All Fools up here in Alaska

Hoo, boy what a hilarious week we've had. Just when I thought Alaska politics couldn't get any more ridiculous, BAM!

• Wayne Anthony Ross gets appointed as attorney general not because he's good at law, but because he's got an agenda! From the Gov's own press release:

As Attorney General, Ross will work with the governor on issues surrounding development of Alaska’s rich natural resources as the state continues its efforts to provide energy security for America and lower energy costs for Alaskans. As Attorney General, Ross also will help the governor protect Alaskans’ right to bear arms, and he will work tirelessly to manage Alaska’s fish and game resources for abundance through science and not politics.

• Recently-Republican Democrat Grussendorf gets chosen (by Sarah), then rejected (by the legislature)
• Mike Doogan makes an idiotic move and unveils a pseudonymous political blogger's real name
• a volcano goes off and Chevron decides to follow Exxon's wise example and leave 6 million gallons of oil in tanks on the side of said volcano--with no response plan ready! More here.
• Three years after the fact, the state sues BP for some oil spills and back royalties.
• Ted gets off scot-free because the prosecution screwed up their big case with a capital S

Sheesh. Can it get any worse?

Hah. Better not bet against it--in this state, it can always get worse...

Doogan: champion of the First Amendment. Not.

And from the other editorial cartoonist on staff at The Ester Republic:

A little bysplash from an outing

Just one of many cartoons that will be generated by this brouhaha, I'm sure.

The pertinent point

As Progressive Alaska and others have pointed out, Mike Doogan was wrong to out Mudflats. As Mudflats herself says,

The big picture, the thing that should outrage all of us, despite political party or affiliation, is this: an elected official in a position of power and authority utilized state resources to deliberately and with malice, knowing there would be negative consequences, impinged on the free speech and privacy rights of a private citizen.

What matters is not which team is in office, what matters is how they play the game. And Doogan is not playing fair, or with rectitude. This was sleazy.

Anonymity, the Press Club, and real stupidity

One of the subjects that came up last night on the blogging panel was whether bloggers (read: the subset of bloggers that tend to be political commentators with a journalistic/observational bent) should remain/be allowed to remain anonymous. Shannyn Moore and I both agreed (us on the left of the podium) that yes, of course, anonymity is the perogative of the individual blogger. Andrew Halcro also agreed, with the observation on a standard true-name byline, "How could you enforce it, anyway?"

Well, as Mike Doogan has, as of this morning, demonstrated, one way to enforce it is by the method of forced outing. Doogan revealed the actual name of a popular blogger, Mudflats. (He used, rumor has it, an e-list of constituents to spread this word, which may constitute a conflict of interest. More on this later.)

This immediately brings to mind the outings of closeted gay public figures; the ethics of this has always been troubling to me. On the one hand, outing someone who can't yet deal with this innermost conflict in their identity is, to me, a form of violence perpetrated on the outee. On the other hand, the outee may in fact be a perpetrator of, say, legislative violence upon fellow gays who are honestly out, taking that risk that the closeted can't bear to face.

However, Mudflats is simply an individual commenting on politics. The refuge of the pseudonym in literature and journalism has a time-honored history. I think it is Doogan here who is in the wrong. He has overstepped his bounds.

I'll have to get off line here for the moment. The hotel needs to do some maintenance.