4/21: Everything And Nothing

As of this a.m. Pope Benedict XVI was still attracting plenty of conversation from across the spectrum, from his implication for U.S. politics to the way the MSM has covered his ascendance. Emotions have cooled a bit, of course. Coming back in a big way: Ann Coulter and Time magazine. Earlier this week, it was mostly conservatives defending her re: the cover photo. Time's John Cloud came under fire from some liberal orgs, and now he's done an interview with CJR. The result: The liberal blogs kick him around some more.

House Maj. Leader Tom DeLay and U.N. Amb.-designate John Bolton continue to simmer. In a bit of bad news for DeLay, a few more conservative bloggers would like to see him go; time will tell if that emerges as a consensus, or whether it'll just lead to more simmering.

And, is there a way to triangulate the impasse between bloggers and the MSM? PressThink thinks about it.

TRACKBACKS: Pope Jeffords? Zarqawi Has The Filibuster? We're Doomed!

Where the blog swarm is headed, who's taking part, and what they're saying:

• Getting attention: a New York Times report on what impact the pope might have on "'life' issues like abortion" in the U.S., and a Washington Post story giving an overview of how consensus emerged on Benedict inside the conclave. Among the linkers: Ann Althouse; Betsy's Page; Cracker Squire; Suburban Guerrilla ; PunditGuy; Population: One.

  >> National Review's K.J. Lopez, at The Corner: "The new pope will likely talk about abortion being immoral. This will make Catholic politicians who support legal abortion increasingly uncomfortable. Thank you, thank you, New York Times." Right-leaning Dean Esmay, calls the Post story an "uncommonly decent and agenda-free recounting of the tale of Cardinal Ratzinger's recent elevation."

  >> Liberal Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo: "I understand that the voting cardinals who took part in the conclave that elected Benedict XVI as the new pope took a oath of perpetual secrecy about what happened in the conclave. And yet many of them now seem willing to discuss rather precise details of what occurred on the record for the daily papers. I'll let the canon lawyers decide whether that's a problem for the cardinals. But it makes for good journalism."

• Getting a bit of play: A New York Times story on the debate over jud. filibusters from 4/20. Referenced by: Whiskey Bar; OurSenate; Confirm Them.

  >> Conservative radio talker Hugh Hewitt: "If the filibuster continues, it will spread to Supreme Court -- hard-left activist Nan Aron has guaranteed it -- and the deserting senators will have the responsibility for that on their heads as well. If the Democrats are going to run the chamber, it might as well be done formally so that the public can assess the blame for the gridlock."

  >> Liberal Tapped's Sam Rosenfeld attempts to separate the "sure no votes" from the "fence-sitters" from the "unknowns": "Bill Frist's presidential whims, combined with his reliably clumsy negotiating approach, are putting an awful lot of Republicans in an awfully unwelcome position."

• Big news yesterday afternoon, now falling off, is the AP's report that Jeffords will not seek re-election, and the New York Times' treatment of same. Among the linkers: MyDD; The Moderate Voice; The Left Coaster; Megan McArdle.

  >> Conservative Outside The Beltway: "I haven't seen the polling in Vermont but I can't imagine too many Republicans are pleased with his betrayal in 2001. A man with no party has little chance in American electoral politics. While I have nothing for contempt for the slimeball Jeffords, I wish his wife well in her battle with cancer."

  >> Liberal DailyKos: "It's Vermont. Dems will be the prohibitive favorites. But it's always a pain to defend an open seat."

• Washington Times: "Recurrent intelligence reports say al Qaeda terrorist Abu Musab Zarqawi has obtained a nuclear device or is preparing a radiological explosive -- or dirty bomb -- for an attack, according to U.S. officials, who also say analysts are unable to gauge the reliability of the information's sources." Linking: Winds of Change; Little Green Footballs; James Joyner; Clayton Cramer; Argghhh!.

