July 01, 2005

7/1: O'Connor's A Goner

Happy Independence Day. The next Blogometer will be posted 7/6.

It's too early, as we come upon our deadline today, to grab any useful blogger reax on the announced retirement of SCOTUS justice Sandra Day O'Connor. But that doesn't mean the blogosphere wasn't buzzing already. Pres. Bush's poll numbers and the specter of impeachment is one popular topic, as is debate about how/whether 9/11 and the Iraq war are related. Meanwhile, NBC anchor Brian Williams is taking a lot of heat for drawing parallels between the Founding Fathers and Iranian hostage-takers. Plus, an SD-based blogger uncovers an intriguing (but complicated) story involving Sen. John Thune (R-SD) and a potential banking scandal.

TRACKBACKS: James' Brother And The Giant Impeachment Number

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

• Liberal bloggers are all over a new Zogby poll reporting: "No Bounce: Bush Job Approval Unchanged by War Speech; Question on Impeachment Shows Polarization of Nation..." The impeachment question garners the most attention, with some surprised the question was even asked. Some also see it as a sign that the Downing Street Memos (DSM) are gaining traction.
  
  

  >> From the port side of the blogosphere: The Left Coaster: "Almost daily, the noose is tightening around the collective neck of Bu$hCo." Think Progress, on 42% supporting impeachment if Bush is shown to have lied re: Saddam's WMD: "That is a stunningly high number when you consider that only 41 percent of the American public supported" impeaching ex-Pres. Clinton. Liberal Interesting Times respectfully disagrees: "I find it astounding that fully 58% of those polled aren't sure whether a president who lies us into war should be impeached."
  

  >> A handful from the starboard side weigh in: James Joyner: "Given that we appear stuck in permanent campaign mode, with both sides continuing to use over-the-top rhetoric about the other, this is not surprising." Daly Thoughts, re: Zogby's occasionally unreliable polling: "Usual Zogby caveats apply."
  

  >> More: Eschaton; Daily Kos; MyDD; Matthew Gross; Political Wire; The Moderate Voice; Skippy the Bush Kangaroo; AmericaBlog; Corrente; Steve Soto; ParaPundit; Echidne of the Snakes; Ezra Klein; Fink Tank 3000.

IRAQ I: How Could Iraq And Afghanistan Be Connected? There's Iran In The Middle!

After Bush's 6/28 Ft. Bragg speech, Dem leaders and lefty bloggers alike responded by criticizing Bush for drawing links between 9/11 and Saddam Hussein. Now a number of conservative bloggers are pushing back. The Astute Blogger's "Reliapundit": "What is so mind boggling to me is that both 9/11 and al Qaeda WERE IN THE ORIGINAL RESOLUTION CONGRESS PASSED TO AUTHORIZE THE [IRAQ] WAR." Power Line makes a similar point.

• British writer Melanie Phillips quotes House Min. Leader Nancy Pelosi saying that Bush aimed to "'exploit the sacred ground of 9/11, knowing that there is no connection between 9/11 and the war in Iraq.'" Phillips: "What she presumably meant is that there is no evidence that Saddam was involved in 9/11. True. ... But the anti-war crowd is apparently shocked and horrified that the President made any link at all between Iraq and Islamic terror."
• Pejman Yousefzadeh points out (at his personal blog and at RedState) that John Kerry himself mentioned 9/11 in a speech defending his vote for the Iraq war, adding: "I await eagerly the accusations that Kerry waved the bloody shirt. I for one, however, will not be making those accusations, as it is perfectly understandable -- whatever the position Senator Kerry eventually took on the issue of Iraq's liberation -- that the terrorist attacks of September 11th were, are and will continue to be highly influential when it comes to crafting much of our foreign and national security policy."
• Patrick Ruffini dubs them the "Coalition of the Deaf and Blind" for not noticing that Bush's early post-9/11 speeches can be read as foreshadowing war with Iraq: "Though necessarily broad, the September 20th [2001] speech was a remarkably prescient foreshadowing of everything that has happened in the last four years."

Right Wing News reports on a poll at left-wing message board Democratic Underground, asking: "Poll question: 9/11: LIHOP, MIHOP, or Other? LIHOP: let it happen on purpose. MIHOP: made it happend on purpose." LIHOP gets 41%, MIHOP gets 45% (out of barely more than 100 votes cast). RWN's John Hawkins comments, "there is no upside here, especially for the Democrats who have to cater to these sort of loons because (God help us all) they make up a significant portion of their liberal base..."

Starting mid-afternoon yesterday, conservative Trey Jackson is e-mailing liberal bloggers, asking whether they agree with UC-Boulder prof Ward Churchill's endorsement of soldiers fragging other soldiers (see 6/28 Blogometer), to demonstrate "the left's unwillingness to express a concern, outrage or condemnation of the anti-American, anti-troop, enemy propagandist and treasonous" Churchill. So far, lefty Steve Gilliard is the only one to post a response, titled "Fragging is Bad": "Too bad he's an idiot. In the majority of Vietnam-era cases, crime or petty revenge motivated fragging, not bad leadership. He should look at the court-martial records sometimes."

