June 21, 2005
6/21: Poll-Tested, Kossack-Approved
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.
What's news today: John Kerry's SF-180 form finally becomes public record, Daily Kos holds a straw poll for WH '08, Sen. Dick Durbin can't catch a break, liberal profs debate impeachment, and the ghost of Terri Schiavo haunts the blogosphere. Plus, our latest Blogger Spotlight.
TRACKBACKS: DIY Army
Where the blog swarm is headed, who's taking part, and what they're saying:
- A column in the Arizona Republic from 6/18 is only just starting to garner attention this a.m. Columnist Art Thompson reports under the header: "Dad picks up $600 tab to get Marine battle ready" that a son on his way to Iraq informed his father that "his superiors were urging him and fellow Marines to buy special military equipment, including flak jackets with armor plating, to enhance the prospects of their survival." Some believe it immediately, others are skeptical, while at least a few flat-out refuse to believe it.
>> Democratic Veteran: "It's not new news that families have been sending body armor over to Iraq to keep their loved ones alive, but this is the first time I have heard of an official directive from someone's chain of command to buy their own body armor. To the tune of $600. Newsflash for all the overpaid pundits out there, $600 is probably pretty close to a paycheck for some junior enlisteds."
>> Jason Van Steenwyck calls the dad a "sucker": "There are sufficient flak jackets in theater, with kevlar plates, to equip everyone in theater now. But they are not sitting in warehouses at Cherry Point and Camp Pendleton, dumbass! A departing unit gives them up in Kuwait and the incoming unit picks them up. Basic Class II stuff. I don't expect a pfc to know that. And I certainly wouldn't expect a pfc's dad to understand it when he's operating with second or third or fourth hand information. So why would a reporter believe him? Answer: Because this dad's story fits the template."
>> For more, see: The Huffington Post; Balloon Juice; Ranting Profs; Rising Hegemon; Daily Kos; Light of Reason.
KERRY: Record Time
Power Line has Kerry's SF-180: "Via the Freedom of Information Act, a reader obtained copies of the Form 180s that were recently signed by John Kerry to permit, at long last, the release of his military records. I believe there may be a story about this in the New York Sun tomorrow, and no doubt more commentary will be forthcoming over the next few days. Here are the three documents that Kerry signed; on their face, I don't see anything wrong with them, but then, I'm no expert in military personnel records."
There are 3 pages, and they can be seen here, here and here.
Little Green Footballs, PoliPundit and Power Pundit and other conservative blogs quickly post the news. Slublog: "Come on, guys. Can we all just agree to ignore John Kerry? Kerry's Form 180 was fun during the campaign, but the guy is just one of 100 senators now. Just leave him alone and maybe he'll go away."
WHITE HOUSE '08: Who Needs Polk County?
Daily Kos unscientific straw poll since posted in the late p.m. on 6/19 there have been 11,581 respondents. Wesley Clark leads with 3105 votes (26%), "No Frickin' Clue" comes 2nd with 1969 votes (17%) followed by Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI) with 1268 (10%) and Sen. Hillary Clinton with 1248 (10%). Looking at KE'04, ex-Sen. John Edwards has 901 votes (7%) to Kerry's 300 (2%).
Matt Singer at Left in the West writes: "Kerry should gracefully bow out of the 2008 race, because he is going to get stomped. ... And it is safe to say that's not a name recognition problem he's facing."
Conservative Patrick Ruffini comments: "The dKos 2008 straw poll kind of bolsters my point about the wasted energy of lefty online activism. ... Take the most recent Fox poll: Hillary 44%, Kerry 17%, Edwards 13% -- Clark scores a measly 2%. The Kossacks are deeply out of touch with the rest of their party. But does that mean they'll be irrelevant? Hardly. Online buzz could be critical in positioning Clark, but most likely Feingold, as the main challenger to Hillary. The blogosphere might even be responsible for a shock upset in New Hampshire. But that'll be it. Online support might propel an out-of-nowhere Feingold to initial stardom, as with Dean, but it is unlikely to unravel Hillary's sixteen years of chits with the Democratic base, not to mention the $40 million she'll be transferring from her Senate account in late 2006."
