This week's blog entry is about a story you didn't read in The Virginia Gazette.
You didn't read it because I, along with Editor Rusty Carter and Publisher Bill O'Donovan thought it was a tawdry invasion of someone's privacy, and a political low blow that crossed the line.
If you live in the 1st Congressional District and you've followed other media, you probably know what I'm talking about.
Last week embarrassing photos of Democratic candidate Krystal Ball appeared on a Republican blog. The photos, from a party when Ball was 22, showed her in a Santa-themed dominatrix outfit with a man identified as her ex-husband wearing a red rubber phallus for a nose.
It looked a lot like the kind of thing most of us probably did once or twice while in college. Would you want everything you did in college spread across the Internet?
The photos quickly spread through the Republican blogosphere, and beyond, though many GOP bloggers took them down at the request of Rep. Rob Wittman's campaign.
The Wittman camp said it wanted to run on the issues and, from a practical standpoint, they don't need the controversy. They stand to trounce Ball in the heavily Republican 1st District. It would be a moral victory for her to score more than 40% of the vote.
That's what made the decision the decision to post the photos so mean-spirited. It was unnecessary and uncalled for. It was like kicking a crippled puppy.
