It appears that Will Vehrs, one of Virginia’s leading bloggers (formerly of this blog) and pundits has run afoul of state politicians and local economic developers from the Martinsville and Henry County regions due to comments he made in jest for the Commonwealth Conservative weekly caption contest. Will works for one of Virginia’s economic development agencies, and on last Friday, he submitted quite a few entries, all seemingly under the auspices of good fun. Now, those jokes have quickly turned into a little tempest.
So far, many of the state’s leading bloggers and blog readers have come to Will’s defense, while acknowledging that his comments may have stung some of the more sensitive members of the “victimized” communities. Will quickly offered a heartfelt apology, but that move failed to satisfy some local leaders. Now, the stakes have been raised even more as Del. Ward Armstrong is calling for Will’s head, and others, like Sen. Roscoe Reynolds are adding fuel to the fire.
In truth, Will may have exercised questionable judgment in submitting these comments, and the fact that he contributed several dozen does not look good. But, given that the people that he poked fun at were his own colleagues, and that he apparently has done nice work for and with them, this should never have generated such a high level of controversy. It even got to the point where a noted national blog, Instapundit, picked up on the story.
How this matter plays out should be of interest to all public employees – actually all employees, period – who engage in blogging and opinion writing unrelated to their jobs. Sure, we walk a fine line, but for those of us who blog under our own names, we are simply exercising our rights and engaging in our duties as responsible citizens. One mistake, if you can even deem Will’s comments as such, should not cost him his job or his reputation. If that happens, it should send chills down the spine of all of the Commonwealth’s civil service community and the general citizenry.
The response from Del. Armstrong & Co. was uncalled for, but it is yet another demonstration of how far some politicians will go to score brownie points with constituents while casting aside notions of freedom of speech for others. It is especially troubling when the “free-speaker” (or writer in this case) in question is a public employee who was not acting in any official capacity. Del. Armstrong & Co. should remember that standing in the bully pulpit is one thing, but simply being a bully is another matter altogether.
Without a doubt, this will be a lesson for Will and for all of us in the political blogging community. I’m sure that we will all be a bit more circumspect about blogging during work hours. This should also be a lesson to all the local economic developers out there who are so focused on marketing their locales that they ignore the sometimes harsh reality of those places. The “product” is what it is, and while no one likes to be made fun of, lashing back only enhances the embarrassment for those regions. Though cooler heads may and should prevail, with General Assembly politicians taking a moment out of their busy schedule of do-nothingness to address this non-issue, this situation seems far from over.
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