December 2005 Archives

12/22: The Year Of Blogging Dangerously

For your entertainment and edification, we present our year-end edition, a review of the year that was in the political blogosphere. For the sake of brevity, it's nowhere near as comprehensive as we might have liked. But then, that's what our archives are for. The Blogometer will resume publication on Tuesday, 1/3/06.

If 2004 was the year that blogs broke into the mainstream, 2005 saw an acceleration of this trend -- even without a presidential election to focus on. Unlike 12 months ago, the word "blog" itself is almost a household name. Those annoying wire stories that reiterate the fact that "blog is short for web-log" are definitely on the way out.

As a tool, blogs are merely the best-known aspect of "Web 2.0," a buzzword commonly used to describe post-dot com bubble innovations that are rejuvenating the Internet, and re-wilding the "wild west" of the Internet, as it was once known. Count RSS, folksonomic tags, wikis, podcasting, companies such as Google and concepts such as the Long Tail as part of the trend. Blogs are closely related to them all. If the above sounds unfamiliar, well, let's see in another 12 months.

As a community, blog participation appears to be growing at an exponential pace. Professional ventures continue to join the trailblazing amateurs, and some of those amateurs -- the elite bloggers you are most likely to see quoted in the Blogometer -- are seeing their influence grow along with it.

Take media professionals, who have a tortured relationship with the blogosphere: Many check in with a few favorite blogs regularly, others know what's being said but keep them at arms length, and not a few write for blogs. In the blogosphere, they can say for free what their employers would never consider paying them to write. (Count the number of MSM writers who are gainfully employed but also contribute to Huffington Post.)

Politicians are jumping into the blogosphere as well, although their reasons are quite different. To elected officials and candidates, blogs can help raise money. Blogs also can serve as an end-run around the establishment media, calling attention to issues and pressuring the MSM to follow up. But the embrace is even less easy than between bloggers and the media; politicians cannot count on even sympathetic bloggers to jump on command, and positive buzz can turn negative on very short notice.

Since our debut in late 3/05, the Blogometer has followed these events day in and day out. In this special edition, we'll try to summarize the major events, big debates, and overlooked stories that characterized the political blogosphere in 2005.

EARLY '05: A Close Schiavo

The fight over Terri Schiavo reached its height just as we launched; our 2nd edition covered her death and the extremely emotional responses. The right split hard -- more than over any other issue this year -- between pro-life advocates who saw removal of her feeding tube to be euthanasia, and those who thought the law was not on the pro-tube side. We quoted the now-defunct Hundred Percenter, who de-linked 8 high-profile anti-tube conservatives, including Instapundit and Little Green Footballs. INDC Journal's Bill Ardolino, one of the delinkees, responded: "The subtext of that post: 'Hillary '08!'"

Beyond Schiavo, the other early event that set the stage for Pres. Bush's long, slow decline in the polls was his abortive attempt to overhaul Social Security. In the end, there was too much reticence about dramatically altering the program and not enough support outside of business and conservative activists. Caution carried the day. As Matt Yglesias wrote at the time: "It's important to recall that we don't actually have the ability to make binding decisions about what Social Security will look like in the distant future. The program has only just recently reached the end of its very first 75 years and it's already been drastically changed several times."

Just a few months after the story known to some as Memogate and others as Rathergate, conservative bloggers seized on another apparent memo fiasco: The Washington Post reported that a GOP memo had declared the Schiavo case to be a "great political issue." Michelle Malkin and Mickey Kaus were among those who suspected another hoax or at least overzealous reporting by the Post's (now Time's) Mike Allen. Crosstown rival Washington Times gave this interpretation with a front-page, above-the-fold splash: "Was the Schiavo memo a fake?" Eventually it turned out the memo was not a fake; it had come from a mid-level staffer in Sen. Mel Martinez's (R-FL) office. Most who pushed this theory acknowledged the truth, lefty bloggers had a good laugh, and by this point is almost entirely forgotten. It is worth remembering as a reminder that blogs often push erroneous stories, and that once exposed, the misconceptions are more often than not quietly dropped.

