America needs Ron Paul more than ever, and everyone who supports Ron Paul loves him as he is the closest thing to family we have ever seen in government.

Ron Paul, for what is just, what is right, and what is our Nation’s root modus, the Constitution and Freedom and Liberty for All.

February 10, 2006 – 2:56pm.
http://www.capitolhillblue.com/cont/node/32
Doug must have channeled Rose Mary Woods – LOL,

THOMPSON LEAVES CAPITOL HILL BLUE
Monday, February 06, 2006 – FreeMarketNews.com

Capitol Hill Blue announced Saturday that its founder, Doug Thompson, has decided to leave the Internet site, where he covered politics among other things, in favor of local journalism. According to the website’s own account, the site and its management will now be in the hands of “a consortium of Washington-based journalists who will publish Capitol Hill Blue in addition to their regular jobs with mainstream print publications and broadcast media.”
http://www.freemarketnews.com/WorldNews.asp?nid=6960
It named Theresa Hampton, who has twice served as editor in the past, as the new editor/publisher. Thompson, himself, wrote a farewell, although he did leave room for a possible return to writing about politics in the future. In his apparently final “rant,” he noted the need for “a break” noting that “I’m tired and this tilting at windmills business is exhausting.”

My impression at the time was that this wasn’t entirety a voluntary move. At that time I drifted away from the CHB, I didn’t even know that DT returned.

I got burned a year ago and I’m still pissed about it. So… like you say, thats my “blog-like gut reaction.” I am a small time blogger and don’t claim to be anything else. If DT and CHB were just another popular blog like Kos or Malkin, fine. But they claim to be something else, they claim to hold themselves to a higher journalistic standard and they fail spectacularly by the standards they claim for themselves. That makes them different (another “blog-like gut reaction” on my part). In fact, it is so odd, so weird, and so blatant that I have wondered whether the whole site is some sort of elaborate practical joke, or maybe some kind of social experiment conducted by academics that will be revealed in a PHD dissertation some day. Thompson is a really good writer though. That is what makes the site seductive and quoteable. Anyway, I just think that anytime that site is referenced, readers should be made aware of its questionable history.

“I’m getting a bit tired of Capitol Hill Blue. It’s an unreliable web site which I’d never read before July 16, and I think it’s staffed by sock puppets… is it possible that reasonable people might be able to agree that regardless of who or what it is, or how, or why it originated, Capitol Hill Blue has been so thoroughly discredited, that it should not be relied on by anyone, anywhere, ever again?”

It is a great read.

I am speaking from experience, as I quoted DT in a post where he claims that GWB said the Constitution was “A god damn piece of paper” in a meeting. CHB has subsequently retracted, “disappeared”, and restored that story on their site. I corrected my piece but left it out there with the correction and links to Eric’s story as a cautionary tale for other bloggers.

CHB is a very odd duck, made worse by their claims to be a journalistic site and a higher standard than a blog.

I actually saw a John Birch Society bumper sticker the other day. Shouldn’t have been surprised considering where I live, didn’t think it was an organization that had much following or power anymore though. Maybe they are making a come back?

Anyway, you do nail the “moral of the story,” and I’m sure many of the commenters here (certainly me) as well as some of the bloggers have paid a price for hitting send before fully engaging brain.