June 03, 2005

6/3: May The Force Of Language Be With Us

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.

With posts about John Kerry and re-instatement of the draft among the topics of discussion out there today, one might think it's '04 again. Howard Dean is saying mean things about GOPers, so maybe it's more like summer '03. Or, considering that ex-Clinton aide Sidney Blumenthal is getting into a heated debate with conservatives on the web, it's almost like '97. But it's definitely '05 because Deep Throat's identity is out and still the subject for discussion, and there's an interesting rumor going around about William Rehnquist's retirement and Pres. Bush's choice to replace him. Also because, you know, it actually is '05.

TRACKBACKS: Same Field, Different Subjects

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

• Liberal bloggers are all over a report from the New York Times on parents' increasing objection to allowing their children to be recruited by the military. To some of them, a draft seems imminent. Among those linking: The Light of Reason; People's Republic of Seabrook; TBogg; When Silence Becomes Betrayal. There's also conservative Vox Popoli, who seems to agree with the left on the issue, writing, it "couldn't happen to a more appropriate administration."
  
  

  >> Markos Moulitsas at DailyKos: "Once upon a time, my wife and I sparred over military service for our son. ... My wife and I no longer have that argument. ... As I've written before, it breaks my heart that the military is no longer a viable option to many people who could benefit from its pluses." TalkLeft cites Kos and adds: "I think the 'special skills' draft will be first. And with all the troubles recruiters are encountering, it may not be long off."



• Over on the right, Amnesty Internat'l's characterization of Gitmo as a "gulag" remains a major topic of discussion. A Washington Post-hosted Reuters dispatch is linked by Chrenkoff, Opino Juris, Little Green Footballs and The Corner, among others.
  

  >> Right-leaning INDC Journal, quoting a Pentagon report saying some Gitmo detainees are allowed to play soccer, checkers and chess: "Now that Amnesty International has declared Gitmo the 'gulag of our time,' the terrible stories are leaking out..." My Pet Jawa delves into the facts about the Soviet gulags in a lengthy post. Near the end: "Shame on you Amnesty International, I will never take your accusations seriously again."

SCOTUS: Rehnquist's Out, McConnell's In?

Conservative Steve Dillard writes at Southern Appeal, and cross-posts to Confirm Them: "Rehnquist will step down in the next four weeks: I don't think this news will come as a surprise to anyone, but I just received a phone call from an extremely reliable source who tells me that it's a done deal. My prediction: President Bush will tap Judge Michael W. McConnell of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit to fill the Rehnquist vacancy and to be the next Chief."

In the Agora concurs on the choice of McConnell: "McConnell is solidly conservative, but not in a partisan manner. He's an intellectual conservative, not a political conservative and that carries much weight with me. He has a long track record of scholarship that will provide plenty of fodder for the various liberal advocacy groups ... to oppose him. But ultimately, he is confirmable."

Since first posted on 6/1, Dillard's post has attracted a modest amount of attention, mostly from other conservative bloggers.

DEMOCRATS: Howard Huge

Jackson's Junction records video of Howard Dean at the annual CAF conf. Said Dean, as first broadcast on C-SPAN: "You think people can work all day and then pick up their kids at child care or wherever and get home and still manage to sandwich in an eight-hour vote? Well Republicans, I guess can do that. Because a lot of them have never made an honest living in their lives."

• Ankle Biting Pundits highlights more off-beat comments from Dean, including: "Is there a problem with the defense posture when we pick on dictators that are irrelevant to the United States and then leave nuclear powers like North Korea and Iran alone? Yes."

At his own blog, The Nation's David Corn reports from the "Take Back America" conf. in D.C.: "When Democratic Party chairman Howard Dean spoke to the group in the morning, he too said not a word about the war in Iraq. After [John] Edwards finished and starting working the crowd, one attendee ... approached him and remarked, 'You didn't say anything about Iraq.' He looked straight at her and replied: 'You're right.' It was left to Arianna Huffington ... to chide the Democratic Party for ignoring this 300 billion pound gorilla."

• Fellow Nation contributor Marc Cooper comments on Corn's post: "Ms. Clinton buzzed through town last night in her quest to shake out some Hollywood dough. This is, of course, how real politics are conducted in this country. Take your name recognition, mix in your network of entrenched party operatives, hacks and local elected officials, water it with plenty of campaign cash a coupla-three years out, and eventually make yourself inevitable."