BOLTON: Rebolt In The Senate
Liberal Steve Clemons: "The Senate spoke loud and clear today. John Bolton is NOT getting the approval of the United States Senate unless the White House fully concedes on the document requests that Senators have requested since April that might help better inform them as to controversial and important parts of John Bolton's record." Clemons blogged the Senate proceedings, which currently are still on his main page.
On the right, Michelle Malkin follows the Bolton developments just as closely.
Liberal Grey Matter: "I will be absolutely shocked if this arrogant, never-admit-mistakes small man in the White House withdraws Bolton's nomination. Instead, he'll most certainly act like a dictator and override the Senate, appointing his choice." Stygius: "Even if Bolton is unilaterally appointed, the great damage he could have done has been mitigated. Not bad for when sinking the nomination faced insurmountable odds. Surmounted, baby."
DURBIN: He's Certainly Made A Name For Himself
On 6/17, conservative ThirdWaveDave, based in Northern CA, called the Cap Hill press offices of several top Sens. for a response to Durbin's comment. Only SD GOPer John Thune's spokesperson was prepared: "Equating American Marines to Nazis is irresponsible and wrong. Senator Durbin owes our men and women in uniform an apology."
John Hinderaker from Power Line relays a call he placed to Durbin's office: "His staffer told me that as of this morning, he is standing by his statement comparing American soldiers to the Nazis, the Communists and the Khmer Rouge. There was one caveat, however: the staffer told me that Durbin never actually said "American soldiers," and that there are also contract interrogators at Guantanamo Bay. I asked whether Durbin was trying to claim that everything bad about Gitmo was the fault of civilians, and the army has nothing to do with it. She backtracked quickly and denied that this was Durbin's theory -- it would, of course, be an absurd claim since the military runs Guantanamo Bay and sets the policies there. Her evasion shows, though, how deeply dishonest Durbin's position is."
Power Line, Ace of Spades HQ and a few others link to an I [Heart] Gitmo line of products via the website Cafepress. At Daily Kos, "Armando" decides that the subtext is: "Powerline Loves the Abuses of Guantanamo." Meanwhile, A guest blogger at Ezra Klein's blog writes: "The first time I saw the "What Happens in Gitmo Stays in Gitmo" T-shirts, I thought some liberal group was selling them to call attention to prisoner abuse and to the government's ability to control the news flow out of Guantanamo. Furthermore, anything that makes people more aware of the existence of Guantanamo hurts Bush more than it helps him. As it turns out, the shirts are being sold by Rush Limbaugh. Don't buy them, I guess, because Rush will get your money and he'll just blow it on drugs. But be happy that Republicans will advertise our position by wearing them."
Iowa Hawk imagines Durbin writing aggrieved letters in his normal daily life, including this one to "Guiterrez Bros. Landscaping" of Arlington, VA: "Nothing could have prepared me for the shock that awaited as I exited the front door of my home early Wednesday morning, where I discovered that your lawn crew had cut a swath of environmental destruction across my yard so horrifying that it only can be compared to the Rape of Nanking."
BUSH: Do We Dare To Say Impeach?
U. TX law prof Brian Leiter wrestles with commentaries by left-leaning law profs Cass Sunstein and Mark Tushnet about whether there is sufficient legal ground to impeach Pres. Bush. Sunstein and Tushnet generally demur, to Leiter's irritation: "Shame on Professor Sunstein! Perhaps too many years of cozying up to the right has damaged his moral and intellectual sense." In the updates, he tangles with Volokh Conspiracy's anonymous writer "Juan Non-Volokh" re: comparing the U.S. to "Germany in the 1930s."
U. MD prof Mark Graber writes at Balkinization: "The greater challenge is convincing Americans that we have an amoral administration that unless it is replaced as soon as possible will do irreparable damage to America's reputation abroad, the only lasting weapon the United States can wield in the war against terrorism."