  >> Counterterrorism Blog: While reports of terrorists possessing either an RDD or a nuclear weapon are bad news, credible intelligence of terrorists overseas possessing the latter would be cause for defensive measures approaching a lock-down of our borders and a massive increase in federal and policing activity. ... So in a resource constrained environment, how to prioritize and act on information that mentions radioactive material? Is the threat nearly a show-stopper or is it simply newsworthy?"

  >> Lefty Juan Cole: "I find this report hard to believe, and find the likelihood that Zarqawi could do it low. But I guess it is alarming that anyone is even talking about it. Iraqi guerrilla groups have begun speaking of the need to hit the United States on its own soil in revenge for Fallujah and other operations."

DELAY: If You're Tom DeLay, Don't Read This

Conservative UCLA law prof Stephen Bainbridge, on DeLay's criticism of Justice Anthony Kennedy (see 4/20 Blogometer): "Is the enemy of my enemy necessarily my friend? I don't have much in common with or much use for most of Tom DeLay's critics, but I have to admit that the dude has always creeped me out a little. Now, however, he seems to have gone beyond the bend. ... DeLay has become an embarrassment to the Conservative movement. (Far more so than Newt ever was, in my book.) It's time to throw him to the wolves."

GOP VA prosecutor John Behan links and adds: "I'm quickly coming around to [this] view."

FreeRepublic has a thread devoted to news of the investigation. Plenty of Freepers think the GOP has gone soft and that DeLay is "sinking," but not a few argue that it's a wise strategic move, and that DeLay will be "exonerated."

DailyKos' "pontificator," on reports that disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff got DeLay box seats for the Three Tenors: "If this story is true, Delay's only hope is the Ken Lay defense: 'B-b-b-b-ut I had no idea what my PAC that I myself set up was doing accounting-wise.' Straw -- meet camel's back!"

BOLTON: A Character Almost-Witness Emerges

At The Corner, National Review's Rich Lowry writes about a conversation with Jayant Kalotra, pres. of the firm that employed Bolton and sub-contracted with Melody Townsel, who claims Bolton "chased and threw things at her." Kalotra, asked if he believes Townsel: "I don't. It's a small company and we hear of these things. I didn't know or hear of anything like that." In subsequent posts (scroll up) he offers more quotes from those close to the situation who doubt Townsel's statements.

Centrist Roger L. Simon, on the continually delayed Bolton vote: "By playing the child's game of partisan politics, these same Senators are ultimately helping to destroy the reputation of the very institution they think they are trying to preserve -- the United Nations. What dumbbells."

Conservative Power Line: "Inevitably, as frustration mounts over Bolton and the stalled judicial nominees, we're also starting to hear criticism of Majority Leader Frist. I don't know whether Frist failed to take measures that could have prevented Voinovich from acting as he did, and I suspect that Frist's critics don't know either. But I do know how difficult it is to enforce unity among Senate Republicans."

BLOGS VS. THE MSM: The Third Way?

At his PressThink blog, NYU J-prof Jay Rosen posts an essay by journalist/blogger Chris Nolan which attempts to distinguish a 3rd category between MSM-employed journalists and bloggers. That is, journalists who use their blogs to do real journalism -- which Nolan calls "stand-alone journalists." His key example is Talking Points Memo's Marshall. Nolan offers a definition: "For me, a stand alone journalist is someone who works to get the stories they find interesting told in an honest and forthright manner without the benefit of working for a larger news outlet. That doesn't mean they're objective or impartial; it means they're honest about their points of view or assumptions."

Righty Ed Morrissey of Captain's Quarters, whose reporting on the Canadian Liberal Party sponsorship scandal (aka "Adscam") -- this post in particular -- dislodged a Canadian court's embargo on politically damaging testimony, comments: "Perhaps the better way to create distinctions isn't by labelling the blog or the blogger but the post or the thread. There are times when I perform stand-alone journalism; other times, I'm a self-published pundit; the small amount left amounts to a very poorly secured diary. The revolution in newsroom thinking won't be an acknowledgement that a handful of bloggers are stand-alone journalists. It will come when people finally realize that all bloggers can be stand-alone journalists if and when they choose to be."

