The Horns Of An Ethical Dilemma, Updated

So, this local blogger expresses puzzlement on his blog after an unidentified reader pulled up 150 of his old blog entries in the span of an hour. I should mention that this blogger is considering running for State Senate, and that he's already getting advice on blog entries that might come back to haunt him in a campaign:

... the "damage" may be already done, eh? I think you would be justified in deleting content you think could be spun against you, before someone archives the whole blog.

The use of the word "justified" in that comment is jarring. The word denotes ethical judgment, but the commenter applies it in a statement about strategy, and thus, political power. It seems to me that the issue of deleting content from your blog in the event that you consider running for public office is a fair question of ethics, rather than merely a raw tilt in some power equation of a potential political campaign. So, whether the blogger is "justified" or not remains open to question and deliberation.

01/03/2006, 2:00 P.M. Update: Chris Wage thinks that deleting content from the blog to protect a political campaign would be "terrible" for ethical and strategic reasons:

Deleting content would have two ramifications:
1) Demonstrates that you have something to hide [i.e., ethics]
2) Comes back to bite you when it's discovered on any one of the many places on the Internet where content goes even if you delete it (archive.org, google, etc) [i.e., strategy]