A post by left-leaning MoxieGrrrl gathers a number of comments: "I love America, and the reason I criticize this administration is because I will be damned if I will watch the country I love destroyed from within by spoiled rich bastards with overdeveloped senses of entitlement."
REPUBLICANS: Won't The WH '08 Primaries Fix This?
Conservative Enlighten-New Jersey: "Day in, day out the right-leaning New Jersey blogs provide an aggregation of news, analysis and opinion sorely lacking in the major media that serves New Jersey. The Republican Party, a natural ally of our point of view, one would assume, ignores us. No links on the NJ GOP website to right-leaning New Jersey blogs -- so content rich is the New Jersey Republican site, the party apparently is in no need of grass roots support."
CUNNINGHAM: The Fall Of The House Of Cunningham
At his blog, Josh Marshall has been closely following the developments in the case of Rep. Duke Cunningham (R-CA), who received financial benefit from a defense contractor who has business before his cmte (see 6/13 Blogometer). This a.m. he highlights a report that Cunningham's contractor "forced his employees to make political contributions that benefited the San Diego Republican and other members of Congress." Among the other GOPers: Katherine Harris (FL), Randy Forbes and Virgil Goode (VA), Duncan Hunter (CA) and Rick Renzi (AZ). Harris received $10K, Hunter got $1K and most got something in between.
BYRD: Better Get All That Klan Talk Over With Now
Wizbang is one of several blogs in the past couple days to identify a corrrelation between the portrayal of the KKK in the "Mississippi Burning" case and in Sen. Robert Byrd's (D-WV) memoir. From the AP, a small-town mayor said that "the Klan 'did a lot of good up here' and said he was not personally aware of the organization's bloody past." In the Post, Byrd is described as calling the Klan "essentially as a fraternal group of elites -- doctors, lawyers, clergy, judges and other "upstanding people" who at no time engaged in or preached violence against blacks, Jews or Catholics, who historically were targets of the Klan."
Swing State Project appraises the Post story: "It's a pretty enlightening article. I think it also instructive for West Virginians, and Americans, to read it in the context of a Republican Party that still has Senators who refuse to co-sponsor legislation apologizing for the lynchings that took place during the biggest stain in our country's past. Senator Byrd was a co-sponsor of the bill."
BLOGS VS. THE MSM: On A Wing And A Nut
Regarding Dana Milbank's story on Rep. John Conyers' "mock impeachment hearing," Daily Howler notes that Milbank used the work "wing nut" to describe people at the hearing, and asks asks: "When ha[s] any Post reporter ever used this term, we wondered -- in a news report, a news analysis, or even an op-ed column? Sp we conducted a Nexis search, and the answer was unsurprising; it's almost impossible to find a Post scribe using this term of high ridicule. ... Citizens will never get derided as 'wing nuts' -- unless they're concerned when a document suggests that their president lied their country into war."
Corante's Edward Miller, on the seemingly abandoned Los Angeles Times "wikitorial" experiment: "Reporting that the wiki has been shut down is the easy part. Letting people know whether the experiment was otherwise successful is the hard part, and no one in the traditional press seems eager to confront it."
FishbowlDC takes a 2nd look at CNN's "Inside the Blogs" segment under the title, "Don't Look Now: 'Inside The Blogs' Doesn't Suck"
SENATE '06: Stuck In The Midterms With You
Rittenhouse Review invites anyone in Philly to the local Drinking Liberally happy hour: "I understand Chuck Pennacchio, a Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate, is planning to attend, providing a great opportunity to meet and speak with a future senator in an unusually relaxing environment."
A number of liberal websites take note of the numbers showing Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL) with a comfortable lead over likely GOP challenger Rep. Katherine Harris. Jerome Armstrong, at MyDD: "Harris looks toxic. At least she'll suck up a lot of wingnuttery money."
