... and apparently many evangelical Christianists cannot. Or simply prefer to lie. First, the anonymity thing. We've had a variety of discussions on this topic around the Delaware blogosphere, and the upshot is that a lot of our most valued bloggers (kavips, pandora, liberalgeek, etc.) chose to use internet handles , while others (Tyler Nixon, Matt Matthews, Dana Garrett, John Feroce) do not. But there is general agreement here that outing an anonymous or pseudononymous blogger is, as BrianShields pointed out: Outing someone’s pen name in a blogosphere argument is the equivalent of calling an African American the N word in a verbal argument. Unfortunately, I'm not as refined as Brian, so I will actually use the N-word. Adam Fogle of the Palmetto Scoop has found himself, apparently once too often, the subject of Waldo's wit, and is running around South Carolina's blogosphere shouting, Nigger, nigger, nigger at Waldo and other bloggers who use pen names. Here's...

There used to be a derogatory saying about South Carolina: Too small to be a state, but too large to be a penal institution . Ironically, despite an abundance of gracious people in many places, Palmetto State politics and the South Carolina blogosphere continues to descend into a racist, homophobic gutter. The one you've heard about, of course, is GOPer activist Rusy DePass joking about Michelle Obama, gorillas and evolution . Here's one that might have escaped your attention: Daniel J. Cassidy is a member of the South Carolina Advisory Board to the US Commission on Civil Rights. Here you can find him presenting himself as the watchdog over the proper expenditure of Federal funds for tutoring disadvantaged students . So far, so good, right? But Cassidy also publishes a blog called Sunlit Uplands , whose subtitle is Faith, Freedom, Defense of the West, Renewal of the Culture . Let's sample some of Cassiday's blogging choices over the past couple of days, keeping in...

The bloodbath was inevitable. As long as the Delaware blogosphere's loudest and most persistent voices were divided between those who wrote under their own names and those who wrote anonymously (some more transparently than others), in such a small state it had to happen. Somebody who conceals his/her identity would write something about somebody else that so pissed them (or their friends) off that a little digging would reveal the names and biographical information. We've skirted around the issue before: donviti was oh-so-briefly outed at Delaware Politics a few months back before the post was taken down, and then--apparently [I missed this post before it also disappeared]--somebody provided enough information at Down With Absolutes for just about anybody to deduce the identity of El Somnambulo. A couple weeks back, El Somnambulo offered to out himself/herself if Charlie Copeland would answer some direct questions about the Caesar Rodney Institute [Delaware's new rightwi...

I spend a lot of time reading Waldo and have developed such a vicarious appreciation of South Carolina politics that I am currently trying to figure out how to detour around the Palmetto State on my next trip from Delaware to Disney. What Waldo teaches me (when whatever I am drinking is not spurting out of my nose) is that huge numbers of Americans who are otherwise apparently competent to dress themselves and drive to work every day are not really functioning at an intellectual level necessary to deal with the moral dilemma and cultural nuances of modern life. Philosopher Daniel Dennett comes closer to explaining this phenomenon in brief academic terms than anyone else I have ever read [once you add one tiny fact to his explanation]: There's a mismatch between the modern versus ancestral world. Our minds are equipped with programs that were evolved to navigate a small world of relatives, friends, and neighbors, not for cities and nation states of thousands or millions of anonymo...

The inner workings of a major political party are not--under any circumstances--pretty, particularly when that party is trying to recover from electoral disaster and sort out whether it intends in future to be conservative Libertarian or the Lawn Jockey Caucus of the Old Confederacy and Buffalo Commons Party. And, naturally [at least in the convoluted mental universe of blogging], the most qualified people to give them advice are the people who want them defeated at all costs. The semi-pious, semi-gleeful pseudo-advice pieces penned under the rubric of What the GOP needs to do are about as entertaining as they are non-partisan. So, of course the helpful liberal and progressive bloggers were more than willing to latch onto the racist commentary of Young Republican leader Audra Shay, with caustic observations that she proved that such thought among GOPers could not be dismissed as an individual case because--essentially--Michael Steele, Tucker Carlson, and Mike Castle--had not all jump...

... with my criticism of President-elect Barack Obama's selection of evangelist Rick Warren to present the invocation at his inaugural. Shirley, whose opinion I deeply respect, asks I would be curious to know who you would have selected to do the invocation (or, perhaps you would have chosen not to have one). Legitimate question. I do find it fascinating that public school events are generally forbidden, on pain of lawsuit, from having a non-sectarian prayer at, say, a football game, or even having Christamas concerts any more, but that the civil inauguration of the President of the United States is free from such constraints. However, that's not directly responsive to your question. Here's the answer: I'd like the invocation at the Presidential inauguration to be presented by someone who has not politicized his or her pulpit. As I object to Pastor Warren, I would object to any Catholic clergyman who had called for, say, Senator John Kerry to be refused communio...