On David Dreier: Outed

Here is my response to Pencopal's well argued thoughts on my David Dreier blog posting yesterday:

Pen:

I think you make a strong point and if you came away from my blog with mixed feelings, I want to clear things up.

I believe now that what I did wrong, in certainly the first few drafts of this post, was take the issue on in a snarky manner -- which is how I deal with 90 percent-plus of the pop cultural information here -- the outing of David Dreier and my comments upon that issue should have been dealt with in a more serious manner. The Bob Dylan lyrics were overmuch (taken off as of yesterday). The Hallelujah at the end in praise of this new era of bloggers outing hypocrites has since been taken out. I regret that the speed of the story and my better judgment were overmatched by the desire to make a splash. Another day's hindsight and less of a hangover works wonders in clearing up one's perspective.

Usually, my morning drafts are rougher hewn (I imagine one of those is what you read), and, around 4pm, when I've had a chance to smooth everything out, things look more finished, and the wheat is somewhat serparated from the chaff. And sometimes they just suck.

It is a fragile thing, this tactic of outing to expose hypocrisy. Is it possible to ever get back a modicum of what we once deemed private life in politics once that particular genie were to be let out of the proverbial bottle? And then what happens to the public discourse in this already acrimonious age? I think your post on my post (how meta is that, pencopal?) is important because we are on the brink of something big here -- bloggers as driving the news cycle in the last few weeks of the campaign. Our ethics do have to be on overdrive, even snarky little bloggers like moi. Frankly, I would not have outed him myself, had I been given the info via email, on the grounds that it may be the end of his political career as Dreier represents a conservative California district, and I don't want to be the ruin of a man -- even if he is a self-hating hypocrite who denies civil rights to a people -- I am snarky about people, but, I hope, never ruinous; I see my blog as having reported on the outing after the fact rather than doing the actual deed -- a small but significant distinction, in my mind.

I wouldn't do an outing, but, if it is done for a cause I believe in -- i.e. exposing the hypocrisy and anti gay agenda of a pol -- I would certainly blog my opinions on it after it went public. Now -- someone might say -- but isn't that the same as outing, especially if someone learned about Dreier's sexuality and his hypocrisy from my site, instead of, say, Wonkette, or the LA Weekly?
I'd say no, on the grounds that once something becomes part of the cultural exchange, becomes public, it's fair game to be chatted about, and, quite frankly, the primary reason I would never out someone who is politically hypocritical is that I could not in all honesty look myself in the mirror and take responsibility for the consequences that that act might entail. Talking about an already revealed fact and the act of revealing that fact are two different kettles of fish entirely (to me atleast), and I'm okay with being on one side and not the other.

Thanks for getting me thinking on this, pencopal, I feel very journalist now; I'll have you know that I'm now having a unique Romenesko Moment. There are so many "I's" in this post and no "The Corsair's," and my ego, quite frankly, was needing the boost (The Corsair puffs his chest out and holds his head up high) -- and the "I" key on my keyboard was screaming for attention, even if it meant being as exciting as a C-Span "Ethics in Journalism Forum" at 3AM, I appreciated the opportunity to show that I am more than just a pop cultural idiot savant.

I need alert readers to keep me on the up-and-up, protect me from getting to wrapped up in myself and going over to the Dark Side of the Blog. Now, I'm woozy. Let's get back to the pop cultural snark, before my head explodes.