essbee:

When you say that Gannon /Guckert was outed by the liberal blogosphere,do you mean outed as in "out of the closet" or outed as a shill for the Bush Administration?

While both are true, and were inextricably linked, I meant the former.

As I remember it, there was alot of finger pointing from the right on how his outing proved that liberals were really the intolerant hypocrites, etc.

Well, yes. It's always a hypocrite's first instinct to accuse others of being hypocrites. What else is new? But Out Magazine already dealt with all of this long, long ago.

As he had a self published website offering his services as a man whore, he could hardly have had his orientation outed, only that he was a press whore as well.

Yes, but that was under another identity. It does go to show how paper thin the veil is.

And that's just the point. The same rules don't apply to those close to power. They don't even have to hide. All they have to do is say "I am hidden. You don't see me," and that's it. They're hidden. That's what outing was all about. It was saying, "Yes, I do!"

The principle behind outing was that everyone had a right to privacy, so long as they remained private. But to become a participant in the public sphere and engage in attacking people just like yourself as if they were essentially evil--that meant you were no longer private. The outing was an act against the public person, and was intended to unmask their hypocrisy, so as to destroy their political effectiveness as a deceiver. Of course, this couldn't be done without exposing the private person as well, since they are one and the same person. But the intent, the logic, and motivation were all about the public realm, not the private.

Anonymous:

hah.

slancio, why is that? are the only true democrats people who like greenwald, who get hysterical about racism when limbaugh and imus do it, but turn a blind eye when their favorite blonde blogger does it?

trying to alienate people like me is a great way to win elections. you go.

slancio simply doesn't believe you, meaning that the prospect of alienating you is a phantom, since you're not who you say you are.

I'm willing to give you the benefit of the doubt, however. Take a look at my letter "Who Gets A Pass And Who Doesn't," and respond to my explaination. By "respond to," I mean take it seriously, in the same way that I'm taking you seriously, and giving you a chance to make a good faith argument.

I'm not asking that you agree with me. Only that you engage with the arguments I present, as opposed to dogmatically rejecting them and going off on some tangent.

Anonymous:

No, Paul Rosenberg, to know I hate the war and want health care coverage and good educations for children, I don't have to take seriously your strange assertion that you can tell someone's a hypocrite if he's calling you a hypocrite.

That is a strange assertion, since I never said that. I wonder where it came from? I did say "It's always a hypocrite's first instinct to accuse others of being hypocrites," but that wasn't even in the letter I asked you to respond to.

So, I guess you've set a new standard for failing tests. But you've certainly demonstrated that you either lack the ability or the interest in understanding people whom you disagree with.

I don't care if you think I'm not a "real" Democrat. But I do think it's really fucking stupid that they pushed Lieberman out of the party, and all-y'all are still thirsty or more left-wing blood.

Your demonstable inability/unwillingness to comprehend those you disagree with, combined with the above makes it perfectly clear that you hate Jane for opposing Lieberman, and everything else is just an excuse. The accusations of racism against Jane Hampshire are utterly goundless, and you know it. Otherwise, you'd take on my argument, rather than avoiding it like the plague.

Why the fuck don't you go after Sam Brownback for a second? Is he too scary?

Unlike you, I can walk and chew gum at the same time.

But, quite frankly, the GOP is in disarray at the moment. The one thing that's holding them together right now is the media. And one of the media's key means of doing so is by manufacturing contrived attacks on Democratic leaders. That was the subject of Glenn's post. That is the topic of our discussion here. And Lieberman has a long history of participating in such attacks, which is why so many Democrats opposed him that he lost the Democratic Primary in 2006.

I'm putting up this fight because Democrats are not supposed to be hypocrites. If I wanted to be a hypocrite, I'd be "Christian" conservative who thinks Mexicans should die in emergency rooms to save me fifty cents on my taxes.

Hypocrisy takes many forms. You like Lieberman's rather than Pat Robertson's. What do want? A medal?

A pat on the back, I'll be happy to give you, since you did say, "I hate the war and want health care coverage and good educations for children." But a medal is asking too much.