A good year for Virginia political bloggers, but...

All in all, it’s been quite a year for Virginia’s blogosphere. Two aggregator sites were established -- Virginia Political Blogs and Blognet News -- which have magnified the reach of blogs on the left, right and wherever, by creating a new way to easily follow a particular story as it ripples across the landscape, or just peruse the news and views.

They provided an overview that had not existed before.

Two blogger confabs were held: the Sorensen’s Institute’s in Charlottesville in June, and the Blogs United in Martinsville for free Speech in August. Topics to do with political blogging were discussed; presentations were made by invited individuals who served/posed as experts.

With both conventions there were bloggers who came away from them singing the praises of the collegial spirit they found, although both events also has their critics.

There have been other efforts/proposals during the past year which sought to have bloggers from both sides of the aisle working together. Conaway Haskins’ SOB’s idea was one with merit. Another was spawned here at SLANTblog -- and pulled off with with a great deal of help from Vivian Paige -- it was a call to bloggers to try being more original for three days of posting. It was dubbed Weekend Without Echoes.

Then came the somewhat unexpected rapid tightening of the Webb vs. Allen senatorial race. A chilly, more partisan wind began to blow, as the season changed and the nation came to Virginia’s blogosphere to find out what the macaca was going on. We all watched in amazement as the originally thought-to-be-unbeatable incumbent committed YouTube suicide before our very eyes.

Since that election, the result of which tilted control of the U.S. Senate to Team Donkey, the grumbling denials of reality by the bitterest of Republican bloggers has torn at the fabric of what bloggers during the summer saw as nonpartisan, common interests.

Now, at year’s end, there’s an effort afoot in the Virginia blogosphere, coming from a handful of rightwingers who apparently want to do whatever injury they can to Virginia Political Blogs. They are currently trying to sell the absurd idea that Waldo Jaquith removed a blog from his VPB aggregator’s blog roll because the hard-hitting propaganda being used by that anonymous blogger to defend Virgil Goode’s awkward position was just too damn effective. That it had cleverly one-upped some lefty bloggers, so it had to go.

Horsefeathers! That is a cheap and dirty effort to create an instant myth out of thin air. Put it in the echo chamber and see who will believe it.

Waldo removed the material because he wanted no part of promulgating sicko material he felt was beyond the pale (decapitation photos) appearing on his web site. Remember folks, it’s his web site, he has charged no one a fee to have their posts amplified by appearing there, and he has made no promises to the bloggers.

Is this rather nefarious effort being pushed by bloggers, who are demonstrating their conclusion that having a aggregator site -- which automatically puts all their commentary beside all the commentary of their opponents -- has not been working to their benefit? Generally speaking, their repetitive fear-mongering and sloganeering to support George Allen didn’t do much to carry the day against the arguments presented by bloggers writing in support of Jim Webb.

More recently, they weren’t really helping Virgil Goode with his self-inflicted troubles much, either. Sorry, A-Team and B-Team, and GGD, but it’s true.

Then came the V-bomb (V for violence). A blogger (GGD) posted pictures of terrorists decapitating their captives, which meant they would also automatically appear on Waldo‘s aggregator site.

When Waldo saw the pictures he promptly removed them by deleting the link to the V-bomb blogger. He says that was the only quick way to get rid of the pictures on VPB.

So, the above-mentioned pack of conservative bloggers now wants to hound Waldo out of the aggregator biz, calling him a selective censor who makes his calls based on partisan considerations. Throw in some jealousy over the fact that Waldo Jaquith is frequently quoted on blogging topics by the mainstream press and you’ve got the foul-smelling witch’s brew that is bubbling in the blogosphere.

For some background on this story click here, here, and here. To find more, go to one of the aggregators mentioned above. There’s plenty to read, if you are so inclined. With some of the same spirit used to attack the Sorensen Institute’s blogger convention as being too lefty, some of the same players are again seeking to divide the burgeoning blogosphere into name-calling partisan camps.

This pack may next ask Waldo to remove their links from his links list of blogs-to-be-presented at VPB. If they object so strongly to what he is doing -- why not? However, for that ploy to pay off they would have to convince some of the more respected conservative bloggers to take up their side in this totally contrived war of words, and also push away from VPB.

Will the heavyweight conservative and Libertarian bloggers follow V-bombing GGD and his/her barking pack of supporters in trying to kill off VPB, by pulling out of Waldo's VPB blogroll?

Stay tuned ... the answer will be apparent in the next few days.