IRAQ II: How Much Chicken Could A Chickenhawk Hawk If A Chickenhawk Could Hawk Chicken?

Army veteran Markos Moulitsas finds it "interesting" that Sens. James Inhofe (R-OK) and Pat Roberts (R-KS) are criticizing the media for playing up military recruitment shortfalls on the day new numbers were announced showing the latest quotas had been met. He posts photos of Inhofe and Roberts family members, plus the Bush twins at the '04 GOP convo. Moulitsas: "Roberts is whining that kids aren't enlisting? Maybe he should set an example. His family looks to be of military age..." He also links to conservative veteran John Cole, who writes: "I hate it when the media screws shit up as much as anyone, but blaming the media for low recruiting numbers is asinine." Seeing the link from Daily Kos, he updates: "I don't agree with Kos that people have to offer up their children ... because military service is a choice adults should make on their own."

BLOGS VS. THE MSM: One Man's Khomeini Is Another Man's Franklin?

This a.m., Michelle Malkin's blog is a hub of activity on the "Durbinization" of NBC News, where anchor Williams made more than 1 comparison of the American and Iranian revolutionaries. Williams, to NBC corr. Andrea Mitchell, on whether the new Iranian pres. was a hostage-taker in '79: "What would it all matter if proven true? Someone brought up today the first several U.S. presidents were certainly revolutionaries and might have been called 'terrorists' by the British crown, after all." Earlier, he wrote on his MSNBC Daily Nightly blog: "It is a story that will be at or near the top of our broadcast and certainly made for a robust debate in our afternoon editorial meeting, when several of us raised the point (I'll leave it to others to decide germaneness) that several U.S. presidents were at minimum revolutionaries, and probably were considered terrorists of their time by the Crown in England."

• Captain's Quarters: "Did Washington bomb women and children indiscriminately in order to chase the British out of North America? Did John Hancock send teenagers with bomb belts into marketplaces to kill as many people as possible to destabilize colonial society? ... Williams indulges in the same, tired moral equivalency that led Michael Moore to declare Zarqawi as the Iraqi version of the Minutemen from our war of independence."
• The Therapist puts together an Onion-esque fake news dispatch: "Brian Williams: Declaration Of Independence Really A Glorified Ransom Note"
• Dread Pundit Bluto: "Williams owes this country a sincere and abject apology."
• Video of Williams' comment is available at MSNBC.

THUNE: Can We Bank On This Getting Newspaper Coverage?

SD-based liberal Clean Cut Kid reports that IA-based car dealer/Thune ex-'96 manager Dan Nelson became aware he was being investigated for fraud in 9/04, secured an approx. $30M loan from ND-based MetaBank in 10/04, and filed for bankruptcy in 6/05. Thune sat on the bank's board until 11/04. Clean Cut Kid: "Now all of this doesn't really mean a whole lot except for the fact that Thune and Dan Nelson, who owns 75% of Nelson Automotive, are close friends." Additionally, property MetaBank held as a lien on Nelson's loans was being leased to Thune.

More Clean Cut Kid: "[S]omething just doesn't look right. As an elected official, Thune owes the people of South Dakota an explanation of how his web of relationships affected his judgment. As a former member of the Board of Directors of a publicly traded bank, Thune owes shareholders an explanation."

Daily Kos: "A real solid bit of investigative reporting. Time for the Argus to get on the case." AmericaBlog, Crooks and Liars and S.D. Watch also push the story.

FEC: There Is No Blogger, Only Zuul

Yesterday the Blogometer noticed a handful of blogs declaring themselves to be "online journals" or a similar construction, rather than blogs, in light of the possibility that the FEC would regulate political blog activity. Now everyone's getting into the act -- almost.

• Liberal TalkLeft starts a list of blogs now no longer claiming to be blogs.
• But conservative Captain's Quarters "will remain a blog": "I will not allow the FEC to chase me from my rights as an independent voice in politics to write what I please and to post what I want based on a silly bit of nomenclature. ... What will we do then, when we have no more names to hide us?"
• Outside The Beltway comments: "The transformation of blogs into 'online journals,' a meaningless distinction, does serve the purpose of illustrating absurdity by being absurd..."

OBAMA: Hey, It's Not Bank Fraud

PoliPundit's "PoliPundit" compiles a short list of bloggers who have criticized Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) for comparing his life story to Lincoln's in a commentary for Time as well as comments to the Belleville News. Mickey Kaus is one: "Good to see Obama retaining his essential modesty. The danger for someone in his position is that he might let it go to his head!" PoliPundit observes: "Methinks there's a meme forming here."

SOCIAL SECURITY: Lists Are A Blogger's Best Friend

Liberal Josh Marshall invites his readers to send him e-mails: "Where does your representative stand on the new flimflam private accounts bill Republicans are trying to push through the House? You know, the one that saves the Trust Fund that doesn't exist by blowing it on private accounts. We're making a (new) list and we're checking it (at least) twice."

