June 13, 2005

6/13: Where's George Carlin When You Need Him?

The Hotline's Blogometer takes the daily temperature of the blogosphere. For more information on the thinking behind this feature, go to the end of the story.

Among the problems with the blogosphere listed by critics are the supposed tendency toward gossip and a lack of sourcing standards. This a.m., the original gossip site, Drudge Report, has another wild story to peddle (about which more later). We'll leave the details to others, but suffice to say it's a hit on the Clintons. Yet the reaction from conservative bloggers ranges from mildly suspicious to extremely hostile; Matt Drudge and book author Ed Klein come in for more criticism than the Clintons. More than one points out that the story seems more likely to help than hurt Sen. Hillary Clinton's political goals. The only established blogger to defend any of the parties involved, it so happens, is a self-described moderate. (So far the left-blogosphere has ignored it entirely.)

Elsewhere, a report from a TN-based journalist who posts evidence of wrongdoing by TN Gov. Phil Bredesen (D) in the TennCare scandal seems like it may have the potential to get picked up by the MSM. Meanwhile, the blogs react to an MSM-reported scandal involving Rep. Duke Cunningham (R-CA). And much, much more!

Let's go:

TRACKBACKS: Wild About Wikis

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

• Re: the latest sensational, unsubstantiated Drudge Report story about the Clintons.
  
  

  >> The approaching-definitive post on the subject comes from Captain's Quarters: "I'm no fan of the Clintons, but the Right has had its problem reining in its vitriol regarding Bill and Hillary since 1992. The last five years have seen that mostly disappear (and reappear as Bush hysteria on the Left), but with Hillary running [for re-election and possibly WH '08] everyone expected it to return sometime. However, no one could have predicted that former Newsweek editor Ed Klein, of all people, would fan the flames... If this is the level of professionalism we can expect from former Newsweek editors, small wonder we end up with Qu'ran-flushing frauds from the magazine now." Similar thoughts from Sebastian Holsclaw at Obsidian Wings: "This isn't about national security, it shouldn't have been anonymously sourced. And if Drudge is just blowing smoke (if the quote isn't really in the book) he deserves to be smacked hard for it, preferably with a libel suit either from the Clintons or Ed Klein." And then there's Dean Esmay: "I'm sorry, maybe this is giving too much information, but am I the only one who's ever had so much fun with his wife that we made a complete mess of a hotel room we were staying in?"
  

  >> An interesting dissenter is moderate U. Madison-WI prof Ann Althouse: "Is everyone aghast -- either at Bill or Hillary or Matt or Ed? Sorry, I'm not. I'm going to assume for the sake of argument that Bill Clinton really did say that. I hate to tell you, but there was a time when Boomer generation folks would use the word 'rape' lightly. ... I'll bet Bill once said 'I'm going to kill him' about somebody. Haven't you? And I'll bet he's said 'F**k you' and not meant it literally!"
  

  >> More reactions: PoliPundit; QandO; USS Neverdock; Ankle Biting Pundits; Ace of Spades HQ; The Conservative Cat; The Daily Spork.



• The 6/12 Los Angeles Times includes a bullet-pointed note "To Our Readers" by ed. page editor Andres Martinez. One bulletin: "Watch next week for the introduction of 'wikitorials' -- an online feature that will empower you to rewrite Los Angeles Times editorials." This a.m., the New York Times has a story on the plan. It quotes ed. board editor Mike Kinsley: "It may be a complete mess but it's going to be interesting to try. Wikitorials may be one of those things that within six months will be standard. It's the ultimate in reader participation."
  

  >> If the announcement is meant to placate bloggers, the attempt is meeting some skepticism. BuzzMachine: "Sounds like a cool idea... but I think it goes up against the essential nature of wikis and probably won't work. Wikipedia brags about its NPOV (neutral point of view) enforced by the wisdom of the crowd and the desire to get the facts right and maintain a valuable resource. An editorial is, of course, not neutral. And so what you'll likely find is a never-ending wikiwar: yes he did, no he didn't..." Kevin Drum: "This is completely incomprehensible to me. That doesn't mean it won't work, I suppose, but I have no idea what the point is supposed to be. It seems like interactivity just for the sake of interactivity."
  

  >> Linking to one or both: L.A. Observed; Romenesko; PoliBlog; Snarkmarket; Blogging.LA.



• On 6/12, the San Diego Union Tribune reported, a defense contractor with ties to Rep. Cunningham took a $700K loss on Cunningham's home "while" Cunningham was "supporting the contractor's efforts to get tens of millions of dollars in contracts from the Pentagon."
  

