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Blogger Ed Whelan at The Corner offers an explanation for his behavior in outing an anonymous blogger that has to be described in only one word: "Obamaesque".

Excuse #1: "Nobody needs to be pseudonymous."

A blogger may choose to blog under a pseudonym for any of various self-serving reasons, from the compelling (e.g., genuine concerns about personal safety) to the respectable to the base. But setting aside the extraordinary circumstances in which the reason to use a pseudonym would be compelling, I don’t see why anyone else has any obligation to respect the blogger’s self-serving decision.

With this much projection, Whelan needs to be opening a movie theater.

For some reason, despite the clear and present danger that this blogger's anonymity presents, in Whelan's opinion, the person has managed to blog for years without anyone else engaging in the same sort of e-stalking that Whelan has done. Did Whelan bother to postulate why so many other people were content to live and let live?

Excuse #2: "He's a hypocrite."

Blevins desired to be unaccountable—irresponsible—for the views he set forth in the blogosphere. He wanted to present one face to his family, friends, and colleagues and another to the blogosphere.

Based, of course, on Whelan's exhaustive analysis and Cerebro scans that says the blogger has never actually told anyone else about their blog.

The irony of this is that these kind of outings are self-fulfilling prophecies; people blog pseudononymously because they don't want their families, friends, and jobs involved in online arguments, and then people like Whelan go right ahead and drag their families, friends, and jobs into these things.

Why? Well, that leads us to Excuse #3: "It's HIS fault!"

If he wanted to avoid the risk of being associated publicly with his views, he shouldn’t have blogged.

Sure. And if people didn't want their employers picketed, their churches vandalized, or white powder mailed to their offices, they shouldn't have donated to organizations that were against Proposition 8.

This really is what puts the godawful stink on this whole process. Whelan has inadvertently made it clear that his whole point in doing this is to create problems for the blogger with said blogger's "family, friends, and colleagues". This has nothing to do with what was said; this has everything to do with creating trouble outside the blogosphere for someone who disagrees with you with the sole intent of getting them to stop doing whatever it is with which you disagree by hurting them somehow.

That isn't honest dialogue; it's hostage taking.

This blog exists primarily because of my utter revulsion and disgust for people who engage in this sort of behavior. Ed Whelan is now among them.

Roundup of opinion at Instapundit.

R.S. McCain offers a slightly-different perspective (Rule #2! Rule #2!).

Along similar lines, I'm linking Little Miss Attila's post because a) she's in California, b) she qualifies as a Talented, Sexy, and Beautiful Straight Woman Who Blogs, and 3) she has a gun and knows how to use it.