Centerfield

Which Is The Real New Democrat?

You will have noticed some new bloggers here, including Max, a 17 year old prodigy who has a blog called The New Democrat. Imagine my confusion then, when Andrew Sullivan linked to a blog called The New Democrat. As far as I can tell, this new blog was created in 2005, while Max was blogging in 2004. I believe that Max has priority, and this new blog should modify its name. Blog names are not trademarked, so I suppose another blog could come along and call itself Centerfield or Instapundit, but I would hope peer pressure from other bloggers would ensure that names cannot be duplicated willy-nilly.

On the merits, the new blogger seems to be a Zell Miller Democrat, who likes George Bush better than John Kerry. Not my cup of tea, but within the parameters of centrism, and I would be willing to add the blog to the centrist blogroll, but not under the same name as an already existing blog.

Update: I've done a new post, explaining my exchange of emails with the duplicate New Democrat blog. He has refused to change names. Ricky has also deleted a post, and comments on the blog. Based on this and additional information I've received, I conclude that he is an unethical individual, perhaps the most unethical blogger I'm come across in my three years in the blogosphere. Centerfield will not link to his blog again, even if he does change its name.

Clarification: In case I've caused any confusion, Ron is the originator of the charge that Ricky is a fraud. The post on tas's blog referenced in my second post makes that point and contains a link to Ron's blog. I am not making that allegation myself, just reporting what Ron and Tas have charged. Before Ron added a link to his blog in a comment here, I assumed that Ricky was a neophyte who had made an innocent mistake in taking the name of a blog that was already in use. My knowledge of Ricky's previous blog, John Kerry's The New Soldier, came from Ricky's own Full Disclosure post.

Personally, I don't care what else Ricky has been up to. I would just like him to change the name of his blog to something unique. He has no legal obligation to do so, as far as I know, but it would be the right thing to do.