You Can't Disappear the Intertubez

I know I promised to STFU about local politics, but this is effing hilarious. Y'all were probably sick of both my ranting and my constant links to Maryland Politics Watch during the runup to the recent Democratic primaries. MPW is a pretty good site, chock full of local political color, operated by Adam Pagnucco and David Lublin, both of whom seem to be okay guys.

Of course, it was a hotly contested primary season here in MoCo, and there were a lot losers. Some of them whine a lot, others don't (Credit where due: Councilwoman Duchy Trachtenberg, object of Minions' maximum revulsion during this election, popped off an exceedingly gracious and inoffensive thank-you note to her supporters; thanks, Councilwoman Trachtenberg, for bowing out without snivelling, and Minions wishes you all the best for the future, as long as you're not running for office in the state of Maryland.).

So yesterday, Pagnucco posted on MPW about the campaign manager for the aforelinked Dr. Dana Beyer, a candidate for Delegate in District 18. What? You say that link doesn't work? Hmm.

Maybe he took it down. But it's not like the post was offensive. It seems that Jena Grosser, the aforementioned campaign manager, was an unhappy soul while she was working for Dr. Beyer. How do we know? Well, she (or, it must be reckoned possible, someone purporting to be her) tweeted pretty incessantly during the campaign season about how miserable she was. Is there anything special or damning about it? Not really. It's the usual tweetie-twaddle about the frequency of one's bowel movements. I mean, she was pretty miserable, and it doesn't appear that her employer was giving her much in the way of logistics support for, say, living in the DC area (Ms. Grosser is a native of Indiana). Certainly her judgment is pretty suspect, putting that much personal stuff on the Intertubez. I wouldn't want her as my campaign manager. But then again, I'm not running for office, so WTF do I know?

But back to our friends at MPW. Taking stuff down, that's a pretty serious allegation, there. And utterly unsubstantiated, just like you'd expect from a potty-mouthed anonymous blooger like me, right?

Oops. And if that doesn't do it for you, Google-search "Maryland Politics Watch Jena Beyer" and you should be able to find your own cached version. Lookee:

So why, oh why, would MPW pull such a wonderful bit of political reporting? Well, I can tell you that there was a bit of a comments battle over this post, though if someone wanted to be snarky and vicious they could deny it, because it doesn't appear in the cached version, at least the one I found. There were, as of noonish today (about 22 hours after the post), 12 comments, about half attacking Pagnucco and the blog for being such meanies as to attack this Jena person so viciously over the private information she spread all over the freaking Web (and most of those were from someone who spends a lot of time scolding Pagnucco and other commenters over some pretty insignificant stuff). Most of the rest were by Pagnucco and Lublin, defending the post. One was by a blog supporter pointing out that what Pagnucco did is called "reporting." To be clear, my position is mostly in line with that last comment. None of the comments I saw really explained MPW pulling the post. Except maybe the last one I saw.

Now, I got only suspicions here. That last comment chided Pagnucco, advancing the theory that the post made his team (the winning District 18 Democratic team) look bad for trashing his team's opponent Beyer. There are a number of possibilities stemming from that. Did Beyer threaten some sort of action? Did Pagnucco's D18 team rip into him for the post? Did Pagnucco decide he couldn't afford for the post to be out there? Did the scold's taunt about the MoCo Dems' Kiss and Make Up Party (sadly, unattended by Dr. Beyer, according to Pagnucco's reporting) cause a little tiny tear to fall from Adam Pagnucco's eye?

Beats me. The previous paragraph, except for the factual statement about the last comment (that I saw), is all speculative. And for now, it'll remain so, because MPW pulled the post without explanation (at least up to this moment--I will update if that changes).

So, seriously, Adam, WTF?

In other political news, BFF bDr implicitly outs me as an agent of the global Takoma Park conspiracy. I have to say that, while this accusation staggers me, the prosecution has sufficient evidence to secure a conviction. No lo contendere.

That's right. Suck on Spiro Agnew, bitchez.