Skirmish on the Right: Bloggers Disagree Over Conservatives With Criminal Pasts

This past week various bloggers on the right got into a snit fit over conservatives with a past.  The bloggers in question are Ali Akbar and Paul Lemmen.

Akbar had an unfortunate brush with the law, a youthful indiscretion, perhaps.  His mistake was not repeated.  Paul Lemmen, on the other hand, was a serious criminal who spent time in the joint.  He is currently out on parole and, apparently, trying hard to walk the straight and narrow.  Paul has blogged on the Kimberlin controversy and is a skilled writer.  However, there are those who would refuse to offer him fellowship based on his past.  A blogger named Ann Barnhardt takes that position.

Zilla of the Resistance appears willing to give Lemmen a chance and has refused to blacklist him from the society and brotherhood of conservative bloggers.  I agree with Zilla.  He deserves a chance.

I won't blacklist Akbar either, for the same reason.

What I won't do is tempt my blogger bros by putting them in charge of the treasury or even my own bank account, depleted as it is.  Neither would I put a recovering alcoholic in charge of a barn full of (filled) beer barrels.  That's just common sense.  Not right away, anyway.  I'd have to really get to know them and be sure they have the iron will to resist temptation.

Everyone deserves a chance to come back, to make amends, to rejoin society as a recovered miscreant.  However, it pays to be careful and even dealing with someone with a disturbing past.  And as Ann Barnhardt points out, Paul's past is very disturbing.  Nevertheless, I will give him a chance and add him to my blog list.

The reason why these two gentlemen are different from Brett Kimberlin is that Kimberlin seems to have learned little from his criminal past.  Kimberlin's ruthless lawfare episodes, his failed attempt to frame Aaron Walker for assault, his veiled threats to McCain and other bloggers, reveals Kimberlin as a man with no moral compass, no sense of right or wrong, no code of ethics.  The end justifies the means, and that makes him a perfect political activist for the left.

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