Well, Pete Shinn has started to play the martyr, and has now about-faced and says the whole thing about falling for the Onion article was a joke, which “obviously thousands of you didn’t get.” Strange, then, that his article (now headed by a graphically bloody abortion photo) didn’t have even the slightest hint of humor nor any indication that it was anything but serious.

So now, after feigning pre-knowledge that the Onion is satire (while still putting the word “satire” in quotes and referring the the “author” as a real woman), he now proudly makes claims to cunningly “turning the ‘satire’ right back at them.” A rather feeble attempt of covering up his mess, considering that before the Onion piece, virtually no one was reading his blog, and no one from the other side of the debate had ever left a comment or any sign that they were reading the blog until after the Onion piece came out. So if almost no one was reading his blog, and he had no evidence that pro-choicers were even coming close to it, then who was the alleged satire-upon-satire aimed at? Clearly, Pete’s lying here.

I will say this: many of the comments left by antagonists on his posts were unacceptably abusive–not the kind of people with whom I’d like to be associated with. I won’t defend them, and I will condemn them–they were out of order by far. That said, if I put up a pro-choice post which was as foolish as Pete’s and it also became widely known by the other side, I would expect nothing less and probably much, much more in the way of viciousness and threats. Still bad, but hardly the one-sided issue Pete tried to make it out to be.

The comment count was up to a bit over a thousand on his initial post when Pete “shut down” the comments. That is, he shut down the links to the comments on his blog, though the comments still live on Haloscan, which hosts them–but you need the links to find them (here they are).

Pete’s excuse for “shutting down” the comments? Someone posted his phone number and home address in them. No explanation as to why he didn’t just delete the comment(s) that bore that information (which it seems he did anyway, the information is not there anymore). So what’s the real reason for no more comments? Probably the same reason Pete only paid attention to the most vile of comments which made him look good as a victim, and completely ignored the cogent ones.

It turns out there’s even more irony here: Pete himself posted his name, home phone, and home address, all on the Internet, easy for any fool to find with a 30-second Google search. In fact, it’s still up, on the pro-life “American Life League” associates page, right under his web site address. I won’t link to it, but I will ask: how can Pete complain that his detractors were guilty of underhanded tactics when he himself posts this information online, and then continues to leave it up?

Furthermore, Pete had no problem when a much more chilling post was made by one of his compatriots wrote a comment beginning, “I think it is morally jusified to kill a babykilling abortionist if that is the only way to stop him/her from murdering more innocent babies.” Again, irony abounds, as the comment was in response to this post, in which he lambastes a liberal radio talk show host for playing a sound effect of a gunshot; Pete sadly noted that “To many liberals, freedom of speech means they can say anything.” He apparently had no problem with the commenter then condoning murder. He even wrote that “if” pro-lifers said murdering abortion doctors was OK (as if many pro-lifers hadn’t maintained that for many years now), then the pro-life community as a whole would shun them. Well, a commenter immediately said that, and Pete didn’t say a peep or delete the comment. Hmmm.

Deepening the irony is the fact that it has long been a strategy for the pro-life side to publish the names, addresses, phone numbers and photographs of those the pro-lifers disapprove of, a most recent example being this guy in North Dakota who has been taking zoom-lens photos of all women who enter a clinic where abortions are performed, as well as photographing their license plates, and then posting them on the web.

In the end, Pete comes across looking like a pompous fool (falling for the Onion article), liar (denying he fell for the Onion article), coward (dumping the comments for no viable reason), false martyr (posting his own personal info online and keeping it up, then complaining when others “post” it), hypocrite (blaming others for his own act of posting personal info; blaming others of “ruining” the comments, while accepting far worse comments and actions from his own side), and clueless (apparently not realizing that the comments were not really shut down, just de-linked from his blog).

Again, I very much don’t like the over-the-line abuse that many commenters heaped on the guy. That does not, however, make the guy anything but what he appears to be–which is a mainstream pro-life activist, too wrapped up in his own crusade to be concerned with things like fact or reality.