Blogging with thin skin...

Is dangerous. For the same reason being a thin-skinned politician is dangerous. Or any Public Person.

I ran into some illustrative examples yesterday.

You see, I blog out my a$$. A Public Person who blogs and is a media maven told me so.

First up. If you blog or want to blog, read this. Why I Hate Weblogs. Written tongue-in-cheek, with bite. BTW, I scored "normal" on the quiz in Appendix A. The whole thing is good for keeping your perspective (which most of us lose doing this, at one time or another). The key to losing it is to keep in in-house, and not share it around with everybody.

Kinda like Gary Trudeau, vice Ted Rall. Heh. Were I Ted, I would have talked to my lawyer first, before soliciting advice from my readers. But at least he was smart enough to collect pledges, and not money. Too bad Ted isn't willing to put his own money where his mouth is, he prefers instead to redistribute it from his readers. But voluntarily. He didn't suggest that the government collect the funds for him and deposit them in his account, so that's progress, coming from a lefty like Ted.

We on the right have our own thin-skinned people. For the record, if you'd like to complain to me about something I've written, this is *not* the approach I recommend.

I read your post about my "whining" to the idiot rottweiler. Do you always blog out of your a$$? You have NO IDEA what I said to the idiot because he lied and didn't post my e-mails to him. Why do you think he changed what he wrote and posted a "retraction"? I NEVER threaten to sue anyone over being offended. Believe me, his site, which I never before visited and won't again, is NOT worthy of my time and attention. I've been called a lot worse by more worthies and ignored it. But defamatory, LYING speech is NOT protected anywhere, much less so in your precious Denmark. I find it interesting that you are willing to write a blog entry, when you haven't a clue and you never read my e-mail. Like a true idiot . . . .

Debbie Schlussel

You know, she's right. I didn't know any of that. Nor, for the point I was making (see the blurb up early in yesterday's H&I that starts with "The Rottweiler") did I really need to. My point was simply that picking a fight with Misha, especially if that's the tone, just feeds the beast that is Misha's patented invective. Heh. That and the fact that I haven't really been all over supporting Denmark lately, but what the heck, she was on a roll.

Misha was, well, rather rude to her in his post. Okay, being mostly otherwise on the same team (or even if not, what the heck, honey gets more than vinegar) go tell him how hurt and annoyed you are and how inappropriate his comments were, and ask him to retract them and give him a chance to retreat gracefully. But toss invective at him? *That* helps. Not.

So, I responded.

Debbie -
1. Do you always email out your a$$? This email would seem to indicate yes, at least when you're annoyed. You should always reread and take a deep
breath before you send something like this.
2. If he never published your emails, I couldn't very well have read them, but that's a different issue.
3. My advice still stands. Whining at The Rottweiler just feeds him, basically the point of my post. I stand by what I said. Mistake, Debbie. None of which
has anything to do with the merits of your claim. A nice, measured email laying out your side of the story would go farther than "Do you always blog out of your
ass?" will. Just as I'm guessing a similar approach with Misha might have produced a slightly different response from him - but maybe not. He *is* the Rott, and that pretty much was the point of my post.
4. Small detail, I live in Kansas, not Denmark, I have no idea why you thought I might live in Denmark.
5. Your reading preferences are, of course, your right. I don't read him but once a week now either, mostly to see what the moonbats he attracts (in this
case, I'm not lumping you in, but if you were to continue in this tone, I might) but I do like a good rant, if only for variety. If you were to check any of the services that track such, you'll find that I'm not a prolific linker to him - though he was the first high-traffic blogger that linked to me, back in the days when I was getting started.
6. My blog entry, despite your personal angst over your tiff with Misha, wasn't really about you. It was about "Don't feed the animals, it just keeps them
hanging around." Now you're running around and kicking me in the shins.

So. Now my conundrum. Do I post your email and my response, or not?

Decisions, decisions. I'm of a mind to.

Obviously, we see what my decision was. In retrospect, my temper wasn't as under control as it might have been, either. I did edit the typos and for the PG-17C, btw. Mind you - I did edit my post, though perhaps not entirely to her liking.

I'll take the rest of the to the Flash Traffic/Extended Entry in the interest of my long-suffering dial-up customers.

Since Debbie is concerned about Misha not publishing the emails in her tiff with him, I will continue posting ours. She responded:

Gee, John, let's see. You said that I "whined about it" (his post). Since you haven't seen a single e-mail I sent him, how would you know that? In fact, I did NOT whine at all. I merely demanded that he take down the two defamatory items, which he did, b/c he knew he'd be sued. Did I whine about the rest of the absurd, insulting post? NO. Did I ask him to take it down? NO. Did I threaten to sue him over it? NO. Did it hurt my feelings? Puh-leeze. I couldn't care less what he thinks. But I do care when my reputation is falsely attacked. In fact, his latest e-mail to me, unsolicited is a nice apology. Unfortunately, it is complete bull excrement because he won't post it on his site, and has posted the exact opposite. It's all a complete lie, and the guy is a coward. But it's working for him, since all the sheep believe him, and apparently you did, too, claiming I "whined about it."

Baaaah.

In fact, she's mostly correct up there, in that I haven't seen the whole email stream between her and Misha. This is the point where I actually went and edited the post.

She says:

I've been called a lot worse by more worthies and ignored it. But defamatory, LYING speech is NOT protected anywhere...

followed by:

NO. Did it hurt my feelings? Puh-leeze.

...in her response to me. This, plus the effort she's going to, tells me someones feelings may in fact, be hurt. Just a thought, though I suspect Debbie doesn't think I'm much capable of that. Anyway, trying to keep the focus mostly on what I meant by my post, and tossing out some "Hey, we're on the same side" let's close this out patter, I responded:

BTW - just to make sure I knew who I was talking with, I checked your blog. We have far more in common than disagreement.

But really, emails like this to guys like me doesn't help you, and only reinforces what guys like Misha think.

Sometimes, once you've gotten what you're after, it's better to just let it lie, even if it grits your teeth to do it.

How many other people did you send something like this to? Hopefully only me - otherwise you are potentially going to light up the aggregators, and not in a flattering light.

Of course, being a Media Figure, perhaps you're looking for some exposure, I dunno. But the tagline around Castle Argghhh! is, Wahabism Delenda Est.

In fact, we're Number 1 in Google for it.

I followed that up immediately with this:

Okay, yer pissed. I'll sign off with "Baaaah!" But my point still stands - you're just making it worse - unless of course, you want the bump in the aggregators.

Cheers,

John

And Debbie, who is not offended or anything, comes back with this (and the conversation ends at this point, unless this post torques her enough to reopen it)

And your evidence that I "whined about it" is? . . . .

She hasn't seen the edits. She probably still hasn't. And I don't think she's really interested in it, either.

Bottom line:

1. If you blog, this stuff happens. Live with it.

2. If you do feel defamed and can't let it go, great. In this case, Misha *was* over the top. So be polite (you don't have to be nice, but be polite) and ask the offending party to take it down, or amend it. If you go for the Nuclear Option (lawsuit) right out of the gate, well, you might not like the result.

3. Don't go sending emails asking people if they blog out their a$$ and then spend electrons pointing out how you aren't offended easily. It just makes it worse.

Just sayin'. A polite "my side of the story" email would have made this a different post. I was still going to run with the "Why I hate Blogs" bit as advice for new bloggers and a reminder for old bloggers. But Rall and Schlussel's actions made this ripe for expansion.

Debbie - I'm mostly on your side politically, and see some merit in your argument regarding the whole Rott thing. But how about a little politesse?