Why wait for the truth if you can make it up?

The developing story of Phillip F. Thompson’s arrest in DeeCee for carrying a concealed pistol without a license is one that has received a lot of attention, chiefly because Thompson works for Sen. Jim Webb as an executive assistant. Thompson’s explanation for how he came to possess the weapon and why he would attempt to enter the Senate office building with it in a briefcase has not surfaced.

Not yet.

Jim Webb’s statements, so far, have offered little in the way of an explanation. Yet, as this story is but two days old -- Thompson’s arrest was on Monday -- it doesn’t strike me as at all unusual that prudent legal advice has put a muzzle on both Thompson and Webb, for the time being.

Not forever, but for the time being.

Still, any story that can be stretched and squeezed to touch a celebrity in any way amounts to blood in the water ... so the feeding frenzy is underway, again. Thus, even though they don’t know what caused Thompson to do what he did professional gossip news promulgators are weighing in with their readymade opinions, fanciful speculations and political spins to foul the air and bring on the political bloggers.

Now, without benefit of knowing the real whys behind this developing story, predictably, political bloggers have been hurling accusations, denials and claptrap that’s hard to classify into the blogosphere. They don’t mind pretending they know what’s behind this story, how it will play out, because they are used to pretending to know stuff they don’t really know.

Better than any story I’ve seen in a good while, this one is revealing the worst, most irresponsible aspects of the Virginia political blogosphere. Bloggers who rush to judgment every time do no one any good. But that’s OK with them, like it or lump it, because most of them never really had doing good in mind.