It was only a matter of time

Sophie Cunningham has a good 'a plague on both your houses' piece at the ABC's website today. And, in response, one commenter has resorted to an oldie but a goodie:

But here is an interesting fact for you: Most of the insulting posters were being carried by young men who definitely did not look like they belonged at the rally. These men were also loud and foul-mouthed.
It is my opinion that they were plants trying to make the genuine protesters look like rabble. In fact I heard many comments to that effect. I believe this is a tactic often used by the left to disrupt protests they don't agree with.

See, it wasn't nice To-ny or his nice friends at all. It was teh Evil Left!!11!1eleventy!!

How do we know this? Because they were young! And they used bad words!

If you're looking for me, I'll be out playing in the traffic.

More on Grog's Gamut

 Margaret Simons has a must-read post up at The Content Makers on the ethics of journalist James Massola's outing in The Australian of the blogger formerly known as Grog's Gamut, including a crystalline bit of analysis by Swinburne lecturer in media ethics Denis Muller.

Among other excellent points, he makes this one:

... there is another public-interest consideration to be taken into account here, and that is the public interest in having a plurality of voices in the public space or, as John Milton called it, the marketplace of ideas.  If, as a result of the outing, Mr Jericho withdraws from the public space, the Australian polity will be the poorer; it will have been harmed.  The harm would be negligible, certainly, but the principle is not negligible.  Ethical reporting requires that such possible consequences be identified and an honest rationale be developed to justify causing them.