I’m not going to jump into the fray between the right and left over WilliamsGate and the developing BloggerGate, as described in this story in the WSJ.

Clearly, the situation with the Bush Education Department paying Armstrong Williams money to schill for No Child Left Behind is not only a pretty embarrassing revelation, but the move was pretty ineffective. First, Williams has been a hack for a long time. Few people take him or his opinion seriously. In a media universe with loudmouths like Michael Savage, wannabe hotties Ann Coulter, and superstars like Rush Limbaugh, why even waste any money on a hack like Williams? Stupid on all counts.

The flip side of this are the new revelations that some bloggers took money from the Dean campaign to act as “consultants”. Now, the two stories are clearly different. The bloggers in question did disclose their connection to Dean, but probably failed to be as forthcoming as they should have been. The problem is that bloggers are often seen as being more virtuous than they deserve. While the inherent bias of bloggers is pretty much assumed these days, there’s been little discussion about the motives behind the blog. Are we surprised that bloggers can be bought, even if we use that word loosely?

This is the ethical gray area that the blogosphere has been built in. The same types of self-disclosure and accountability expected of mainstream media, corporate America, and the government are not expected of bloggers. It becomes more troubling since bloggers typically represent themselves and not a larger institution that provides a paycheck. The result is that bloggers, for good or for ill, are motivated by self-interest. Would they take money to pimp a candidate? Would they accept gifts — iPods, TiVos, etc. — to provide favorable reviews? Sure they would. This shouldn’t surprise us, nor should it offend us. It’s simply the rules of engagement in the blogosphere.