REPUBLICANS: Pay As You Vote?

Conservative Pekin Prattles posts the text of a GOP fundraising letter signed by Senate Maj. Leader Bill Frist. In part: "I am counting on you to help the NRSC prepare for what is likely to be one of the toughest and most consequential debates in recent memory. Help us deliver on the principle of up-or-down votes for the President's judicial nominees." Captain's Quarters, well known among conservative bloggers for encouraging them to not donate to the NRSC until there's a vote on each of Bush's nominees: "No doubt the NRSC would like to improve its fundraising, but to claim it needs more money from Republicans to force a vote on the floor of the Senate defies common sense. All the GOP needs to get a vote is the spine to demand it."

WHITE HOUSE '08: Your Country Needs You, John

Conservative JustOneMinute expresses his exasperation with John Kerry in a post inspired by Instapundit, whose post was originally based on a column by the Boston Globe's Jeff Jacoby. JustOneMinute, on Kerry's complaints about "Republican Noise Machine subdivision of the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy": "Please, I'm begging now -- Kerry should just sign the Form 180 and send it in -- let everyone see the military records, and show the world that the Swift Boat critics were off-target. As a bonus, the news judgment of the NY Times, which has yet to mention the phrase "Form 180" and has never called for the release of Kerry's military (or medical) records, will be vindicated. ... Sign the form and silence the skeptics! Bring it on, Tall Dour One. And don't forget your war diaries, too."

BLOGS VS. THE MSM: Anarchy In The U.S.

Last p.m., John Hinderaker at Power Line posts a brief e-mail exchange between atty James Green and ex-Clinton aide Sidney Blumenthal re: the latter's Guardian column asserting that GOPers effectively filibustered Clinton's jud. nominees. Power Line agrees with Green that Blumenthal is incorrect; Hinderaker terms him "Sid Vicious."

• This a.m., Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo posts an e-mail sent by Blumenthal directly to Hinderaker. Marshall comments: "Without going into the specifics of this exchange, it's always struck me as more a matter of humor than debate that Republicans actually try to argue that they didn't spend the better part of a decade doing to Clinton nominees what Democrats have now done, less successfully and less systemically, to Bush's."

Righty radio talker Hugh Hewitt, on Dan Rather's "LKL" appearance last p.m.: "It is hard to be angry or even exercised over the sad spectacle of an old man trying so hard not to admit that he'd been played for a fool, but when Rather asserted, twice, that a 'prudent person' might judge the absurd forgeries as real, the damage done by the [Dick] Thornburgh whitewash became undeniable. Rather, and who knows how many others, have convinced themselves that there's a chance the forgeries weren't forgeries, and have also seized on 'the panel's' conclusion that no political bias was at work."

DailyKos fisks a letter to the FEC by Carol Darr from GWU's Institute for Politics, Democracy, and the Internet (IPDI). Darr asserts that bloggers should not be given the "media exemption" from regulation that the press now enjoys, writing that bloggers are activists, not journalists. Kos disagrees: "It's D.C. Establishment versus those of us outside of D.C. THAT's what blowhards like Darr are trying to protect. So please offer up examples of political activists inside the media machine (like Roger Ailes, Paul Begala, etc.) so we can blow that asinine argument out of the water."

BLOGGERS VS. BLOGGERS: Persona Habits

Anti-filibuster compromise Patterico's Pontifications takes umbrage with compromise defender Ace Pilots for suggesting that the non-compromisers put their party ahead of their country: "I virulently oppose the filibuster 'deal' ... But I wouldn't question the patriotism of someone who disagrees."

• Ace Pilots: "Welcome to the internets, Patterico." He discusses the roles bloggers play: "One of the easiest, most popular, roles is what I'll call Party Enforcer ... The Main Stream Bloggers (and any others who might admit to being affected by this dynamic) have gone overboard. There's a lot of 'playing to the galleries' in the blogosphere, and at some point, it goes beyond mere entertainment and moves into partisan ... divisiveness."

