A blogospheric brouhaha has erupted over Ed Whelan's outing of pseudonymous blogger "Pubulis" "Publius" as John Blevins of the South Texas School of Law. Glenn Reynolds has a round-up of links, which have generally been disapproving of Whelan's move.

I've blogged under my own name since I started this blog more than 7 years ago over at Blogspot, probably to the detriment of my previous career in newspapers. I've had other bloggers attack me from time to time from the comfort of anonymity and I didn't like it. It's tough to determine the weight to give to a person's claims about their education or experience when you have no idea whether or not they're making things up. Also, it's one thing to blog anonymously, but it's another to appoint yourself as a public blogger's nemesis while insisting on keeping your own name out of it.

So, I generally have little tolerance or respect for most bloggers who are unwilling to stand behind what they post on the Internet. There are, of course, exceptions. I understand why some people prefer anonymity and why it may be necessary (China, or totalitarian regimes for example).

So, this was a long essay to say, basically, that I don't care. In fact, I wouldn't have wasted the time writing about this if it wasn't for this "excuse" given by Blevins in his "woe is me" post.

I also believe that the classroom should be as nonpolitical as possible – and I don’t want conservative students to feel uncomfortable before they take a single class based on my posts.

I'd be curious to hear what Blevins' former students have to say about this statement. My first impulse is to call Bolshevik Storytelling on this particular reason for wanting anonymity. Based upon Blevins' antagonism towards Whelan, I'm doubtful that he would really care about the comfort level of a conservative in his class.