DELAY: The Sugar Land Express

As the list of TRMPAC and Jack Abramoff-related accusations against then-House Maj. Leader Tom DeLay piled up early in the year, some on the left feared that he might be gone too quickly to be an effective bogeyman during the '06 midterms. In early 4/05, Sam Rosenfeld of TAPPED cautioned: "What did our president call it when Saddam fell too quickly? A catastrophic success. Think about it. Hands off DeLay!" And by late 4/05, conservative bloggers at RedState and UCLA law prof Stephen Bainbridge were calling on DeLay to resign. If anything, the coverage of DeLay's eventual step down has been characterized by one lull after another. The one exception was the day his eventual indictment by controversial DA Ronnie Earle.

IRAQ/TERRORISM/TORTURE: Sour Ghraibs

In mid-May, Newsweek published a few allegations of poor treatment at Gitmo by detainees there. Most memorable, and most questioned, was the report that a Koran had been flushed down a toilet. To the left, Newsweek was just the latest MSM to cave to admin. criticism, but to conservatives it was a betrayal. Austin Bay suggested that "history may see Newsweek's fatal 'Koran flushing' story as the US press' Abu Ghraib."

A few weeks after the Gitmo event, Amnesty Int'l suggested that Gitmo was a "gulag." Not long after, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) invoked Nazi atrocities when describing U.S. detainment practices. An uproar ensued, with conservatives interpreting his remarks as a direct comparison between the Bush admin and the Third Reich; liberals deemed that a misinterpretation. But Durbin apologized anyway, thus losing the strong support he had enjoyed from the lefty blogs.

Versions of this debate played out several times throughout the year, such as when the Washington Post reported on the existence of CIA prisons in Europe, over the existence of Able Danger, and now once again re: Bush's authorization of domestic wiretaps without specific court orders. The left considers it valuable reporting on a WH that's liable to do anything. With the sometime exception of torture, the right is angry not at Bush but the media. Many have called for prosecution of the leaks that resulted in these stories.

JUDGES: Filiblustering

The next signature fight of the early summer was over Bush's circuit court judges and the extant Dem filibuster that had kept them from a vote on the Senate floor. Senate Maj. Leader Bill Frist, then a more likely WH '08 candidate than now, indicated his willingness to change Senate rules -- the "nuclear" (or "constitutional") option, and opinion tended to break neatly along party lines. But in the blogosphere, several liberal bloggers decided they'd be better off if Frist succeeded in getting rid of the filibuster.

Labor blogger Nathan Newman argued that "filibusters are inherently more of an obstacle to progressive government than a block to conservative politics." And while liberal and conservative bloggers endlessly debated whether the GOP's opposition to ex-Pres. Clinton's nominees was equivalent, the issue never came to a head: on 5/23, 7 GOPers and 7 Dems agreed on a compromise. Neither side was particularly encouraged. The Anchoress, from the right: "It's gonna be a long cold day before the [GOP] sees a dime of my money. A long. Cold. Day. Can someone please explain to me why, with 57% support from the nation ... the GOP caved on this?" Jesse Taylor, from the left: "Democrats win, basically. But they win in a way that is neither sure nor particularly productive in the long term." But it didn't take more than a few months for the CW to change, thus vindicating self-described "RINOs" like Mark Coffey, who had created a sidebar button for GOP-leaning bloggers who approved of the deal: "The Coalition of the Chillin." For a time, it allowed centrists such as Jeff Jarvis to wonder if the moderates could find a way to rule on other issues. But eventually it gave way to bigger fights over the SCOTUS vacancies that were coming soon.

