And a simple apology would be much easier to find.

I am having a great deal of trouble keeping up with the ins and outs of the Daily Kos fallout. For those who are still unaware of one of the biggest blogscandals so far (I hesitate to call it "Kosgate" -- although others have) Glenn Reynolds, is, as always, a good starting and ending point.

What bothers me at least as much as the heinous nature of Mr. Zuniga's remarks is that I thought blogging was supposed to be honest. Perhaps my naiveté as a First Year Blogger is showing; I mean "honest" in the sense of not editing or deleting posts in the same way politicians engage in "damage control." But I guess Zuniga is a politician. He's certainly behaving that way. And if he ever runs for office he can rest assured that this will haunt him forever.

For the life of me, though, I have been unable to keep track of the twists and turns of the elusive post.

Here was the post:

Someone had to save it, because according to reliable bloggers, it was yanked from Google!

Here's what the same post morphed into after the storm of criticism [NOTE: Now the follow-up/replacement post is here, and the google cache is here.]:

I wrote in some diary comments somewhere that "I felt nothing" and "screw them".

My language was harsh, and, in reality, not true. Fact is, I did feel something. That's why I was so angry.

I was angry that five soldiers -- the real heroes in my mind -- were killed the same day and got far lower billing in the newscasts. I was angry that 51 American soldiers paid the ultimate price for Bush's folly in Iraq in March alone. I was angry that these mercenaries make more in a day than our brave men and women in uniform make in an entire month. I was angry that the US is funding private armies, paying them $30,000 per soldier, per month, while the Bush administration tries to cut our soldiers' hazard pay. I was angry that these mercenaries would leave their wives and children behind to enter a war zone on their own violition.

So I struck back.

Unlike the vast majority of people in this country, I actually grew up in a war zone.

But, before I could sort this out, now I see it's back "on the front page" figuratively -- where it was supposed to be originally. I guess Zuniga decided to leave it [er, "put it back"?] and take his lumps after all:

Every death should be on the front page (2.65 / 35)

Let the people see what war is like. This isn't an Xbox game. There are real repercussions to Bush's folly.

That said, I feel nothing over the death of merceneries. They aren't in Iraq because of orders, or because they are there trying to help the people make Iraq a better place. They are there to wage war for profit. Screw them.

Now you see it, now you don't!

What bothered me (and what might be a bigger scandal than a blogger trying to lie his way out of a spot): Did this guy get Google to do his bidding? Did he threaten to sue them? Does he know someone there? Or can any blogger do this?

And what about the advertising issue? Bill Quick offers some thoughts which strike a chord with me:

We cannot be divorced from the opinions we express. We don't get a "free zone" because we are bloggers. Not in the real world. Not in the grown-up world.

I expect I could have a considerably higher readership than I do, if, for instance, I never mentioned my support for gay rights and gay marriage, if I kept silent about my atheism and my loathing of the religiously obsessed who insist they have a right to impose their beliefs and the symbols of their beliefs on the rest of us, and several other stands I've taken that are at variance with commonly accepted conservatve doctrine. So I pay a price for my opinions, and I knew I would, going in. I'm also aware that no conservative Republican in his right mind is going to advertise on Daily Pundit, and any of them who try to do so will receive very expicit warning from me that I won't be changing my views to accomodate their ads or their candidates. Which means I won't be getting much advertising from that direction, most likely.

Kos can't have his cake and eat it, too. He is perfectly free, as far as I am concerned, to write, speak, or otherwise express any damned thing he wishes. His right to do so is constitutionally protected, and thank goodness for it. But it is not protected from the judgment of the marketplace - either the intellectual marketplace, or the financial marketplace. As a libertarian, I think it is perfectly appropriate for an advertiser to pull ads from a venue that embarasses that advertiser. It happens all the time in other media. Why should the blogosphere be immune? Especially a blogosphere that has pointed out many times that such campaigns are not censorship.

Kos offered a disgusting opinion, which he has a perfect right to do. But others have a perfect right to respond within the limits of the law. And his advertisers have a perfect right to understand in what sort of venue they are advertising.

He not only seems to feel he has earned the privilege to make any remark he chooses, then delete them at will and lie about it, but he's (apparently) privileged enough to issue edicts to or manipulate Google with impunity!

As I said in my comment, Bill Quick touched on an important issue, and that's blogger accountability:

I know that my criticism of Leon Kass and my disagreements with Republicans (generally similar to yours) would prevent me from getting any bigtime Republican ads. The reason is that they wouldn't want to face outraged moral conservatives in their own party.

And, from a moral perspective, what Kos did is much more outrageous than disagreeing with Kass or ridiculing the FMA.

What gives Kos the right to be a major voice in the Democratic Party?

An even worse scandal is his tinkering (apparently) with Google! How can he get away with this? He's done more than discredit himself; he's done much to discredit what I thought was a major backbone of the Internet.

If Kerry persists on advertising there, it will reflect very badly on him, and on his campaign.

It won't go away. I thought there was still some integrity in at least the mechanical nature of the Internet.

I guess I was wrong.

Who the hell does Google think they are allowing people to delete stuff from their cache? The New York Times?

And I am also bothered by the fact that after Kos jumped to Number One position in TTLB, he dared to complain of brutal mistreatment by Glenn Reynolds:

So I said something pretty stupid last week. I served up the wingnuts a big, juicy softball. They went into a tizzy, led by Instapundit.

And for a while, I was actually pretty worried.

But the final tally was -- about 30 hate-filled emails, about 15,000 hate-filled visitors, and the pulling of three advertising spots that are going to be replaced in less than a week. (I had two emails today about people wanting to advertise despite the controversy.)

That was it. Oh, they're doing their best to turn me into the devil, and they're making racist comments about my heritage and family and threatening to kick my ass -- you know, typical right-wing shit.

But if that's the best they can throw at me, I'll simply echo Kerry.

Bring it on.

You'd think Kos could do what any decent person would do. (After all, even the pro-Islamist CAIR decried the mutilations.)

Simply apologize. (To the families of these human beings.)

But he won't. So screw him.

UPDATE: Was I too harsh in saying "screw him" about Mr. Zuniga? Here's my deal: I'll apologize if and when he apologizes to the families of the victims. And to Senator Kerry! (Via Who Tends the Fires.)