Back in April I wrote in It's the end of the world as we know it, the following about Charles Johson and his Little Green Footballs:

Back in 1999-2000, when I was testing different blog publishing platforms that would liberate me from the hell of Dreamweaver, I stumbled upon a blog that was refreshing and inspiring: a geek posting his code and web design ideas along with his thoughts on the topics of the day. That blog was Little Green Footballs and it was published by a guy called Charles Johnson, part tongue-in-cheek pundit, part awesomely generous code jock.

Then the attacks of September 11 happened.

Back in 2002, Anil Dash best describes my feelings about what happened to Charles Johnson: Since the attacks, Charles, at least in the context of his weblog, lost his shit.

For us old-school bloggers, political activism came out of our very personal values and had nothing to do with political parties. It explains why Charles Johnson is still reticent about calling LGF a blog just about politics. It also explains why Six Apart's Chief Evangelist, got into one of the first very public political altercations in the blogosphere during his Quixotic quest to understand the islamophobia heaped by barrels from Little Green Footballs.

Little Green Footballs went to such a deep end that even a white (albeit nuanced) supremacist Norwegian like the anonymous blogger Fjordman (a darling of the extreme-right blogosphere), had called out Charles Johnson and his blog as examples of Islamophobia and racism in the blogosphere. It also earned the blog it's own "watch blog" (LGF Watch) and even the scorn of Zionist and anti-Jihadist activists.

So is there something new going on at LGF? Are they coming back from that dark ring of hate they used to dwell in?

Well, it seems that finally somebody in the right wing blogosphere has had enough of the extremism that engulfed the GOP like a cancer. In Little Green Footballs - Why I Parted Ways With The Right, Charles tells us why he's done with them:

1. Support for fascists, both in America (see: Pat Buchanan, Robert Stacy McCain, etc.) and in Europe (see: Vlaams Belang, BNP, SIOE, Pat Buchanan, etc.)

2. Support for bigotry, hatred, and white supremacism (see: Pat Buchanan, Ann Coulter, Robert Stacy McCain, Lew Rockwell, etc.)

3. Support for throwing women back into the Dark Ages, and general religious fanaticism (see: Operation Rescue, anti-abortion groups, James Dobson, Pat Robertson, Tony Perkins, the entire religious right, etc.)

4. Support for anti-science bad craziness (see: creationism, climate change denialism, Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann, James Inhofe, etc.)

5. Support for homophobic bigotry (see: Sarah Palin, Dobson, the entire religious right, etc.)

6. Support for anti-government lunacy (see: tea parties, militias, Fox News, Glenn Beck, etc.)

7. Support for conspiracy theories and hate speech (see: Alex Jones, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Birthers, creationists, climate deniers, etc.)

8. A right-wing blogosphere that is almost universally dominated by raging hate speech (see: Hot Air, Free Republic, Ace of Spades, etc.)

9. Anti-Islamic bigotry that goes far beyond simply criticizing radical Islam, into support for fascism, violence, and genocide (see: Pamela Geller, Robert Spencer, etc.)

10. Hatred for President Obama that goes far beyond simply criticizing his policies, into racism, hate speech, and bizarre conspiracy theories (see: witch doctor pictures, tea parties, Birthers, Michelle Malkin, Fox News, World Net Daily, Newsmax, and every other right wing source)

Before there was a "netroots" or a "rightroots" there was a group of blog communities that moved the political commentary of the day: Slashdot, Metafilter, BoingBoing and Little Green Footballs. Not even DailyKos was relevant when I started reading (1999) and dwelling (2001) in the blogosphere.

Yet what's more interesting to me is how Charles has kept LGF close to his heart and his identity and to me that' what's so invaluable about this blog post. His blog has been a very personal journey. It wasn't meant to be a business plan. It wasn't meant to be his product. Little Green Footballs is Charles Johnson.

The blog has changed because he has changed and that's an amazing thing to own up to: That you weren't the "complete" person people thought you'd be. That the space in which you post a bit of your soul is not just a product or a brand. It is you. 

Yet the bottom line is simple: Owning up to growing up after a certain age or status is not what most people expect or even want you to do. The fact Charles has done so and rather publicly is truly remarkable and fascinating.

Good job Chuck and welcome back.