SCOTUS: A Supreme Snoozer, A Serious QuagMiers, And Alito's Way

The filibuster compromise came at an opportune time for GOPers, as long-expected SCOTUS vacancies were indeed imminent. Over the months, many many rumors moved from conservative legal circles to RedState. Most, but not all, were wrong. The majority came from GA political consultant Erick Erickson, but one of the 1st (and one of the 1st wrong ones) came from Southern Appeal's Steve Dillard at RedState's 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."

When Sandra Day O'Connor stepped down instead, up went the nomination of John Roberts, who proved to be relatively uncontroversial, even when switched to the CJ seat. Only when Rehnquist passed away, and Bush named WH counsel Harriet Miers to the bench did the 'sphere go wild. But the outrage came from the right, not the left, in a near reprisal of the angst over the filibuster compromise. This time ex-BC'04 webmaster (and soon to be RNC eCampaign dir.) Patrick Ruffini adopted the "Coalition of the Chillin'" logo for his pro-Miers group. Nevertheless, her withdrawal was a relief to conservatives. The left was more or less left scratching its head -- had they opposed her too little? Too much? And what came next? Next up for SCOTUS: Judge Samuel Alito, whose favor by conservatives and disfavor by liberals has restored the natural order of confirmation battles.

HACKETT: OH My

The summer doldrums brought 2 unexpected stories to the fore. One was the surprisingly strong candidacy of OH House special election candidate/Iraq vet Paul Hackett, who came within a few points of defeating now-Rep. Jean Schmidt in a heavily GOP district. Working in his favor was the OH GOP-implicating Coingate scandal, and the enthusiastic support of some influential liberal blogs, due in large part to Hackett's blunt criticism of Bush. Our 8/3 edition best summarized the frantic, heady week of fundraising and campaigning that led up to the 8/2 vote. Hackett became even more of a left-blogosphere hero after the election.

Later, Hackett's entry to the OH SEN race against fellow lefty blog favorite Rep. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) would cause a minor controversy that resulted in the retirement of "liberal blogfather" Jerome Armstrong. We covered it 1st on 10/26, and followed up again with some original reporting on 11/1

SHEEHAN: Mother, Should I Trust The Government?

The 2nd big story was anti-war gold star mother Cindy Sheehan, who brought the anti-war movement as close as it's come to breaking out as a popular movement since the Iraq invasion. As we wrote on 8/16, "It may turn out that 2005 will be the Summer of Sheehan -- no matter which side of the increasingly emotional divide one finds themselves, the fact remains that it is an incredibly compelling and unnerving debate." Her encampment outside Bush's Crawford home during the dog days of summer -- in close proximity to a news-starved WH press corps -- and promotion by ex-Dean manager Joe Trippi helped get the media to pay attention, eventually turning her into a household name. Of course, much bigger news was in the offing (in fact, the transition from Cindy to Katrina was jarring enough for us to note the fact at the time). While she appeared in Time's year-end issue and still gets occasional publicity from the MSM, liberal bloggers almost never mention her, and conservatives only bring her up for the purposes of mocking the movement she represents.

KATRINA: The Battle Of New Orleans

We wrote on 8/29: "The only story that matters this a.m. is Hurricane Katrina. Where many had assumed the city could have been utterly destroyed, it seems clear at this point that it has been spared the worst: There will probably still be a New Orleans tomorrow." Within days, however, it was clear that N.O. (as many of us soon learned to abbreviate it) was not spared at all. And with Bush's slow response, embodied in an ill-advised guitar-holding photo op in San Diego and his ill-considered praise for now-ex-FEMA dir. Michael Brown, conservatives stopped holding back their criticism. While Bush hadn't had an easy time of it from the blogs throughout the year, Katrina damaged him in a way he hadn't been already.

Meanwhile, the blogosphere (both political and non) was noteworthy for its overwhelming response. As we wrote on 9/1: "Blog traffic is up overall, the same way cable news ratings are. Both the right and left are pointing fingers -- at Pres. Bush, at other officials, at the media and other businesses -- after all, criticism is the bread-and-butter of the political blogosphere. Despite the partisan rancor, blogs have started message boards independent of outside influence, plus local LA and MS media have grown blogs of their own -- bringing information to readers outside the area and helping displaced residents find relief, and each other, within. Fundraising efforts overlap with some traditional (i.e. non-blog) websites, but most activity so far largely originated at independent blogs from across the political spectrum. Had the blogosphere existed in its current form on 9/11, it would have looked something like this."

