Yes folks it’s official – us bloggers – we’re dangerous.
At least that is the feeling of Belgium’s Minister of Defense Pieter De Crem after his escapades in New York City were mention on a Dutch American bartender blog (in Dutch). The only problem is Nathalie Lubbe Bakker who is the one out of a job now after De Crem’s office contacted Nathalie’s boss where she bar-tended and reportedly had her fired.
While no-one if the know has confirmed whether the reason she was fired was because of the blog post itself or because of the phone call the fact is that yet another blogger has lost their job because of writing on a blog. The story has caused quite the buzz in the Belgian blogosphere and has started to branch out from there. It doesn’t help though when De Crem mouths off against bloggers in general over the incident
I want to take this opportunity and use this non-event to signal a dangerous phenomenon in our society. We live in a time where everybody is free to publish whatever he or she wants on blogs at will without taking any responsibility. This exceeds mud-slinging. Together with you, other Parliament members and the government I find that it’s nearly impossible to defend yourself against this. Everyone of you is a potential victim. I would like to ask you to take a moment and think about this.
He also stated that he is going to be seeking legal counsel in order to defend his personal integrity . Well you do that buddy but I tell ya what – it might help if you stopped getting drunk in a public bar on your Belgian taxpayer dollars.
