest of us at least a little bit. And the fact that they are so touchy that even talking about such criticisms gets at best ignored and at worst earns blacklisting is also something I object to. I’m guilty as anyone of being touchy at times, but I at least try to respond to criticism with substantial reasons/arguments/explanations for my viewpoints rather than combining an above-it-all haughtiness in public with a behind-the-scenes vendetta in retaliation for the audacity to even say criticism at all.