It's irresponsible to criticize Ed Whelan

Ed Whelan, Bush torture law adviser turned National Review blawger, outed publius of Obsidian Wings.

Via Gawker:

Ed Whelan, former Scalia law clerk, Bush Justice Department appointee, and, most amusingly, "President of the Ethics and Public Policy Center," got soooo mad at some blogger who was criticizing him that he published the guy's real name and job.

Whelan explains that he's exposing publius, not out of a petty desire for revenge, but as a matter of principle. You see, publius was recklessly criticizing Whelan while pseudonymous.

Whelan says this all started when third blawger, Juan Eugene Volokh, pointed out that Whelan had made some kind of mistake in a post. Whelan fixed the infelicity. But then that guttersnipe publius piped up on his own blog to say that Whelan should be embarrassed:

What Blevins—I mean, “publius”—somehow takes away from all this is that “Volokh actually decimates Whelan’s argument”—the concededly sloppy sentence that I promptly revised—and that I should be “thoroughly embarrassed.”

So, yeah, publius was totally asking for it. I'm glad Ed Whelan had the courage to rip back the veil and expose his reckless, wanton, and vicious use of speech to chide Ed Whelan. I will sleep better knowing that selfless public servant Ed Whelan will not be embarrassed about anything, ever.

Update: Jesse Taylor is so irresponsible that I wish "Jesse Taylor" was a pseud so I could unmask his true identity and thereby neutralize the threat he poses to the Republic, common decency, and the purity of our essence.

Update 2: Whelan has apologized, not exactly for outing publius, but for being "uncharitable" to him, whatever that means.

Comments

[parse]

Juan Volokh?

[Peter K.]

On politics I probably agree more with Publius than Ed Whelan, but people should understand, if they're going to mockingly criticize others on the Internets they shouldn't be all that surprised when they are "outed."

The revelation for me is that Hilzoy's father was President of Harvard from '71-'91 (he took back over for Summers when Larry made those impolite comments about women) and her maternal grandparents were Gunnar Myrdal and Alva Myrdal, both Nobel laureates. Talk about heavy hitters.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gunnar_Myrdal

[Cass]

On politics I probably agree more with Publius than Ed Whelan, but people should understand, if they're going to mockingly criticize others on the Internets they shouldn't be all that surprised when they are "outed."

I'd put another way: if you're going to criticize a petulant, insecure bully, you shouldn't be at all suprised when he or she reacts in the manner of a petulant, insecure bully. The reaction after all is only intended to frighten anyone else considering a criticism of their own.

[togolosh]

You know, even once a psued is blown, it's still basic politeness to respect the desire for privacy. Like for instance not posting details of pseudonymous blogger's family history. WTF are you thinking, Peter?

[cfrost]

And these guys wonder why the voters are abandoning the GOP.

We've all met these pricks before. They're the ones who talk too loud, tell stupid, cruel jokes, talk about themselves at length, wave their credit cards and CVs around for all to see, then wonder why the girls don't like them.