So, after I did a little bit of digging, I should qualify “no one in the blogosphere is picking up on this” — because clearly the PR community did a few days ago, and it seems like “shocked“, and “outraged” at the “utter hypocrisy” and “ongoing silence” is but skimming the top of this PR disaster (for, ironically, a Public Relations firm).

Shel Holtz of Holtz Communication and Technology, at “Shel of a former self”:

“So where is Edelman in this particular conversation? Missing in action. As dismaying as this latest misstep is, it’s even more dismaying to see Edelman’s high-powered social media experts failing to walk the talk. “

Tod Defren of Shift Communications, over at PR Squared:

“This is wrong on so many levels. And it is Strike 3 for Edelman (not Strike 2, as Joseph Jaffe suggests). Edelman, the self-described leader in me2, in transparency, in Social Media PR strategies. (Or, maybe not.)”

Debbie Weil, courtesy of MediaPost:

“This is so foolish on so many levels, it makes me scratch my head … Everyone involved violated the basic rule: Be transparent. If you’re found out, it comes back as a slap in the face.”

Other scrumptious morsels:

The actual blog “Wal-marting in America”, wherein Laura, one of the authors claims that she jumped at the chance of a free trip, courtesy of the sponsorship by Working Families for Wal-Mart; and then goes on to say this about bloggers who are critical of Wal-Mart:

Even these personal attacks won’t sour my feelings about Wal-Mart. I’ve met too many great people in Wal-Marts across the county. I’ve met too many people — real people, not imaginary Internet people — who’ve told me about all the good Wal-Mart has done.

Ah yes, the rich hypocrisy of calling other bloggers “imaginary”. Well, as supremely UN-qualified I am to discuss Wal-Mart controveries, I would venture a gentle guess and say that at least some of these bloggers are “real” and not “imaginary”, a la Snuffelupagus.

Speaking of rich hypocrisy, here’s Steve “Edelman” Rubel, of Micropersuasion fame, on how corporate blogging should work, which when read in context seems like gentle suggests for the Dell corporate blog; out of context (and in context for this article), it seems little sanctimonious. Mr. Rubel, incidentally, as Debbie Weil notes, is noticably silent on the whole issue.

In fact, the whole “tech” and “marketing” side of the blogosphere has been noticably silent on the issue. To quote Jason Calacanis (he was talking about PayPerPost — but I think this also applies):

I’d really love to hear what smart folks like Seth Godin, Fred Wilson, Adam Curry, Mark Cuban, Esther Dyson, John Battelle, Cory Doctorow, Xeni Jardin, Rafat Ali, Joseph Jaffe, Brian Alvey, Kevin Rose, Tim O’Reilly, Doc Searls, Jeff Jarvis, Steve Rubel, Dan Gillmor, and Nick Denton think of covert marketing coming to the blogosphere. Heck, I’d even love to hear what Valleywag has to say! :)

Actually, I’d also include Rob Scoble and Shel Israel in there as well. ;)