Soldiers' Angel - Holly Aho

UPDATE: 6:07 AM: Bobby Calvan's blog, posts and all- along with an apology, are back up!

Yes, I’m obviously new to blogging. Sometimes I share too much. The blogosphere has reacted and pointed out my folly. Yes, I can be pushy. Arrogant, too. I can also be wrong.

Consider this my apology.

It's not that great of an apology, as it only mentions blogging faux pas, with barely a mention about the soldier he ridiculed, but in the end it's better than nothing.

UPDATE 7:58 PM: Army Vet writes -

I find Bobby Calvan's blog post to be disrespectful and insulting to the brave men and women who are in harm's way. His behavior toward that soldier was reprehensible and then to gloat in such a public display demonstrates a lack of professionalism, deccency and class.

But what goes around comes around. As a means of pressuring Mr. Calvan and his employers into publicly apologizing to the soldier who was the recipient of the brow beating, I have registered the domain www.bobbycalvan.com and have posted Mr. Calvan's blog entry in its entirety as well as replies and more importantly, the contact information of his employers at The Bee and The McClatchy Company.

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In the past few days there have been two stunning examples of newspapers with egg on their faces, and writers they can't seem to control. The odd contrast is that one writer is a 'professional' reporter, and the other is a soldier looking for his 15 minutes.

The 'professional' reporter is Bobby Caina Calvan, and his mistake was to write a blog post of the most idiotic kind. I've actually never seen something so awful before, and it almost reads as a spoof (though it surely is not). It put in mind the detective from the movie There's Something About Mary. It seems Bobby views himself as a cavalier man of the world, worldly, tough and cool. His writing however screams that he's a social geek, and perhaps a little naive.

Shortly after posting an article that spoke poorly of American soldiers, and having his blog flooded with angry comments, Bobby edited his post, then removed his post. That not being enough, he removed his whole blog. Must have been some blowback. In any case, Ace, DocWeasel and Blackfive have the original post of Calvan's up, along with their own thoughts on this story. (Doc's post also has the original comments to the post)

What's interesting in this case is that while the initial reaction from the blogosphere was a strongly negative one, and the fact that this guy is a MSM reporter gives him an almost automatic ticket to crapville on this ride, Doc has an interesting and almost surely true point in this post - Bobby Calvan might be salvagable.

Doc wrote Bobby an email (and nicely worded one at that!) and made this point:

Anyway, you’ll find the ‘net can turn around quickly if you apologize. Make a new post, open comments, and I’ll be damned if you don’t get some acknowledgment for being a stand-up guy, even if they still think you were a jerk in the original instance.

He's probably right. Did Bobby take the advice? Uh, no.

Then, there's Beauchamp. Beauchamp is the soldier with similarly awful stories, albeit printed ones, at The New Republic. (Incidentally, you can no longer find those stories there, as any search for "Beauchamp" or "Scott Thomas" returns no results). Beauchamp also has a blog, but it wasn't his blog that got him in trouble. Beauchamp wrote 'anonymously' at TNR, but outed himself in his last article. His stories sounded fishy, and they are now purported to be complete BS, as Beauchamp himself apparently won't stand by his writings.

The blogosphere had plenty to say about that too, of course. None of it was kind, (with few exceptions anyways), and while accurate in their analysis of the situation most bloggers covering the story seemed to express an almost similar sentiment towards Beauchamp as those expressed in the comments to Bobby in his blog post.

The differences in these two stories? Beauchamp is trying to make it right, and has yet to get the acknowledgment that Doc mentions to Bobby.

Both of these men have made horrible mistakes. One of them has learned from that mistake and one (so far) has not. While the big story for Beauchamp is not just his make believe but the newspaper's involvement, can't he (personally) at least get a break from the blogosphere? We've all been young and stupid at one time or another, and if Doc thinks we would have forgiven Bobby and even called him a 'stand up guy', why can't we actually do that for someone who really is trying to make it right?