PLAMEGATE: The Spy Who Came In From The Cold And The Adviser Who Came In For Some Heat

What's there to say about Plamegate that hasn't already been analyzed from three or more angles? Between 6/20 and 12/16, now-ex-CIA "operative" Valerie Plame was mentioned in 88 of 118 Blogometer editions, frequently as the top story. The case was probably the closest-watched story of the year. At the outset, liberal bloggers almost to a person believed the WH had deliberately made her name public to "punish" her husband, ex-Amb. Joe Wilson, for contradicting their assertions about pre-war WMD intel. Months later, this line of speculation has largely disappeared, and if anything most of the controversy now focuses on the New York Times apparently inept handling of the case. Times reporter Judy Miller, long disliked by the left, eventually came to loom larger than Wilson or Bob Novak or Karl Rove. Eventually it even came to somewhat tarnish Bob Woodward, who knew about Plame, apparently from the same source as Novak.

Although the case had been discussed at some length during '03, when Novak published her name in a column, and the inquiry launched, the whole thing went big-time on 7/2 with the Huffington Post-hosted revelation by MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell that Rove had told/"leaked" Plame's name to Time's Matt Cooper. When the post first went up, the title was "Rove Blew CIA Agent's Cover"; later this was revised to the more cautious "It's Rove..." Despite skeptics like Kaus, O'Donnell had it largely right.

By mid-July, speculation ran so rampant we tried to keep track of it all. Among the theories we counted, all of which were wrong or are yet unknown five months later: "WH dep. CoS Karl Rove could face espionage charges rather than mere indictment under intelligence protection statues; Ex-Amb. Joe Wilson may have leaked wife Valerie Plame's role in his Niger trip to friends in the Washington press; New York Times' Judy Miller may have leaked the Wilson/Plame gossip to the WH; Or, Miller and the Times may be protecting another source, one unsympathetic to the WH; Ex-WH spokesperson Ari Fleischer may have leaked Plame's name."

Then came the near-jailing of Cooper, the actual-jailing of Miller, the 9/30 confirmation that Cheney CoS Scooter Libby was Miller's source, and then the 10/28 indictment of Libby. In the weeks leading up to this, the left-blogosphere had designated indictment day "Fitzmas," after special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald. It was a subdued one, as Rove escaped indictment. But as we head into '06, that possibility still hangs over Rove, and the WH.

BLOGGER OUTREACH: Gettin' To Know You

Dems have had the advantage of a "netroots" well developed during the invisible primaries of WH'04, and early in the year, DNC chair Howard Dean and Senate Min. Leader Harry Reidheld conf. calls with sympathetic bloggers. In early June, ex-VP nominee John Edwards "had a bunch of the political bloggers over for dinner at his D.C. house, I'm told, to meet with him, his Internet team, and his wife." But they haven't done much lately.

The GOP, meanwhile, largely ignored even the right-blogosphere until the fall of this year. Following the Miers disaster, the RNC and cong. GOPers wised up, and improved their outreach. On 10/20, the Blogometer attended a 10/20 "blog row" event for conservative bloggers to meet with GOP House members on Capitol Hill. We wrote then: "Events such as these highlight the blurring lines of journalism. It was aimed at amateur bloggers, but they weren't the only ones invited. ... Add to that, the caucus also filmed and photographed the event for its own purposes. While the interest in forging ties with amateur bloggers seemed genuine, it was also a rolling photo-op -- for the benefit of not just the MSM, but the blogosphere as well."

