Like Foxes

The Dispatch today features a piece about political blogs with the headline, "Blogs growing more political... and cunning." It cracks me up.

Everyone knows we political bloggers are nothing if not cunning. We just can't cun enough, frankly. Morning, noon, and night, it's cun, cun, cun. No end with the cunning. Foxes could learn a thing or two from us cunning linguists and our political blogs.

The reason for my mirth is that, speaking for myself, I'm about the most "un-cunning" person you could imagine. I'd have to take lessons and even then, I'd be pretty lousy. To tell the truth, I've often suffered from "cunning envy".

But the subhead in the print edition is the kicker, and reads in large type, "Should users be allowed to post their opinion anonymously?"

Well now. "Allowed"? That's an unfortunate choice of words. What authority would decide? The very question implies that maybe it should be forbidden to offer your thoughts without providing your actual name. Creepy.

What does it say about the direction this country is heading that this question even made print? Isn't this a question that one might expect to hear asked in say, China or Iran? (Well of course, they probably wouldn't bother asking, but you get the point.)

If my memory serves, this is the same newspaper who pioneered the very first anonymous opinion forum that they've since run for years to this very day. Now they're questioning whether people should be "allowed" to give opinions anonymously online? Curious, indeed.

The somewhat antagonistic view of anonymous blogs which pops up from time to time shows a certain ignorance by many about blogging. The fact is that there are millions of blogs, and many more millions who read them. Near 100% of them, if they allow comments at all, allow anonymous comments. I'd also hazard an informed guess that a huge percentage of them are run anonymously as well.

But apparently those who often opine about blogs are only aware of a handful, perhaps just the local blogs in this area, and so they think an anonymously run blog is an aberration. That's simply not so.

Especially in the world of political blogging, and even more so with blogs dealing with politics on the local level, anonymity is the rule, rather than the exception. The critics either aren't aware of this or simply wish to question the validity of the untold millions of anonymous blogs. (including, I might add, some of the most popular blogs in the country, who log hundreds of thousands of visitors daily)

Our entire history is chock full of anonymous political speech, most famously the Federalist Papers, yet now, in 2006, the Dispatch questions whether we should have the right to offer our opinions anonymously?

I contend that media, business, political, and other powers that be are simply annoyed, worried, and angry to varying degrees that blogs exist and are largely out of their reach and beyond thier ability to control. When you add anonymity into the mix, it really sets them off, as that makes it even harder to control through tradional means.

It pretty much threatens the entire old order of things where people could be expected to keep their opinions to themselves due to fear of offending someone in authority or causing problems at their job, offending a client or advertiser they do business with, etc. If your boss is a raving right-winger, you might think twice before signing your comment about how the Bush administration has been nothing but an incompetent disaster, even if you sincerely believed so and had valid reasons for feeling that way. It's clear that expecting people to use their actual names has a huge deterant effect on their ability to speak their consciences and beliefs.

Some actually fear the rise in anonymous forums, as they have a lot of dirty little secrets that they'd like to keep that way. Though it's unlikely that some bombshell would come out, it makes their palms sweat at the thought that it might.

Give people an anonymous forum and the people with the greatest interest in people keeping quiet are going to howl, and by extention, the people with the most to hide will howl the loudest and longest. (ahem)

A rather simple explanation, but one I believe largely rings true.

At any rate, the article itself, written by Stephanie Sievers from Springfield, is well done and less out of touch.

The article mentions the Illinois political "blogfather" Rich Miller, as well as our illustrious state senator along with a telling quote which ought to be good for a hearty chuckle to any longtime readers here.

Weblogs, or blogs, as the online diaries and opinion sites are more commonly called, seem to be everywhere these days.

So, it's little wonder that politicians are jumping on one of the growing and trendy tools of public discourse.

Some like U.S. Rep. Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill., and Illinois House Rep. John Fritchey, D-Chicago, operate their own blogs. Others just read local political blogs and comment when they want to offer their "two cents" about an issue stirring interest in the community.

Bob McGivern, who just completed his third and final term as a Davenport alderman, said he found the now-defunct Davenport political blog, Davenport Daily Politics, to be a venue where he could address his critics as well as misconceptions people had about recent council decisions.

One downside to blogs is that innuendo can be thrown about freely, but overall Mr. McGivern said he found them to be good forums for public discussion. He said he would periodically post comments on the blog, always using his real name because he thought it lent more credence to his comments.

Another downside is the anonymity provided by most blogs. Most ask contributors to provide an e-mail address, but often there's no way to know if that address is genuine or if the posting was submitted by someone else.

Recent postings on some Quad-Cities blogs, such as The Inside Dope and The Passing Parade, carried an e-mail address of Sen. Mike Jacobs, D-East Moline.

Some exchanges were fairly caustic with name-calling by several contributors.

The Passing Parade is operated by John Beydler, news editor of Quad-Cities Online, the Web site of The Dispatch and The Rock Island Argus.

It's impossible to know who posted the items carrying Sen. Jacob's e-mail address, but the comments defending the senator led some to believe that the postings were from him, Mr. Beydler said. Some comments were critical of Mr. Beydler.

Rich Miller, who publishes the political newsletter Capitol Fax and runs The Capitol Fax, said the style and comments seem to point to Sen. Jacobs.

Sometimes bloggers can trace those who post through a numeric "internet protocol" address, but that's not the case on the recent exchanges concerning Sen. Jacobs because the IP (Internet provider) addresses change, Mr. Miller said.

Asked if he posted the comments, Sen. Jacobs replied that he has occasionally read the blogs. He added that if a blogger allows people to post anonymous comments, it's wrong to "out" those with whom they don't agree. Blogs can be a venue for the free flow of information, and it would be wrong to try to intimidate some people into not commenting, he said.

But posting comments can backfire politically if it is viewed as unethical or an act of desperation, said Kent Redfield, a political science professor at the University of Illinois at Springfield.

Mr. Miller said he traced anonymous comments last month on his blog to Gov. Rod Blagojevich's campaign office.

Mr. Miller said some of the comments bashed Republican gubernatorial candidate Judy Baar Topinka and praised one of her more conservative opponents, Jim Oberweis. There were other comments criticizing a Chicago journalist's coverage of Mr. Blagojevich, Mr. Miller said.

Doug Scofield, spokesman for the governor's re-election campaign, said he is taking Mr. Miller at his word, but with so many people coming in and out of the campaign office, there's no real sense of who might have posted comments.

"It's not anything the campaign was aware of, and it definitely wasn't anything the campaign office would condone," Mr. Scofield said.

Elected officials are supposed to be above that kind of behavior, and when they aren't, they can end up looking stupid, Mr. Miller said.

The real impact of political blogs remains to be seen. It's a growing medium, but in many cases the audience for any particular blog can be small and fairly specific, Mr. Redfield said.

Blogs can have far broader impact, though, if they can attract the interest of opinion leaders or the mainstream media, Mr. Redfield said.