In the emerging PR disaster that is Wal-Gate, it looks like the scuttlebut has less to do with what Wal-Mart did and didn’t do, and what Edelman, and by extension, Steve Rubel, isn’t saying.

Details are emerging that WalMartingAcrossAmerica may or may not have disclosed their sponsorship prominently (tip: JD), so disclosure is perhaps less of an issue. But, contrary to “Best Blogging Practices” (if such a white paper exists, please tell me), Edelman hasn’t decided to participate in the conversation.

And what is the point of blogging if you’re not participating in the conversation?

Is not the whole point of public relations in this new social participatory medium to not control the conversation — but to become part of it?

Yes, I border (or perhaps have happily mambo’d across it weeks ago) on the edge of hackery, but doesn’t anyone find that its rich that a d-list joe blog pr0 rank blogger joins the cacophony to say this?

I’m currently reading Scoble and Israel’s Naked Conversations — which I will post a review on quite soon, but in it, they detail a great deal of blogging business history. Some of these stories are sort of a “what NOT to do”. For example, the cautionary tales of Kensington and Kryptonite.

The Coles Notes version if I could distill the debacle into a few words is that Kryptonite’s tubular locks were found to be able to be “picked” with a simple Bic pen (a ball point pen). A video of this hit YouTube, which then found its way to Engadget, where things promptly took off and exploded. Jason Calacanis is quoted as saying that the video got something like 1.3 million views (nice!). Kryptonite took 10 DAYS to respond, basically saying that they were not connected to the blogosphere, disavowing any further knowledge.

Kryptonite, manufacterer of fine acceptable bike locks has an excuse in this case.

Their core competency isn’t communication.

Its not their raison d’etre.

Its not, like, they’ve actually blogged about it, wrote endless articles about it, and evangelized about it.

Not like Edelman – or Steve “Micropersuasion” Rubel (a sr. VP at Edelman).

So what do I find this morning (and as of this writing) on Steve “Go Blogging!” Rubel’s Micropersuasion? What’s the first article Monday morning? Something or other about how CBS is using Google Maps.

Are you KIDDING ME?!

I’ll grant that most people have “lives” of some sort and perhaps they were taking the weekend to think upon things, reflecct, strategize, panic, move to Defcon-4 — WHATEVER.

But its monday morning, man!

Its been (if you consider Oct 11th day zero for Wal-Gate) FIVE days since this all began! How many equivalent news cycles is this on the techmeme’d valleywag’d universe we live in? 5? 10?

Long enough that it bubbled up to the top of Techmeme!

And how long did it take that to happen? Four days! Four whole days to defuse the situation, step in, explain what happened, or at least provide a metaphorical sticky note on your virtual desk that you were aware of the situation and were dealing with it.

Four whole days to strategize, commmunicate, blog, beg – something that showed the blogosphere that they weren’t oblivious to the quagmire, and do something that they’re supposed to be good at — something that DEFINES them (public relations?) — to improve the situation.

Well, as of this writing, Edelman’s own 6am blog, and Micropersuasion either haven’t mentioned a thing about the debacle, or are moving on to other topics altogether.

Simply amazing.

More to come as it evolves. Ugh … I need a barf bag.

PS — where is ValleyWag, TechDirt and Strumpette on this?

PPS — I’m glad I’m not the only one who is a little speechless