  >> The lefty bloggers pile on quickly. Daily Kos: "Poor Cunningham. He can hang with DeLay and they can commiserate about how the mean liberal media won't let them be corrupt in peace and quiet." Headline at Patridiot Watch: "Military Industrial Complex Buys Congressman?"
  

  >> Of the few right-leaning bloggers to note the case, Cunningham doesn't get much help. John Hawkins at Right Wings News: "I can't say that I know" much about Cunningham, "other than the fact that he looks to be about as crooked as dog's hindleg. ... If Cunningham is honest (which I sincerely doubt), then he's too dumb to be in Congress because even a nitwit should have been able to see the huge ethical morass lying dead ahead. However, if Cunningham is not honest, then he's a crook who deserves to be tarred and feathered and then run out of Washington on a rail." Headline from BrothersJudd Blog: "HOUSING BUBBLE BURSTS."
  

  >> More: Talking Points Memo; Obsidian Wings; "Roger Ailes"; The Right Coast; The Sideshow.

IN THE STATES: Anyone Want To Start An Office Pool On How Long Bredesen Goes Before Blaming The "Submedia"?

Headline at the blog of left-leaning TN journalist Sharon Cobb: "BREAKING NEWS ON TENNCARE: Bredesen Lied. For The Good Of Tennessee and The Democratic Party, He Should Step Aside." Cobb writes: "A six month investigation into TennCare reform has unearthed some startling documents and disturbing revelations about Governor Bredesen and his administration's plans to blame the Tennessee Justice Center for the TennCare cuts, then as part of their political strategy, reenroll some of those cut from TennCare in 2006 -- before the election."

In posts here, here, here and here, Cobb posts portions of documents to buttress her report.

Earlier, Cobb had announced she would have big news on Bredesen and TennCare, attracting interest from right-leaning TN bloggers Bill Hobbs and Blogging for Bryant. This a.m., they follow-up. Cobb is impressed with her evidence, while Blogging for Bryant is a bit more circumspect. The Knoxville News' blog No Silence Here provides a round-up of bloggers mentioning the Bredesen story.

DEAN: Is Mad How Taking Up Space That Might Have Gone To DeLay Otherwise?

DNC chair Howard Dean remains a hot topic on the left and right alike. In defense of Dean, TAPPED's Garance Franke-Ruta posts a link to the "GOP: God's Own [sic] Party" bumper sticker photo at MyDD (see 6/10 Blogometer). Ruta later updates: "Just to clarify, it's obviously a very different thing for a rank-and-file activist to mouth off in this fashion than for a chair of a party to do so. Still, the obvious hysteria and extremism of certain elements in the Republican rank-and-file strikes me as highly under-reported, especially as compared to Dean's every casual utterance."

At National Review Online, TKS blogger Jim Geraghty quotes Senate Min. Leader Harry Reid defending Dean: "I think that all of you know that there isn't a single person, whether it's any of us in this room, or Governor Dean, or [RNC chair Ken] Mehlman, that hasn't misspoken." Geraghty replies: "Okay... where did Dean 'misspeak'? Did he mean to say that Republicans are the party of 'right Christians,' not 'white Christians'? Did he really mean to say, 'I ate Republicans and everything they stand for?' 'I date Republicans'?"

Washington Monthly's Kevin Drum: "I don't want Dean to go over a cliff with this kind of stuff, but his reputation as a straight shooter allows him to say things that other people are only thinking, and his role as party chairman forces the press to pay attention. ... Initially, of course, it doesn't look that way, but guess what happens after the initial firestorm has died out? With news hook in hand, reporters will get to work. DoesJames Dobson control the agenda of the Republican party? Are Republicans overwhelmingly white? Do party leaders work against the interests of the working class? This is exactly where we'd like the focus to be: on our issues, not theirs."

• At conservative RedState, Pejman Yousefzadeh scoffs: "The focus hasn't even remotely been on whether James Dobson controls the agenda of the Republican Party. It has been on why Howard Dean can't keep his trap shut when it might benefit his cause to do so. The Fineman article is but one example of that." Yousefzadeh terms Drum's argument the "If Only We Can Manage To Get A Little Angrier, We Can Win Elections" plan.

BUSH: Don't Let The Bastards Get You Downing Street Memo

Liberal David Corn wonders if there is "too much emphasis on the 'fixed' sentence": "I suppose one could read it to mean that ... [MI6] was telling Blair that the Bushies were 'gearing' intelligence and facts toward their desire for war. Or perhaps he was indicating that they were building a case for war with whatever facts and intelligence they could find. All of these possibilities come across as somewhat dodgy. But maybe [this] did not mean 'fixed' as in 'rigged.' There might be some wiggle room here for the Bushies. But the true impact of the [memo] ... is that it shows that Bush was not being straight with the American public..."