POPE REDUX: The MSM Vs. The Pope

Right-leaning Just One Minute: "Is it true that new Pope 'intervened in the 2004 US election campaign ordering bishops to deny communion to abortion rights supporters including presidential candidate John Kerry,' as reported by the AFP? Not really. As in, 'not really close.'" He links to an online essay by traditionalist Catholic Kathleen Redle, who criticized Joseph Ratzinger in '04 for flip-flopping on whether Kerry should be denied communiton. Stephen Bainbridge defends the no-communion stance: "[W]hy does it surprise anyone that the Catholic Church's chief theologian might think that a politician who publicly flouts core teachings of the Church should not be regarded as a Catholic in good standing? The Church is not a cafeteria, after all, from which one can pick and choose the doctrines one likes."

Is That Legal? catches the New York Times mistakenly stating that Hitler Youth membership became compulsory in 1941, when compulsory membership was enacted in 1936.

Right Wing News and Power Line both notice an odd Reuters headline about Nazi-themed graffiti on an Argentinian cathedral door that reads in part: "The choice of ... Ratzinger as the new Pope divides Latin America, a region where he battled leftist priests and whose poor and hungry often cannot afford to follow Roman Catholic doctrine."

John Hinderaker, from the latter blog: "Reuters appears to believe that this sort of 'division' is the natural consequence of naming a 'conservative' as Pope. ... Most of all, though, the claim that Latin America's "poor and hungry often cannot afford to follow Roman Catholic doctrine" is astonishing. This is a whole new perspective on history: Catholicism is a country club faith that is very expensive to pursue, and therefore is available only to the affluent!"

Liberal Matthew Yglesias writes, Pope Benedict XVI's essay on relativism (PDF) "seems to have as its main target certain kinds of ecumenical tendencies that might be inclined to suggest that, somehow, Catholicism is right for Catholics, but maybe some other religion is right for other people. ... While I'm strongly discinclined to agree that adherence to orthodox Catholicism is an important thing to do in life, his case against wish-washy Catholicism seems persuasive enough to me. It's either right or it isn't. If that's relativism, then I'm against it, too."

COULTER REDUX: There's Something About Ann

Markos Moulitsas quotes from an Eric Alterman post about Time's Coulter cover, and announces he's cancelled his Time subscription: "Really, if you still have a subscription to Time, it's time to call it quits. ... I'm not saying boycott Time because of the Coulter cover. Every publication will run something offensive to someone at any given time. I'm saying boycott Time because it has systematically shut out liberal voices from its pages. And there's no reason our money should make its way into their pockets."

CJR Daily's Brian Montopoli interviews Time's John Cloud, and answers himself against liberal complaints, including those of Media Matters' David Brock. Cloud defends the article and compares it to putting Michael Moore on the cover in early '04.

Lefty Oliver Willis is not satisfied: "When Time put Moore on its cover, that was news because Fahrenheit was the top movie in America" and was reelvant to the election, while Coulter has recently written "collection of columns in which she put forward the argument that liberals should be beat about the head with baseball bats. ... I do wonder if [Cloud's] cluelessness is intentional or if it's the result of graft. Who knows nowadays? What I do know is that journalism is broken in America and John Cloud is the poster boy."

Liberal Daily Howler: "[W]hen Time takes our craziest pundit and tries to mainstream her through its cover, we're seeing the triumph of 'idiot culture,' in which 'the weird, the stupid, the coarse and untrue are becoming our cultural ideal.' Put more simply, we're seeing things falling apart."

Conservative Slublog compares Time covers featuring Dems and GOPers and decides the GOPers don't get a fair shake.

SOCIAL SECURITY: Don't Call It A Comeback

Blogs for Bush's Matt Margolis notes Pres. Bush's interview with CNBC's Ron Insana on the subejct of personal accounts, and comments: "It's good to see Bush standing behind personal retirement accounts. I was worried that he was getting soft." MyDD announces a Louisville, KY rally, coinciding with Frist's telecast for the FRC. to "speak out against this outrage."

