No Good Deed

by digby


In a moment of supreme blogospheric irony, Correntewire, a blog recently known for its skepticism about Obama, is being threatened by some conservative law professor for characterizing and quoting him in a blog post. (The irony is that the Corrente post in question was a stirring defense of Barack Obama against the charges by this professor that he is a Communist. It even calls Larry Johnson a fool. I'm not kidding.)

Leah Appert lays the whole ugly mess out and it is an ugly mess. The law professor is a blogger whose work is in the public domain, but evidently he doesn't believe people have a right to characterize his work in ways in which he doesn't approve. (One wonders what he would say about someone like Rush Limbaugh, who likes to characterize Democratic politicians and liberal activists as parasites and traitors.)

This seems to be going around. Tristero wrote about the PZ Myers flap the other day in which Big Bill Donohue (last seen excoriating Sally Quinn) turned his psychotic glare on Myers resulting in death threats.

I suspect this is going to become more common. Now that blogs have a profile and are being taken more seriously, they are also going to be the subject of a lot of right wing foolishness like this. (They are all going to have more time on their hands to take on the VLWC starting in January.) I'm not sure what to do about it, other than support those who find themselves in the cross hairs. And we can also remind these people that their endless complaint about law professors and trial lawyers being liberal is ... true.


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