The Outing

The blogger known as Publius has been outed by conservative hatchet-man Ed Whelan. Whelan was upset that Publius had the temerity to disagree heatedly with his (inane) legal analysis. So he stripped his pseudonym away -- despite being informed by Publius that he had excellent personal and professional reasons to keep his identity shielded. Needless to say, this is a spectacularly dickish thing to do. All I can do is reiterate that Publius is a fabulous blogger, and he has my full support. As for Whelan, well, I doubt he has shame one can appeal to, so I have nothing to say to him.

I saw the news, by the way, through a post by Feddie's Southern Appeal blog. My relationship with Feddie is, I think, roughly parallel to Publius' (indeed, I may have originally been "introduced", electronically, to SA through Publius): I disagree heatedly with nearly everything he writes, but respect him as someone with a good heart and a genuinely fair-minded disposition. Unsurprisingly, his post is harshly critical of Whelan. Because people of all political dispositions know that, fundamentally, what Whelan did was wrong. And it should be labeled as such.