Waldo's Olive Branch

Waldo has spoken. He has devised a way for all of us to get out of this kerfuffle which begun with his banning of a blogger who was featured on Virginia Political Blogs. He made the offer on Christmas eve, I first saw it early this morning. I'll reproduce the gist of it below (emphasis added);

I want the complaining blogs (Alton, GGD, Jonathan Maxfield, Chris, SWAC Girl, Carl, Flora McDonald and Kat) to post the blog entry of my choice on their blog. I will not write the text or provide the image — I will provide a codeword to an anonymous third party who will send that codeword, along with as much text and as many images as they want, to each blogger. Each blogger will receive a separate blog entry. They must post that blog entry on the front page of their site without explanation, excuse, or followup. In neither word or deed may they indicate that it was posted because of this offer, or why they posted it. I will say up front that I will encourage each third party volunteer writer to provide a highly-charged image and supporting text that will, without question, offend nearly anybody who sees it. The blog entry will arrive sometime in the next week, and must be posted promptly.LINK

Yes, in order to atone for daring to question why Waldo pulled a blog from his aggregator, some of us must agree to post something he considers to be equally vile on our pages, without question.

I'm sorry Waldo, that ain't gonna happen. Allow me to elaborate. You set up VPB, proudly proclaiming that you accept one and all. And I must commend you on that stance. From the inception of VPB you did just that, regardless of content. You allowed pictures of dead babies held aloft, by a blogger who wanted to attack George Allen. You allowed that same photoblogger to post numerous pictures of people lying stricken in the streets, again in order for him or her to attack George Allen.

You didn't stop with graphic images either. You allowed one particular blogger to use sophomoric references to anal sex on many, many occasions. You stood your ground and refused to prune out any of George Carlin's infamous 7 dirty words. Why, you yourself proudly used the "F" word on occasion. You are a stand up guy, Waldo. I think I speak for everyone on the right when I say I thought your stance was correct, and we applauded your efforts. No matter how vile and disgusting it was, you would not stoop to "editing". Until now. Until it came from a conservative.

Now, simply because some of us have expressed varying levels of surprise at your actions, and as a "deal" to get that conservative blog back on VPB, you offer this "olive branch". An "olive branch" you promise up front will be soiled with disgusting filth. No thank you.

At the top of my left column you will notice a listing of the most recent conservative blog posts. It's a cool little asset offered by Dave Mastio at BlogNetNews. He offers it in several flavors. One can choose to have it fueled by all of the blogs subscribed at BNN, or by region. Or you can choose all liberal blogs, or all conservative blogs.

When I first installed it I naturally chose the all blogs option. I soon grew disgusted with seeing the "F" word and the "S" word in headlines posted on my site. After switching to the all conservative blogs option I have not had that problem. And I doubt that I will.

So, you see Waldo, I've already experienced the vile stuff from liberals soiling my website and I took the steps to eliminate it. I did not begin this blog proclaiming that I would accept any and all contributions to it, as you did with VPB.

Just for the record, I've said all along it's Waldo's aggregator, to do with as he wishes. I did ask him why he did not simply remove the offending post and then consult with the offending blogger. His answer, reasonable enough I suppose, was that his software does not allow that action.

I'm not sure what criteria he used to select the eight of us out of many who questioned his actions. Perhaps, in my case anyway, it's retaliation for pointing out his hypocrisy in my previous post.