CIVILITY: Surrounded By Fools

UT-Austin law prof Brian Leiter posts a lengthy explanation of his blunt rhetorical style, due in part to an e-mailed question from a former student: "Your intemperate rhetoric only alienates folks in the middle. It is indeed strange that a professor who prides himself, rightly, on his analytical rigor and logic habitually resorts to words like 'pathological' and the like to do his heavy lifting. Am I mistaken?" Leiter responds: "My short response was: the pathological David Horowitz is not [philosopher] H.L.A. Hart. There is no reason to accord to the former the close and careful reading, the reconstruction of arguments and evaluation of counter-arguments, that the latter demands. David Horowitz is a twisted, dishonest man, who smears and lies with abandon." Later, Leiter calls opposing the Iraq war an "easy" call, adding: "These questions, and many others, are easily addressed in the blogosphere, since there is no serious -- or at least no honest or intelligent -- dispute about the epistemic merits of the possible answers. ... The so-called 'blogosphere,' like the public culture in general, is not a rich repository of intellectual maturity, needless to say. And, unsurprisingly, intellectual lightweights with trite opinions, and limited analytical skills, take offense when I make it all too clear what the answers to the easy questions are."

Volokh Conspiracy contributor/GWU law prof Orin Kerr -- whose co-bloggers have tangled with Leiter recently (see Blogometers here, here and here): "It seems to me that these arguments for the most part are reasons not to blog at all about political questions, rather than to blog about them in a dismissive way."

MISCELLANY: Losing The Race, Temple On The Blunt, Scores Club -- And More!

Some of this, some of that:

• Liberal blogs are upset with news that CAFTA passed the Senate and is on its way to the House. MyDD is one: "What makes this even worse is that there were more than enough Republican 'no' votes to stop the bill had the caucus held. A full twelve Republicans voted 'no.' If only five Democrats/Jeffords or less had voted no, it would have failed. ... This is going to be the biggest ever test of Pelosi's leadership in the House."
• Conservative Daily Pundit comments on Mexico's racially offensive postage stamps: "The open and unabashed racism and bigotry practiced by many countries and cultures in the world today goes entirely unacknowledged by the American race-baiting establishment, which is far more concerned with ferreting out imaginary offenses in what is one of the least racist nations in the world." Liberal blogs Sadly, No! and Pandagon point out that Mexican pres. Vicente Fox's recent anti-black comments were indeed criticized widely.
• NY-based GOP consultant Karol Sheinen reports on the burgeoning controversy over a Queens assault where 2 white neighborhood residents have been charged with attacking a few young black men who apparently tried to rob 1 of them and steal a car. She opines: "This is what people who have only lived in Manhattan or the more anonymous, crowded areas of New York don't understand. If you come to my parent's block in Brooklyn, regardless if you're white, Hispanic, black or some combination thereof, there will be people giving you the eye immediately. ... White guys from another neighborhood would've gotten the same reaction if they had come to steal a car. At worst, this is a case of vigilantism."
• MO Dem consultant Roy Temple notes a contretemps between Gov. Matt Blunt (R-MO) and National Review; the mag criticized his stem cell policy, he responded with what Temple calls "many of the same attacks on Missouri Right to Life that he has used in commentary pieces," and now National Review has published a reply saying Blunt is using "nearly Clintonesque spin." Temple concludes by reminding Temple about "the first rule of holes."
• Lefty Chris Bowers issues his latest "Congressional Loyalty Scorecards." Rep. Bud Cramer (D-AL) is the defectingest Dem at 11 votes contrary to the party majority, Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) is the defectingest GOPer, but he counts several more Dem defections than GOP: "Democratic defection still has a very southern flavor to it. Considering our overall vote deficit, it is frustrating to see any backward slide, such as occurred this month."

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: But Seriously, How Long Before We See The Blog Version Of The Plame Case?

In light of the potential jailing of Time's Matt Cooper and NYT's Judith Miller, PoliPundit's D.J. Drummond puts forth the "blogger position" on revealing sources: "I myself get a lot of contact, email and snail mail, from people who tell me things privately. Sometimes it's not relevant to the events and issues, sometimes I can't confirm the claims, and sometimes the information is timely, relevant and credible, but I protect the source's identity. I should not like to find myself subpoenaed by a federal judge simply for commenting on an issue after hearing from a person with information I consider relevant. Yes, challenge me if you find my claims wrong, and I certainly agree that a claim made on the basis of something heard from a person I will not identify, is by no means the same thing as citing where and how I discover a point of data. But a reporter or analysts, even an Old Media one, is not the same as a person who conspires or commits a crime, simply because they report on it. And no judge should go fishing to bully witnesses, with threats of imprisonment as the hook to compel cooperation simply because you do not know the source. Even the New York Times deserves better."

LEST WE FORGET: Now You Can Count Fewer Sheep

Protocols of the Yuppies of Zion collects some "Great Moments in Inappropriate Online Advertising." This one is pretty good, but this one is better. Protocols' "Asparagirl" points out several more.

NOTES AND ERRATA: I Want My WFMZ

Yesterday's Blogometer highlighted the maintenance of a list of House members who have publicly supported a cong. inquiry into the Downing Street Memos, available at PSoTD. Our summary left out one person: Rep. Tim Holden (D-PA), according to WFMZ-TV.

Posted by at July 1, 2005 11:39 AM