Righty Michelle Malkin: "A Republican anti-Gitmo brigade has been born." She lists GOP Sens. Mel Martinez (FL) and Chuck Hagel (NE), plus Weekly Standard's Bill Kristol. She writes, their "position amounts to a cut-and-run strategy -- panicking in the face of ill-informed, hysterical attacks from our military's enemies at home and abroad. Even if, as Kristol claims, unnamed [U.S. gov't] officials have problems with how Gitmo has been run, there is no question from the mountains of documents the Pentagon has released to the ACLU and others that the military tracks and investigates alleged abuses, and has taken corrective action when they are warranted."

Lefty "Billmon" looks into the Lincoln Group (nee Iraqex), the little-known, well-funded company providing PR. for the Pentagon in Iraq: "If I had to speculate, I would guess that having scored the big Pentagon contract -- despite just a one-year track record and no apparent PR experience -- front man [Christian] Bailey and his unknown partners sold out to a bigger firm (Lincoln Alliance) with the resources and bench strength to actually perform the work. This is as customary among Beltway Bandits as it is among Silicon Valley venture capitalists. ... It's a theory, anyway." "Billon" digs further and adds more speculation before concluding, "I'll just leave it where I began -- with the strong suspicion that political opposition in this country no longer just means fighting the Republican Party and its corporate and religious allies, but also the Pentagon and its multi-million dollar propaganda budget."

WHITE HOUSE '08: Dean Is Still Helping Kerry?

Longtime John Kerry critic Mickey Kaus writes that Dem friends "have assured me that John Kerry -- whether he knows it or not -- won't be a candidate for president in 2008. Lack of fundraising support will force him to drop out before then, according to this theory, just as it forced Dan Quayle to drop out the year before the 2000 primaries. But something's changed since 1999 -- namely the ability of candidates to raise money in small chunks over the Internet. If Kerry can raise enough Web cash early enough, he won't care if the big donors don't want him. ... Kerry's permanent campaign is a way to keep on raising money while he still has Web celebrity value, before his rivals declare. Then nobody will be able to Quayle him." Note: Scroll to "Quayling Kerry?"

DLC's Marshall Wittman writes at his Bull Moose Blog that perhaps the C.W. "is wrong," and Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) could be on the WH '08 ticket: "He is thoughtful, measured and has magnificent political instincts." Wittman applaud's Obama's response to Dean's comments, where Obama said: "As somebody who is a Christian myself, I don't like it when people use religion to divide, whether that is Republican or Democrat ... We are at a time in our country's history that inclusive language is better than exclusive language." Wittman compares him to ex-Pres. Clinton, noting that both "were deeply influenced by the civil rights movement which was rooted in a progressive faith tradition."

DEMOCRATS: Hard Core

In a post titled "Our core values, Part I," Markos Moulitsas writes: "I did a little exercise. I listed as many issues related to Democrats as I could, then tried to figure out why I believe in those issues. Then I extracted the core values." He lists "Smart Government," "Privacy," "Conservation," "Opportunity" and "US Leadership," and then lists the issues that relate to each below them. He adds: "am more convinced than ever that people don't want to hear about issues, they want to hear about values. And not 'values' in the sense of religion or the 'I hate gays' crowd, but those values that inform where we stand on the issues. Things like 'privacy' and 'opportunity.' In other words, they don't care so much about the issues, but how you arrive at decisions about the issues." He adds in a "Part II" later: "I'm not advocating that the party or anyone take my values outline and adopt it party-wide. ... What I AM advocating is that someone DO this sort of thing. It wasn't hard for me to come up with a quick outline of my own value structure. The trick is for someone with authority to do so."

BLOGS VS. THE MSM: Pulling Frank Rich Though The Eye Of The Needle, In The Space Of A Minute

In a lengthy post, JustOneMinute's Tom Maguire fact-checks and rebuts a 6/12 column by the New York Times' Frank Rich, which accused the Bush admin.'s "neo-Colsons" of mau-mauing Newsweek and the press re: the recent Gitmo controversies.

Blogger bete noir CNN pres. Jonathan Klein, quoted in the Philadelphia Inquirer: "If I had one decision to take back, it would be the extent of our coverage [of the Michael Jackson trial]. Looking back, we should have just covered the beginning and the end." At The Huffington Post, comic Harry Shearer comments: "That's the way I want my trial coverage -- no unnecessary testimony and evidence to confuse me. Just have the cameras there on the days the big crowds show up. And it's nice to know he has no regrets about the paucity of CNN's coverage of, say, the Downing Street memo or the Darfur genocide."

