Lefty bloggers, hateship vs mateship

As noted in an earlier post, Australia's lefty bloggers refused to promote fellow Australian lefty blogger Tim Dunlop's brief posting stint at the malevolent Tim Blair's right-wing blog. Tim Dunlop has since returned to his regular site, Road to Surfdom.

Well, one of Tim Dunlop's Australian comrades – Mark Bahnisch – finally got around to acknowledging Dunlop's posts at Tim Blair's but not until Dunlop was already back at Surfdom. I wasn't going to follow-up my earlier post but changed my mind after visiting Bahnisch's site. Bahnisch observes in his post:

One thing I noticed was that few of Tim’s regular commenters made the journey with him, and the comments threads on his posts were largely inhabited by small b blairites. Never the twain shall meet?

Well, Mark, how were Dunlop's regulars to know he was going to post at Tim Blair's since no one, other than Blair himself, put out the word?

Then, in comments there's this from Ron:

As much as I admire and like Tim Dunlop, having to visit him at THAT site is too much of an ask.

So, Tim Blair is so reviled by the lefties that they can't even go to his site, ignore his posts and find and read Tim Dunlop's posts. Talk about hate overcoming reason ...

Soon thereafter is this by Amanda, pretty neatly summing up the situation:

I didn’t even know he was at TB’s site until I read it on Surfdom today. Did I miss the announcement? I don’t think I made of stern enough stuff to start commenting there though.

Yep, that's it alright, there was no way the lefty bloggers were going to publicize Dunlop's stint at Blair's because self-interest and hate prevented them. Hell, I bet Dunlop even got hate mail from some of his comrades – he did seem to make a hasty exit from Tim Blair's, before his new site was fully operational. (I have no doubt the lefty bloggers were expecting Dunlop would be bagged by Blair's supposedly nasty regulars and were mystified, not to mention disconcerted, at the relatively warm reception he got.)

The bottom line is this: Australia's lefty bloggers regularly link to one another when it suits their self-promotional interests but couldn't bring themselves to link to Dunlop at Blair's because Dunlop would be posting to a readership probably bigger than all of the lefties put together. Mateship goes only so far ...

Oh yeah, if you want a laugh, read the comments at Bahnisch's after I dared to point out the obvious – lucky I have thick skin, but most of us pussy-trolls do.

Update: Super-brain Jason – he might get it eventually, but probably not – Soon in comments at Bahnisch's (go to the link immediately above):

wow, that JF Beck has leveraged *two* posts out of this little incident.
seriously, I had no idea that Tim D was posting at Tim B’s simply because I don’t visit Tim B’s site very much anymore and last I checked Tim D didn’t leave any notice on his abandoned old site. simple as that really, and i suspect the same applies to most other ‘lefty’ bloggers who missed this brief period when the lion lay down with the lamb

See Jason, that's the whole point, some of the lefty bloggers had to know that Dunlop would be posting at Blair's but they didn't spread the word. Dumb-arse.