Conservative bloggers have been somewhat influential in the opposite direction. Post-Katrina, the impulse toward fiscal conservatism loomed large in the right-blogosphere. Instapundit's Glenn Reynolds and TTLB's N.Z. Bear created the Pork Busters project aimed at members of the House and Senate. So far, they have a staunch ally in Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK), who made waves this fall with a failed attempt to redirect fed'l funds from a bridge project in AK to repair the hurricane-damaged bridge that crosses Lake Pontchartrain north of N.O.

MISCONCEPTIONS: Drop It Like It's Hot

The Downing Street Memo is an issue frequently described as the subject of blogger buzz. Indeed, there are and were blogs started about it. But it never became a cause celebre of the biggest bloggers, and that was the source of some consternation on lower-traffic lefty blogs. Yet the story still got out, suggesting that the biggest blogs don't have to promote an issue for it to take hold. Not that it went anywhere -- for many it was old news, or they decided the memo didn't necessarily say what the memo's proponents argued it did. A contributor to The Next Hurrah lamented an "impeachment fatigue" that rendered all impeachment talk "tin foil hat-ish."

Somewhat different but along the same lines was Ed Klein's anti-Hillary book. Did right-wing bloggers eat it up? No, actually they tore it apart. It suffered in part because it included (and Matt Drudge heavily promoted) a particularly vicious false rumor about the Clintons' marriage. While a hot potato, nobody really believed it, and Ed Morrissey had a representative take: "I'm no fan of the Clintons, but the Right has had its problem reining in its vitriol regarding Bill and Hillary since 1992."

REGULATION: The Rules Of The Game

Bloggers of the left and right tend to be more libertarian than their offline counterparts, and early on RedState co-founder Mike Krempasky and Daily Kos founder Markos Moulitsas joined forces to support cong. legislation protecting bloggers from new campaign finance rules, and later to argue before the FEC that online political activity should not be subject to new FEC rules. We were there on 6/29 when Duncan "Atrios" Black and others appeared before the FEC to argue their case. And in an important but overlooked ruling in late Nov., MO Dem consultant Roy Temple got approval from the FEC for his blogs to be treated just like any other media org, with a "press exception" from campaign finance laws.

INTRODUCING: The Drawing Of The Three

As we mentioned above, the blogosphere is beginning to organize itself into websites that aggregate blogs. Some emerge from traditional bloggers themselves, while others are projects by outsiders who want a piece of the action. There were 3 major introductions this year that stood head and shoulders above the rest -- though they have not all been equally successful:

The first out of the gate, conservative Beltway pundit-turned-liberal Hollywood activist Arianna Huffington's The Huffington Post, likely met with the greatest amount of pre-launch skepticism. Libertarian Matt Welch snarked at Hit and Run: "The pre-launch Huffington Post continues to be a rich source for the kind of unintentional comedy I haven't enjoyed since watching the likes of Lou Dobbs, C. Everett Koop and Sydney Schanberg go bonkers with dot-com greed back at the end of the last Internet publishing boom." Only the website succeeded, and upon its debut drew praise from ideological adversaries, including Scott Johnson of Power Line. Instead of relying on Hollywood celebs for the majority of their content, Huffington offered a platform for liberal writers to reach a larger audience.

The 2nd was a group effort created by Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo, called TPM Cafe. While Marshall continues to blog for his site, TPM Cafe brings together policy-oriented liberal journalists, think tankers and readers to the debate issues on the web. Some Dem politicians, including Edwards, have taken up temporary residence at the site's "Table for One" page.

Pajamas Media, briefly known as Open Source Media, was initially announced by co-founder Roger L. Simon on 4/28. While announced as a blog advertising network, that aspect of the company has yet to develop; so far it is best known as a portal website. It's had a rocky start (and as a testament to HuffPo's endurance, PJM has been compared unfavorably with it). As PJM's debut neared, a scorned business partner gained a wide audience by publicizing unflattering details about the business' development. Then their name change ran afoul of another org's trademark, and questions about the business model persist. A blog-based death pool is currently predicting its demise.