Conservative Lorie Byrd at PoliPundit, on FNC labeling Huffington "Progressive Blogger Arianna Huffington": "I can think of many descriptions of Huffington from her public life over the past couple of decades. Former Newt Gingrich devotee, ex-wife of failed Senate candidate and really rich guy, Michael Huffington, Al Franken's on-air bedmate in Comedy Central's 1996(?) campaign coverage, failed CA gubernatorial candidate, rich woman whose various households and modes of transportation consume more energy than my entire family will in our lifetimes and those of our grandchildren but who insists on lecturing us on energy conservation -- yes. Progressive blogger? Sorry, but no. Even taking the Huffington Post into account, I don't think that is what immediately comes to most people's minds when Arianna Huffington appears on their television screens."

WAR ON TERROR: Faster, Democrats! Kill! Kill!

Oliver Willis writes, at a 6/2 CAF presser featuring co-dir. Robert Borosage and Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), he asked Schakowsky "about the lack of national security/foreign policy issues being discussed. I was not happy with the response. The left has this notion that if we simply shift the discussion to be about economic issues ... that we can neutralize the issue of security, terrorism and war. No way. In the era of 9/11 and Iraq, America is going to vote for the movement that they perceive as the movement that will protect them and kill the bad guys." At Eschaton, Duncan "Atrios" Black makes a similar observation.

Liberals Against Terrorism: "I don't usually go in for cheap shots these days, as they're so easy ... but what's up with the Bush administration rushing to name the pro-Enron Chris Cox as the new SEC Chair when AFAIK there's been no similar rush to fill long-vacant counterterrorism slots and top Treasury jobs, the State Department is still waiting for Karen Hughes to do whatever she's doing, and there's been no US ambassador in Iraq for some months now?"

Drawing upon the resources of Daily Kos, Susan Hu has launched a project "examining several sets of documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) for evidence relating to the physical abuse and torture of detainees at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base and the denial of legal rights to these detainees under U.S. and international law."

DEEP THROAT: Follow The Links

At the Huffington Post, right-leaning Robert A. George quotes ex-Nixon aide/lobbyist Ken Duberstein on Deep Throat: "What options did he have? He couldn't go to the White House Chief of Staff (Haldeman or Ehrlichman); he couldn't go to the Justice Department (John Mitchell); he couldn't go to the White House Counsel (John Dean). He did something responsible. The congressional committees hadn't been formed yet. What do you do? Felt put America first."

Jonah Goldberg, whose mother Lucianne Goldberg became involved in the Whitewater via Linda Tripp, writes at The Corner: "But if you're going to say that Tripp wasn't heroic while Felt was, you are going to have to make a very careful explanation about why his motives were purer and more high-minded than Tripp's were alleged to have been. Because, it seems to me that motive goes to the heart of heroism. If I shoot a rapist by accident while cleaning my gun, the result is good but I don't think anyone would call me a hero. If Mark Felt leaked to Woodward in order to screw his boss or to pay Nixon back for being passed over, you're free to think the result was good. But don't give me this hero nonsense."

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: A Lying, Conniving Peacemaker

Not a few right-leaning bloggers, including Little Green Footballs, link to an online column by ex-Nixon speechwriter/monotone-voiced comedian Ben Stein at the American Spectator: "Can anyone even remember now what Nixon did that was so terrible? He ended the war in Vietnam, brought home the POW's, ended the war in the Mideast, opened relations with China, started the first nuclear weapons reduction treaty, saved Eretz Israel's life, started the Environmental Protection Administration. Does anyone remember what he did that was bad? Oh, now I remember. He lied. He was a politician who lied. How remarkable. ... He lied so he could stay in office and keep his agenda of peace going. That was his crime. He was a peacemaker and he wanted to make a world where there was a generation of peace. And he succeeded. That is his legacy. He was a peacemaker. He was a lying, conniving, covering up peacemaker. He was not a lying, conniving drug addict like JFK, a lying, conniving war starter like LBJ, a lying, conniving seducer like Clinton -- a lying, conniving peacemaker."

LEST WE FORGET: That 70's Source

If you missed the "Daily Show" segment earlier this week about the Deep Throat revelation, or just wnat to see it again, Crooks and Liars has the full video.

Posted by at June 3, 2005 12:00 PM