SCHIAVO: Gone, But Not Forgotten
The Political Teen: "Senators Barack Obama and Dick Durbin are sponsoring a bill to stop the deportation of a war widow that is a native of Kosovo. ... This is all just fine and dandy, now. ... However where was Senator Durbin and Senator Obama during the Terri Schiavo death watch? They backed their fellow Democrats, who did not want to decide on laws for individual people. But what are they doing now? That's right, the hypocrites are trying to pass a law on an individual person."
On 6/20, conservative Damnum Absque Injuria wrote re: Michael Schiavo: "This bastard, whom liberals and 'moderates' alike have all but sainted for fighting tirelessly to starve his estranged wife, can't even bury her and put up a basic, respectful headstone. Instead, he added insult to injury" by having inscribed at the bottom: "I Kept My Promise." The author, "Xrlq," writes: "This story first ran at 10:47 PM EDT, a full two hours ago. Why the silence on the part of so many Michael Schiavo apologists?" In asking that question, he links to several right-leaning who disagreed on Schiavo, including Balloon Juice and Outside The Beltway. [Update, 9/6: Although we missed it, the final sentence quoted above was intended as sarcasm.]
SOCIAL SECURITY: Time To Remove The Tube?
Alexander McClure at PoliPundit: "It would be nice if Republicans call Democrats back to Washington early for a special session on Social Security reform, but that might be asking too much of GOP leaders who seem to shrink from confrontation these days."
At Gadflyer's Fly Trap, Joshua Holland quotes from a John Fund piece on SocSec that uses the phrase "lockbox": "Okay, so we didn't buy 'private accounts' or 'personal accounts,' but maybe -- just maybe -- we'll fall for calling them 'personal lockboxes.' This new spin answers a long-pondered question: just how stupid do they think we are? For three GOP senators and John Fund the answer is, apparently, 'very, very stupid.'"
MISCELLANY: You Know, Just A Bunch Of Stuff
BOPNews unveils what appears to be weekly feature, providing a weekend wrap-up of what a number of popular lefty blogs are saying.
WILLisms spent a day at a Houston hotel to monitor the Iranian voting set up for expats there, and reports with text and photos. He records a conversation with 2 Iranian women, one of whom was denied the chance to vote because she wore Western-style clothing. Both are critical of the Iranian gov't, and the poll workers use police officers to keep the women at bay. Eventually the hotel manager and an officer ask him to leave. The women advise against him posting the photos he has to the Internet, but of course he did so anyway.
Meanwhile, Publius Pundit has photographic evidence of manipulation in the Iranian vote in Iran.
Inspired by the new book from ex-CBS corr. Bernie Goldberg, "100 People Who Are Screwing Up America," John Hawkins at Right Wing News emailed more than 200 right-of-center bloggers and asked them to send us a list of who they considered to be their "favorite columnists". Representatives from the following 47 blogs responded ... All bloggers were asked to select an unranked list of 1-20 people are "screwing up" America and making this country a worse place to live." The top 5, with ties in all but the middlemost slot: DNC chair Howard Dean, filmmaker Michael Moore, MA Dem Sen. Ted Kennedy, Senate Min. Leader Harry Reid and Dem donor George Soros. HRC comes in at #6, with ex-Pres. Clinton further down the list. John McCain and Byrd tied for #13. Liberal blogger Markos Moulitsas from Daily Kos tied with others for #17; SCOTUS justice Sandra Day O'Connor tied for #23. Hawkins likes making lists -- last week he ran a list of the 100 Greatest Americans.
Within the last few weeks, left-wing humor blog Patriot Boy has started a button/label called "Operation Yellow Elephant," which is starting to appear across many liberal blogs. The logo features an elephant urinating, plus the slogan: "Because Ranting is Easier Than Enlisting." It began last week with a letter to Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN), imploring him to promote enlistment at an upcoming speech before a College GOPers conf. This then expanded into the larger idea of showing up at multiple GOP-related confs. to "challenge the College Republicans to volunteer to fight in the war they demanded." Now he puts together a single post with an explanation, links and resources. This a.m. he reports back that the RNC has rejected their full-page ad in the conf. program, encouraging GOPers to enlist.