MISCELLANY: It Takes A Year To Make A Day (And I Feel Like A Float In The Macy's Day Parade)

• Captain's Quarters played a key role in publishing documents related to the "Adscam" scandal in Canada that helped bring down the gov't of PM Paul Martin. For the effort, his site was banned in Canada for a time; eventuall writing about embargoed testimony on a scandal in Canadian PM Paul Martin's government.
• On 4/29, the Blogometer attended a Time dinner at Metropolitan Club, where managing ed. Jim Kelly led a discussion by now-Slate reporter John Dickerson and Wonkette editor Ana Marie Cox. We covered it for our 5/2 edition.
• In early Sept., we hopped a train to Philly for the 1st annual EschaCon, a convention of, by and for "Atriots" and "Eschatonians," members of the community at Duncan Black's Eschaton. Our full report is located right here.
• One of the most unpopular decisions of the last year was the New York Times' announcement and subsequent implementation of "TimesSelect," a pay-subscription program which effectively removed the newspaper's editorial columnists from the blogosphere. Washington Monthly's Kevin Drum announced that he wouldn't link to it any longer, writing: "I predict that's going to go down with New Coke as one of the all-time bad marketing decisions in history." And frequent Paul Krugman critic Don Luskin realized it would "have the consequence (unintended?) of making it far more difficult for bloggers to dissect Times columns."
• Air America Radio has had money trouble since its inception, but this summer it was revealed that a former exec had funneled hundreds of thousands of dollars to AAR to the detriment of a Bronx Boys and Girls club. While the NYC press largely ignored the story, radio talker Brian Maloney and Michelle Malkin followed it closely.
• The '04 SD SEN campaign ended with now-Sen. John Thune (R) defeating then Senate Min. Leader Tom Daschle. But over the summer, we reported on what at first seemed to be a burgeoning financial scandal to which Thune might have been attached. But it quickly turned out that not only was there little substance to the charge, but it was being promoted by ex-Daschle staffers, and encouraged by a consultant still on Daschle's payroll. As we termed it in a 7/13 header, "So Basically, SD Is To Bloggers As NJ Is To Consultants."
• Prior to our launch, the political blogosphere claimed 2 very different causalties from the media. In 1/05, conservative bloggers seized on a suggestion by CNN exec Eason Jordan that the U.S. military had deliberately targeted journalists in Iraq. Jordan's remarks were made at Davos, blogged by a participant, and hit the political blogosphere within days (in some sectors, hours). Unable to effectively defend himself and protect the network, Jordan tendered his resignation just 2 weeks later. We weren't around yet, but click here to see all our mentions of Jordan throughout the year. (A few months later, Newspaper Guild pres. Linda Foley made similar remarks; conservative bloggers swarmed her too, but she survived.) The other "victim" was much weirder, and unfolded more or less concurrently: Liberal bloggers zeroed in on Jeff Gannon, an unknown reporter who had asked Bush a ridiculously softball question, and it wasn't long before he was identified as an erstwhile gay prostitute named James Guckert. He too resigned his (less exalted) post and went on to write occasionally for the Washington Blade [note: corrected 12/27] and -- wait for it -- his own blog. Same as with Jordan, click here for everything we have on him.
• For several months earlier in the year, the group blog PoliPundit featured a counter at the top of the page tracking John Kerry's post-election promise on "Meet the Press" to release his militrary records: "[X] days ago, John Kerry promised, on national TV, to sign form SF-180 and release his military records. He has yet to do so." Finally on day 115, in late May, Kerry more or less defused the issue by releasing his records not to the public, but to the Boston Globe. The issue eventually died, but less because Kerry's critics were satisfied than that other issues simply demanded their attention.
• Just a few of our favorite "Lest We Forget" items from the past year: Jim Treacher's all-purpose blog post; WuzzaDem's Andrew Sullivan "Emotional Alert" system; Patriotism gone horribly wrong at America We Stand As One; Video of the local television reporter's natural enemy, the cheese ninja; Politburo Diktat's Pajamas Media competitor, Flannels Media; The truth about HuffPo; Alito's shameful secret and the baseball card to prove it; A method for calculating your blog's worth to AOL; Harriet Miers' Blog!!!; And you've gotta love this thing, even if it doesn't make any sense.

