Mr. Shaidle's ethics

Well, judge for yourself.

Arnie Lemaire, aka "Blazing Cat Fur," spouse of ol' what's-her-name, is a co-editor at my pal Jay Currie's place. In the past, various comments of mine there (and of other progressive bloggers like my unfailingly polite co-blogger John Cross) have disappeared into the memory hole. Various excuses have been made, but I gather that Arnie has been responsible for at least some of that.

Editing a combox, of course, isn't the same thing as, say, blocking George Galloway from entering the country to deliver a speech at, say, the University of Ottawa. A blogsite is private property. I've banned trolls from my place, after all. I'm interested in free-flowing debate, but I'm not running a public service for the terminologically afflicted.

There are limits, however. I draw the line at editing someone else's commentary (other than the spelling corrections I occasionally do out of kindness). But Arnie, with no such scruples, has now taken to revising readers' comments. "truewest," a tough but fair swimmer against the current at Jay's, has had a recent comment played with in precisely this fashion.

Is this a free speech issue? Well, it's not clear-cut. But suppose Ann Coulter came a-visiting (just a name that popped into my head for some reason) and I replaced her comments with pro-Obama ones. Would that be kosher?

Here is the original text, after Jay, to his considerable credit, intervened:

Jay,
Thanks. You let Arnie drive your car and access your bank account too? Clearly a bad idea. Here’s the original post, only slightly modified to address James’s objection about the counting ability of lawyers.

God Bless Ann Coulter.
There is no single factor that so accurately identifies a spotlight-seeking, pig-ignorant, gleefully hateful wingnut as a slavish devotion to that odious stick-insect whose idea of wit is a racial slur:
Rachel Marsden – check;
Ezra Levant – check;
Kathy Shaidle – check;
Shaidle’s sad sack spouse – check;
Michael Coren— spotlight-seeking, check; pig-ignorant, check; but let’s give Michael a break this time and assume that describing Coulter as a “world-reknowned journalist” was a professional obligation.

And here is "truewest's" post as amended by Arnie:

God Bless Ann Coulter.
There is no single factor that so accurately identifies a spotlight-seeking, pig-ignorant, gleefully hateful wingnut as a slavish devotion to that odious stick-insect whose idea of wit is a racial slur:
Truwest’s mom – check;
Truwest- check;
Truwest’s imaginary friend – check;
Truwest’s sad sack spouse – check
Michael Coren—well, two out of three ain’t bad…...

Doesn't make any sense, spells "truewest's" handle wrong, and is grievously unethical. Some might call that a moron hat-trick. Not I, of course. But the phrase "Standard Operating Procedure" does spring to mind. Time to set down some guidelines, Jay.