LEE SIEGEL, last seen accusing the blogosphere of thuggery, has been suspended by The New Republic for sock-puppetry. There sure seems to be a lot of that going around.

The New Republic also seems to have sent all of his posts to the memory hole, which seems rather extreme.

UPDATE: Reader C.J. Burch writes: “We are approaching an election and the left and the press are in full melt down mode. I’ve seen this movie before.”

Meanwhile, here’s a non-left/right take: “Siegel is perhaps the single most pretentious person in America today, close to unreadable at length no matter the topic on which he is writing and immensely uninteresting as a blogger. It turns out he was conspiring with someone to post comments on his blog — evidently to create the impression that said blog had at least one reader.” Ouch. Upside: Now James Wolcott’s position in the blogosphere is unchallenged!