The news about Columbia Journalism Review bringing on Nation publisher Victor Navasky to oversee its operations continues to percolate.. The latest blog to bring the situation to a wider audience is Vodkapundit. The news was broken by blogger David M on 5/31; the Blogometer first noticed on 6/2.

The Buzz blogger Eric Pfeiffer at National Review Online points out that a new column by the New York Daily News' Mike Goodwin about Dean and HRC "uses two identical techniques found in my article on Clinton last week."

BLOGGERS VS. BLOGGERS: Huffing And Puffing And Blowing Up Their Credibility?

Right-leaning Punditeer: "The Huffington Post is fast gaining a reputation as the most noxious, overbloated ship of fools sailing the Internet seas. It now seems little more than an amalgamation of has-beens seeking rejuvenation, current and former politicians hawking themselves and their pet issues via self-written PR releases, and a neverending parade of uninspired scribblings on the shortcomings of President Bush."

• One case Punditeer's Stephen Leary notes is ex-Rep. Paul Findley's attribution of the quote "We have an Israel-centric foreign policy" to Sec/State Condoleezza Rice (see 6/10 Blogometer).
• Hawkish moderate Roger L. Simon: "The antisemitism card has always been one of the great standbys when you want to stir up a little controversy, but The Huffington Post ... may find itself getting a little more notoriety than it bargained for ... I would doubt they do much serious editing at The Huffington Post (unless it's of Arianna's picture) but this quote, if it proves to be either made up or seriously out of context, would call for a strong and public retraction. We'll see how interested in the truth they are."

INTRODUCING: Next Up, ConDEMplations?

Starting in late May, GOPINION (pronounced "Gee, opinion!") is an elegantly-presented round-up of interesting posts from high traffic conservative and right-leaning weblogs.

MISCELLANY: Bloggers, At Your Service

• Center-left U. of Pomona student Jonathan Singer posts an interview with ex-Sen. Alan Simpson (R-WY) at his blog, Basie!. Simpson, on Bush's SocSec plans: "Well, the Democrats haven't put up any proposals. They don't intend to. So there won't be any Social Security reform coming out of this Congress in my mind. I testified before a House committee with Tim Penny. I've never seen such sarcasm and hostility. Michael Oxley, the chairman, and Barney Frank seem to have a good relationship, but let me tell you, I heard plain old sarcasm and caustic comments." Simpson, on GOPers not "going nuclear" because of later repercussions: "Like a giant wheel with a hobnail boot. You set it in motion, it'll kick your opponent in the ass, but eventually it'll get you too."
• This a.m., right-leaning Aussie Arthur Chrenkoff posts the 29th week of his "Good news from Iraq" series. As the Blogometer has noted before, Chrenkoff's roundups have been especially popular with pro-war bloggers in the U.S., and is also available at the Wall Street Journal's OpinionJournal.
• At TAPPED, Matthew Yglesias posts the latest installment of his tongue-in-cheek take on the Sunday newspaper op-ed.
• At RedState, Mark Kilmer provides a thorough round-up of what was on the Sunday shows.

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Quiet Celebration

In a post titled "The measure of success," A RedState contributor reports on a 6/11 rally on the Nat'l Mall "to celebrate the cause of freedom": "Organized and promoted by the conservative activist group, Citizens United, the rally featured an impressive lineup: the outspoken actor, Ron Silver; Tracy Byrd, the country music star; an American Idol performer, Kimberly Caldwell; a wounded veteran, courageous leaders from Afghanistan and Iraq -- a fascinating mix of personalities expressing pride and patriotism. Huge screens were set up on both sides of the stage, with a powerful sound system to match, ready to display the events of the Celebration of Freedom and Democracy to the thousands upon thousands there to rally for freedom. Thousands? There were 50. I counted."

LEST WE FORGET: Radical Chic & Mao-Maoing The Flak-Catchers

The lefty Fafblog, which bills itself as "the whole worlds [sic] only source for Fafblog," maintains a rotating "Picture of the Week" in its top-left column. This week's picture -- which is best seen in its native environment -- is a representation of a ginormous Chairman Mao looming over the proletariat masses. Caption: "Exposed to mysterious nuclear radiation, an ordinary chairman of the Chinese Communist Party swells to monstrous proportions and plunges into the ocean to satisfy his terrible hunger! Beware the coming of MEGAMAO!"

Posted by at June 13, 2005 12:00 PM