Eugene Kane: Control the Blogs

Black Journal-Sentinel columnist Eugene Kane has been under considerable fire in the blogosphere lately, and he has responded with a tirade about the evils of blogs.

The most striking, and revealing, passage is this:

Reading negative blogs is no different from the talk radio squawkers in town who have attempted to paint me as a racist ideologue for years, even as they get tripped up with their own personal scandals involving hate speech suspensions and libel lawsuits.

The blogosphere has no sheriff to police most of the comments or statements. But I predict the legal system eventually will step in to restrain some of the more outrageous commentary sent out over the blogosphere.

Some of this stuff is just too ugly to let go unchecked.

Nobody checks your credentials — or your credibility — at the blogosphere door.

Since bloggers are already subject to the laws against libel that apply to everybody else, Kane must be talking about some other kind of “restraint.”

Does he want blogs licensed? Does he want a requirement that bloggers have “credentials?”

One thing is clear: he doesn’t think that free speech — at least if directed against people like him — should go “unchecked.”