PREVIEW: The Shape Of Blog Posts To Come?

Considering the blogospheric attention to Andrew Sullivan's arguments on the nexus between religion and politics (see yesterday's Blogometer), his essay in the 5/2-9 New Republic -- "Crisis of Faith: How fundamentalism is splitting the GOP" is likely to get a lot of coverage.

Sullivan writes: "Conservatism isn't over. But it has rarely been as confused. ... As Republicans found that it was hard to reduce the size of government, they decided to stop worrying and deploy it for their own goals. As a result, Republicans now support institutions they previouslyvilified." Beca

On the Terri Schiavo case: "Crusades ... are not means of persuasion. They are means of coercion. And so it is no accident that the crusading Republicans are impatient with institutional obstacles in their way. The judiciary, which is designed to check executive and legislative decisions, is now the first object of attack. Bare-knuckled character assassination of opponents is part of the repertoire: Just look at the swift-boat smears of John Kerry. ... Politics becomes war, letting a key Republican leader like DeLay can genially boast that his supporters are armed."

More: "If we are fighting such a conservatism of faith abroad--and that is the core of the war on Islamist terrorism--then why should it be so hard to confront it in much milder forms at home? This was, once upon a time, the central conservative calling. Why not again?"

More still: "It's telling that none of the biggest talents in the Republican Party will ever be its nominee for president. John McCain, Arnold Schwarzenegger, George Pataki, and Rudy Giuliani could never survive the fundamentalist-dominated primaries"

He concludes: "What I am saying is that, unless the religious presence within Republicanism becomes less dogmatic and fundamentalist, the conservative coalition as we have known it cannot long endure."

He leads: "Today's conservatives support limited government. But they believe the federal government can intervene in a state court's decisions in a single family's struggle over life and death. They believe in restraining government spending. But they have increased such spending by a mind-boggling 33 percent in a mere four years."

MISCELLANY: Cafeteria Liberals

Since the last time we checked, a new WH '08 Meetup group has been created: Wesley Clark 2008.

The ubiquitous Josh Marshall, announcing his new website: "As I've mentioned several times now, we're launching a new site, TPMCafe.com, a companion site to Talking Points Memo. It will include a new group blog with an exciting list of contributors, a handful of topic-specific blogs like our Special Edition Bankruptcy Blog and discussion areas where we're going to try to facilitate more of what readers allowed us to do in tracking the Social Security debate in the first months of this year.We're hoping to launch next month. It will be a work-in-progress and, with your feedback, we'll make changes and let the site evolve as we go."

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: What Do Crack Dealers And Think Tankers Have In Common?

Instapundit's Glenn Reynolds comments on a chapter from the book "Freakonomics" titled "Why do drug dealers still live with their moms?" Without reading it, Reynolds suggests the "willingness of people to trade away economic benefits for status" within a given community. INDC Journal's Bill Ardolino agrees, and compares them those in the DC "egghead set" who get six-figure educations to land "sub six-figure" jubs: "Is getting a masters degree from the Kennedy School of Government and taking a job at Brookings admirable? Sure. Odd? In my opinion, for the financially dependent, you bet -- the ROI is pretty thin. I'd almost rather be a New Jack Hustler."

LEST WE FORGET: Fark You

Semi-blog/message board Fark asks its readers to Photoshop covers for pulp fiction/horror titles. Not all are work-safe or tasteful (or of equal quality) but the all the submissions can be seen here. More than a few take shots at the president, such as this one or this one. Others, the junior senator from NY. And some are inside jokes at Fark that are still kinda funny, like this. And some are just bizarre.

NOTES AND ERRATA

A correction: A misunderstood adjective was used in the 4/18 Blogometer to describe WorldNetDaily, a right-leaning alternative news site. We intended to convey that MSM news outlets will wait for confirmation by the AP or a local TV station before repeating a story originating at WND. What we had here was a failure to communicate.