BLOGGER SPOTLIGHT: Reward On The Merritt
Today the Blogometer talks to liberal legal blogger Jeralyn Merritt, founder and chief contributor to the widely-read blog TalkLeft.
What is your full name?
Jeralyn Merritt
What is your age?
It's not polite to ask adult women their age.
Where did you grow up?
New York
Where do you live now?
Denver
What is your occupation? Have you ever worked on a political campaign or for the mainstream media?
Criminal defense attorney. I've never worked on a political campaign. I blog daily for Denver's 5280 Magazine on local political issues. I write a weekly legal advice column for Lawyers.com. From 1995 to 2000, I regularly wrote the legislative affairs column for The Champion, the magazine of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. I was an MSNBC Legal Analyst from 1997 to 1999, and since then, appear frequently on Fox News and MSNBC programs.
When did you start blogging and why?
I converted TalkLeft from a news site to a blog in June, 2002, so that I could more easily address the injustices of the criminal justice system and the Bush Administration.
What has been your favorite post, or favorite story to write about, in that time?
It's a tie between the detainees and Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse and the death penalty.
Describe your typical blogging schedule. And what is your average output?
I don't have a set schedule. I write 10 to 15 posts a day.
Who is your favorite political blogger? Favorite non-political blogger?
Markos of Daily Kos. I only read political and legal blogs.Who is your favorite mainstream media columnist?
I don't have one, I prefer op-eds and editorials.
What is your favorite television news program, either network or cable?
They're all pretty much the same.
What MSM-produced websites (i.e. newspapers, magazines) do you visit on a daily basis?
New York Times, Washington Post, LA Times, Wall St. Journal, Houston Chronicle, Denver Post, Rocky Mountain News, MSNBC, CNN, Fox News.
What non-MSM websites (i.e. blogs) do you visit on a daily basis?
Atrios, Daily Kos, Instapundit, How Appealing, Altercation, Crooks and Liars. Atrios is always my first stop.
How often, or do you ever, read a newspaper in its dead-tree (i.e. print) form?
I read the Denver Post every day.
How do you see the new media and old media affecting and influencing each other in the next five years?
They will blend. Old media will have to embrace the citizen's media to maintain profitibility. It will incorporate what reliable bloggers on both sides are saying into their political and news coverage. I think within a year or two bloggers will help shape or determine to some extent the topics covered by the MSM.
THOUGHT OF THE DAY: They Are Siamese, If You Please
Austin, TX resident Amanda Marcotte, at Pandagon: "The red state/blue state divide has ingrained itself so quickly into our national consciousness that people forget that Kerry took nearly 40% of the vote in Texas. [An article from Alternet] is about the loneliness Texas progressives feel surrounded by knee-jerk Bush voters, but I think that the way other progressives that hail from blue states can sometimes treat us like red state progressives are as rare as Siamese twins makes it worse."
LEST WE FORGET: And That's A Memo
Right-trending WuzzaDem imagines Bill O'Reilly grilling the waitress at his local IHOP: "You know, in the past Talking Points has been critical of certain decisions made by the IHOP franchise with regard to menu choices, however we've praised many of their successes, particularly the Rooty Tooty Fresh and Fruity Breakfast and the Country Griddle Cakes Combo. So we believe we've been fair and balanced in our coverage - would you agree?" The Photoshopped image of O'Reilly at IHOP sells the post all by itself.
NOTES AND ERRATA: U.C. Berkeley, I.C. L.A. ...
Yesterday's Blogometer described blogger Brad DeLong as a UCLA prof, when in we know perfectly well that he teaches at Berkeley.
Posted by at June 21, 2005 12:00 PM
The Watergate · 600 New Hampshire Ave., NW
Washington, DC 20037
202-739-8400 · fax 202-833-8069
NationalJournal.com is an Atlantic Media publication.
