Facebook fiasco at Right Angle Blog

The big to-do in Ohio blogs today was Matt Naugle at Right Angle Blog’s posting of some embarrassing photos of Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner’s son which were ripped from his and his friends’ Facebook accounts. To their credit, a number of commenters there objected and asked Matt to remove the post. At this time he has not done so.

Jill Miller Zimon at Writes Like She Talks then objected in a rather hypocritical way, writing that

…the existence of such posts simply reaffirms “that the Republicans are so inept in this state that they having nothing left but to resort to these kind of tactics instead of contributing to the public discourse to deal with the real issues facing our state.” I stole that from someone’s response to me about my outrage because he says it perfectly. And I know he’s right.

She then writes that while she’s sure that there are equally inappropriate posts from left of center blogs, she fails somehow to conclude that their existence says anything in particular about the left. Does that sound right to you? Her tactic towards such posts from the left is to avoid and ignore them.

LisaRenee who blogs at Glass City Jungle, takes Jill to task for her hypocrisy in Jill’s comments and at a post and comments at her own blog, though she kind of backtracks from from a direct confrontation with Jill and rephrases as more of a general damnation of hypocrisy. She was right both times, I think.

In the meantime, Matt defends his post by pointing out that Brunner’s son is an adult, worked for his mother’s campaign, and is an active campus Democrat. All of which definitely mitigates the situation somewhat- I mean Brunner’s son is not 10 years old- but in my opinion doesn’t make it okay.

Also, Jerid at Buckeye State Blog writes a “Sincere Open Letter to Matthew Naugle” asking Matt to remove the post, while acknowledging that Jerid posted some oppo research on Matt’s own Facebook page back when Matt was working for the Blackwell campaign. Oy. Jerid however further destroys his credibility by posting as an article an email he received the upshot of which is to insult Matt by insinuating that Matt’s gay and had an orgasm “while staring at the young buck stud [Mr. Brunner] in his tank top.” Gay is good, except apparently when a lefty chooses to use it as an insult. (Ann Coulter was recently condemned for the same thing regarding John Edwards.)

The only one who comes off well in this whole thing is LisaRenee at Glass City Jungle, so good for her.

Matt sent me a very nice email last night welcoming me to the Ohio blogosphere, so I’m a bit sorry to say it- but he’s wrong on this and he should delete the post.

The larger issue here, and LisaRenee covers it, is that young people have to be a lot wiser than many of them are about what they post online, even on semi-private sites like Facebook or MySpace. This is true for everyone, but especially for the children of public persons. I’m just glad that there was no internet when I was young and stupid- God knows what I might have posted. But potential employers and political opponents are watching. It’s a different world now.

UPDATE: Wendell Robinson at wenBLOG also has a reasonable, thoughtful post on the matter.

[Note: This post originally referred to Elizabeth Brunner. The Secretary’s first name is Jennifer.]