Umm, This Is A Frenzy?
William Arkin, blogging at the Washington Post, mentions Decision ’08 in a strange context:
The fact that I worked for Greenpeace at one time seems to propel many readers and bloggers — Little Green Footballs, Power Line, Captain’s Quarters, Decision ’08, Patterico’s Pontifications — into a frenzy.
The bloggers often describe me as a “former liberal Greenpeace political activist.”
A frenzy? I can’t, of course, speak for the other bloggers mentioned, but here’s my complete comment regarding Arkin and his Greenpeace stint:
Geez, I’m getting an education here…thanks for the many useful tips and biographical info on Arkin…Greenpeace makes me a bit leary to [sic], to say the least…
My God! The frenzy!
Hope you survived that verbal storm…look, Greenpeace DOES make me leary, and that’s the truth. Sorry, William, if that hits home with you…we all choose our own paths, and you’ve enjoyed a certain modicum of success, for which I congratulate you, but I hardly think my comment fits in with the picture you are trying to paint of conservative bloggers running wild…
Next thing you know, he’ll accuse you of trying to break into his bathroom and sink his toy boat.
I’m the guilty party on that one.
As I seem to remember, I wasn’t dismissive of Arkin, just providing some full disclosure allowing for a reader to come to their own conclusion about motives.(If Mr. Arkin, who I respect and will always consider, feels that discussing a journalist’s background experiences is unfair, he is living in a proverbial glass house.)
Next Matthews will be complaining about people saying he worked for Carter…
The whole point of blogs is that the reader can examine an author easily, by their past deeds/roles. Is it Arkin’s job to provide a full disclosure every time he writes? No.
Is it fair to discuss on blogs?
Hell yes.
[...] William Arkin, who has been the subject of both cheers and jeers from this quarter (and who tried to label me as some rightwing yahoo – who said “if the shoe fits”? I heard that!), has a good post up at the WaPo that sheds some light on what might be going on with the NSA eavesdropping story (though the lunatics in his comment section are almost as bad as the Huff’n’Puffers). [...]