Sorry, folks, I’ve been a working boy. Yes, I paid dearly for my little all-expenses-paid trip up and down Sugarbush on Monday. But I won’t bore you with the details or annoy you with the whining.
About all I’ve been able to do over the last 36 hours is count on other blogs and bloggers to entertain me. Good luck with that. My goodness, they are a mighty whining bunch, huh? Everyone seems to have their panties in a huge wad over Odum’s apparent decision to step aside from Green Mountain Daily.
Personally, it feels like bullshit to me. As one commenter said, Odum does tend to be “overly dramatic.” And that, folks, is what this little resignation feels like. Well, that and the narcissistic hopes that all 36 GMD readers will come out and say what they’re mostly saying: “Oh Johnny, say it ain’t so!”
But let’s look at the facts before we all collectively drench our crying towels. First of all, Odum was not running the local church’s blog. Nope. He was a POLITICAL blogger – and he took sides and threw lots and lots of verbal darts at opponents. Granted, Snarky Boy usually thought those darts were sophomoric and/or mired in the liberal jargon of the day (e.g. Go Bernie! Go Peter! Martha Sucks! Douglas is an idiot!), but, for Odum and his band of ninny-weenies, they were darts nonetheless.
And Odum’s biggest “dart” of late was correctly aimed at the Second Vermont Republic (SVR) dorks who apparently got caught with southern racists in their midst. While that charge seems to be largely up in the air, the reaction from the SVR hierarchy was bizarre and, to say the least, not helpful to their reputations and/or believability. Instead of just doing what they should have done from the start – admit some judgment errors and shitcan the racist stench from their advisory board – they dug in their heels and made little but collective asses of themselves. My favorite for its pure dopiness was the statement by one-time-liberal-darling Rob Williams, who declared something like: “It’s none of my business if they’re racist in their private lives.” Oh yeah, Rob, run with that one….right into the ground.
But the granddaddy of SVR, Thomas Naylor, a man who I thought was always way too sleepy, pedantic and the antithesis to the man he revered, Ethan Allen, decided to make his response to Odum as personal as Odum had made his attack. Whereas Odum inferred that Naylor and his clan (oops, bad choice of words, but too delicious to delete) were racist, Naylor fought back by declaring in a press release that Odum worked for the Vermont Natural Resources Council (VNRC).
And here’s where it gets really weird: Odum is claiming that he’s quitting (for now) the blogging world over Naylor’s “outing” of his day job. According to Odum and his followers, that was “totally inappropriate and an attack on a man’s family.”
Say what? Everyone knew Odum worked as a rather low-level employee at one of Vermont’s many ineffective environmental groups. Hell, Snarky Boy posted several references to Odum’s position as the “associated director for membership” at VNRC. It’s not hard to find out, you know: Google him. Duh.
Something doesn’t smell right here. And, to my tired mind, you’ve got two options: Odum is backing off from his attacks on SVR or VNRC is putting the screws to Odum. If I were a betting boy, I’d take the latter.
So let’s look at that scenario for a second. If VNRC is busting Odum’s balls over the GMD site – again, a site that is very tame and liberal – what does that say about VNRC? Oh, how pathetic can they be? What part of Odum’s ass-kissing to Welch, Sanders, Leahy and any other anointed person to the Democratic Party’s elite did VNRC not agree with? And, even if they did disagree with any of it, Odum quite clearly was doing this on his own time and in his own way.
But the crying-towel liberals will be as ineffective on this one as they have been on every other issue they whine about: they’ll whine, cry, bitch, moan and point fingers. But action? Forgetaboutit. Even though there seems to be a very simple plan of action here: Confront VNRC on its apparent crack down on the Constitutional rights of one of its employees. Because if, as Odum is inferring, VNRC is nervous about his blogging to the point of scaring Odum into quitting, shouldn’t VNRC be called on to respond to this? Snarky Boy thinks so.
Again, let’s remember that Odum was playing what he thought was hardball at GMD. He did, for example, make all kinds of wild – and untrue – accusations about this blogger. But I certainly understand the game of slings and arrows: you throw some and you receive some. Get over it or quit because you don’t have thick skin, not with some seemingly contrived drama meltdown.
Speaking of drama, my favorite comment from the Odum-criers came from Steve West, who had this to say: “Even if Odum’s posting was wildly off base and without merit, the response was, dare I say, nasty and personal.”
Again, let me remind you that Odum inferred that Naylor and the SVR crowd was associated with racists and, by not acting, coddling and perhaps even supportive of racists (again, all points that Odum made rather well and believably). But all Naylor had in response was: “Odum works for VNRC and do they know he might be blogging on company time.”
So, Mr. West, do you really think being accused of working for VNRC is getting “nasty and personal,” even if it’s in response to being “wildly off base” for calling someone a racist? Sorry, but that’s just whacked.
Odum and his supporters should be sticking to their guns. If they believe in what they exposed and what they want out of a GMD website, they shouldn’t cower at the first sign of a counter-attack – especially when it’s whacked.
Sound familiar? It should. It’s right out of the liberals “do nothing but whine” playbook. People like to say that Karl Rove is a genius, but with opponents like this who wouldn’t look smart.
Come on, Odum, get off your quitting ass and fight back. And, as for his so-called supporters, start questioning Elizabeth Courtney and the rest of the VNRC hierarchy about what appears to be their troubling treatment of an employee.
Goddamn liberals, they always show you to the ring but never show up to fight.
Bottom line: Odum picked a fight and has now left everyone to fight it for him. Sorry, that’s not admirable. That’s pathetic.
