So I read about Dave Weigel (DC reporter, libertarian but apparently moderate, reliable critic of nutty right-wingers) getting private correspondences leaked to the media and being forced to resign after that, my first thought was, "What does that say about me?" (All the previous post's disclaimers about self-centeredness still stand, of course.)

About Weigel himself, it sucks. Here's the general story, and other places say he's already resigned. By the way, in most places with posts about this - Politico, for example - nine out of 10 critics seem to accuse him of being some extreme liberal, which is moronic if not dishonest and very probably both. Just getting that out of the way. I agree with John Cole about it all, and Andrew Sullivan has made some interesting points I'll be getting to in a minute.

So, back to me. Yesterday some time, I was looking at the Facebook page of a woman I dated for a little while. I saw a link to her apparently new personal Web site aimed at drumming up business as a freelance journalism/Web designer, and I saw Weigel on her list of friends. I clicked through and read what I could see of his profile that was publically available and wondered about things for a bit. Is he a horrible person (he is, after all, a libertarian, and a good enough friend of Megan McArdle to go to her wedding, and McArdle is a horrible person), or am I a horrible person for being so judgmental and draconian, or what? Meh, 10 minutes of musing introspection, big deal. But the recent mention of and thought about him made me pay attention to today's news about him when I otherwise might have skipped it entirely.

First, early today I got nagged by my supervisors about missing some details in a recent project I really should have caught. I'd say "I got chewed out", but they weren't aggressive enough to merit that description and I'm too deferential to give someone an easy opening for that. (Deferential? Nebbish? Laid-back?) A pretty big instance of not being details-oriented enough.

And then there's Weigel, doing good and arguably influential work on political topics. And then there's Michael Hastings, an awesome reporter about whom I happened to learn a little more today. And there's even that girl I dated, who judging by that Web site has done even more impressive stuff than I knew about.

And then there's me, who gets reprimanded for not paying enough attention to a pretty simple project and still spends most of the rest of the day coming up with Magic: the Gathering deck ideas and writing this. Makes me wonder yet again if I should be doing more with myself.

And it's sad or maybe just funny how quickly I get into "the enemy of my enemy" mode; just yesterday I was wondering if I should be ashamed of being one degree of separation from Weigel (I've also met him at a party once, FBOFW), but today he gets forced out of his job for being critical of right-wingers, so I call people who denigrate him dishonest morons (well, they are, but that's not the point).