You know if something shady like this happened to a prominent Republican (oh, say, like Tom Delay) — or, comparing apples to apples, if something like this had happened to a prominent conservative blogger — imagine this exact same story…

Now imagine the horror if the name was “Michelle Malkin” instead of Jerome Armstrong.

Well — let’s just say that it would be front page fodder at the biggest sites in the Left-o-sphere, such as The DailyKos and MyDD:

Prominent liberal blogger Jerome Armstrong has agreed to pay nearly $30,000 in fines in a settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission over allegations that Armstrong touted the stock of a software company, without disclosing that he was being paid to do so, the NY TIMES reports.

Armstrong is the co-author of _Crashing the Gate: Netroots, Grassroots, and the Rise of People-Powered Politics,_ with Markos Moulitsas of Daily Kos. He is also the founder of the Democratic activist site MyDD.com.

Dishonest. Crook.

Is it any wonder prominent politicians like Howard Dean are so eager to hire this guy?

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OTHERS:

Roger Simon:

Now, as we all know, sleaze and corruption are not unique to either side of the political spectrum. But Armstrong, Kos & their netroot cronies have made a big deal out of clean government (and they should). So this kind of allegation speaks even more deeply to their ethics, as it it would for anyone in that position.

Yep.

This is rich — how does the ever-pithy DailyKos respond to Drudge (who was just reporting a NY Times article)? By debating the merits of the story? By defending Mr. Armstrong? By at least claiming that he was set up by Karl Rove?

Nope. They accuse Matt Drudge of being gay:

Famous self-hating closeted homosexual and right wing propagandist blogger Matt Drudge has taken aim at the DailyKos community today.

Ah, when all else fails and you’re completely void of substantiative arguments — sling mud.

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*In the interest of full disclosure, I was not paid by anybody to tout this opinion.

UPDATE – Pajamas Media has an explanation of what exactly Jerome did wrong:

In this particular case, the SEC release accused Armstrong of encouraging investors to keep trying to buy shares of stock in what one can discern as an illiquid issue (liquidity is a measure of how easy it is to buy or sell shares in a company without creating great swings in price) so he could sell into the market he was in part creating by his recommendation. Further, the complaint alleged that Armstrong was receiving shares in BluePoint and other companies at below current market prices and he then sold that stock at a profit, again without disclosure of this alleged conflict of interest.