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Who thinks, a big one in politics like the Prime Minister of Portugal, leader of the portuguese Socialist Party and current President of the European Council, José Sócrates, would be just as indifferent as like other world leaders about the blogsphere, is definitely false. José Sócrates talked about the blogsphere even on portuguese TV (sorry, only in portuguese, no English transscript or subtitles so far):

Howdy, what’s going on there in Portugal? Just a few days before he took over the presidency of the European Council, José Sócrates has filed a defamation complaint against the portuguese blogger Professor António Balbino Caldeira, who is publicly asking questions about the Prime Ministers 1996 licentiate degree in civil engineering from “Universidade Independente” since the year 2005.

This smells pretty much like misusing a prosecution office for censorship. There is even a petition related to this topic. As José Sócrates is the current president of the European Council, the German Parteibuch blogger asked the Spokeswoman of the Portuguese Presidency of the Council of the EU, Clara Borja, for explanations:

Dear Ms Borja,

I read about a recent defamation complaint of Mr Jose Socrates against
Mr António Balbino Caldeira in relation to allegations of anomalies
about some kind of licentiate of Mr Jose Socrates. As a citizen and a
blogger I am concerned about the human right on freedom of speech.

Therefore I have some questions to the Portuguese Presidency of the
Council of the EU:

1. What is the exact subject of the defamation charges?
2. What is the background of the allegations of anomalies of the
licentiate of Mr Jose Socrates?
3. Are there planned any special activities by the portuguese presidency
of the council of the european union to enhance the situation of the
right on freedom of speech as declared in Article 10 of the European
Convention on Human Rights?

I’m looking forward to your answers and will publish them on Mein
Parteibuch to share these answers with the public.

Sincerely yours,

Marcel Bartels
Mein Parteibuch

There was no response from Ms Borja. So here is a response from a cat to Mr. Sócrates. Let’s congratulate Mr. Sócrates for his good job. Prosecuting a blogger for defamation is really a very good way to become very popular in the blogsphere. And of course it’s a very, very clever way to become every bloggers darling. So let’s thank Mr Sócrates for unifying bloggers all over Europe. Let’s appreciate his courage to do this without any fear to make himself uncomparably ridiculous.