Have you seen/heard about the anonymous blog born two weeks ago? It's aimed exclusively at questioning the performance of first-term Democratic Congressman Peter Welch.

And we do mean exclusive. The blog is named Welch Watch and promotes itself as "your one-stop resource for all things pertaining to Vermont's At-large Congressperson." Senator Pat Leahy has been in Washington since 1974 and Senator Bernie Sanders since 1991, but Welch gets the honor of being the first politician to have a blog dedicated to watching his every move. And he's only been on the job three weeks. You gotta love it!

Here's what the accompanying blurb purports to be the purpose of the blog: "We imagine there will be occasional discussions of Welch's past statements, campaign pledges, voting record, etc, as well as perusals of his donor database, connections he has made, his committee actions in Washington, his staff, and the like ... Please feel free to contact us with tips, suggestions, angry denunciations, songs, stories or poems."

No clue who's behind this little endeavor, but we may have gotten a hint about the true motivations of the blog last week when whoever Welch Watch is wrote this in response to a question from someone who had written to ask if Welch Watch was pro- or anti-Welch: "It should be obvious to everyone that at this point I am much more interested in character assasination than substance."

Let the 2008 campaign begin!

-- Sam Hemingway