BY THE NUMBERS: Down For The Count

As journalists, we tend not to be numbers people. But we still like counting. Here's a few fun facts about this year's Blogometer, from 3/30 to 12/16:

• Number of editions prior to this one: 175
• Number of words, total: 615,313
• Average Blogometer length: 3,516 words
• Longest edition: 9/6's "The Battle of New Orleans," at 6,866 words
• Shortest edition: 12/14's "Briefing Papers," at 2,213
• What's longer, the entirety of the '05 Blogometer or "Infinite Jest": The Blogometer, but just barely
• Most-cited blog: Daily Kos by a country mile, at 456 links
• Next 9 most-cited blogs: RedState (301), The Corner (212), Power Line (212), Captain's Quarters (211), Michelle Malkin (211), MyDD (208), Eschaton (200), Instapundit (197), HuffPo (176)
• Least-cited blog: Most of them, i.e. all the ones we never linked to.

POSTSCRIPT: Back To The Future

So what happens next year? One thing we're sure of is that blogs will become a major force in the midterm elections. Quite a few have already organized, but many more are coming. In particular, watch for them to take over not just the dissemination of oppo, but also the collection of it. And thanks to the FEC's ruling that even highly partisan blogs are covered by the press exception, watch for more non-profits and ideologically aligned think tanks to get into the blogging business.

Meanwhile, the fact that blogs are becoming more important to communications and logistics outside of politics will only reinforce their importance, even as we cease to realize how pervasive they are. Indeed, watch over the coming year(s) as website re-designs incorporate the tools of blogging. Where the community goes is another question altogether. To follow the bloggers is to follow an often fascinating group of writers and their contentious debates. They're not as easy to romanticize as Hemingway's fellow expats in post-war France, or Dorothy Parker's witty tablemates -- at least not yet. Nevertheless, there is a very real sense of a community -- even there are two distinct halves who have little use for the other. But as new bloggers and new organizations set up shop in the politically-minded corner of the blogosphere, these circles will change. We won't presume to know how. But in 12 months time, the place may look much different than it does now.

12/16: Purple Haze

This last regular Blogometer of '05 finds a landscape quite different from the one we covered our first editions, nearly 10 months ago. At the time, Pres. Bush remained relatively popular, but the signs of trouble were lurking: His Social Security plan was moving to the back burner, as the fate of Terri Schiavo was all anyone could talk about. Now after a summer and fall of Plamegate, Cindy Sheehan, Katrina, Able Danger, and then a Plamegate reprise, we find most conversation is about issues surrounding the war on terror: the voting and violence in Iraq; a fight over the Patriot Act, torture/"torture" and domestic spying. That's just today, but in the past month we've seen a marked shift away from domestic politics and toward foreign policy, especially Iraq.

Although we won't take the temperature of the blogs again 'til 1/3, we will return 12/22 to bring you a special "Best of the Blogometer" edition. In that edition we'll include the most notable posts of '05, spotlight the biggest events, and review the trends in political blogging that shaped this year -- and perhaps the year ahead. Got any suggestions? Send 'em our way: blogometer@nationaljournal.com.

IRAQ: An Impressive Achievement, Or An Impressive Photo Op?

Without question, the Iraq election was a much bigger story in the right-blogosphere, and it so happens that very fact was itself a significant topic of discussion.

>> From the right -- Wizbang's Jay Tea compares the war to a long family car trip: "As the Iraqi elections wound down, I took a quick survey of some of the left end of the blogosphere. And I noticed" the "endlessly repeating ... mantra about 'bringing the troops home,' like annoying kids in the back seat with their endless queries of 'are we there yet? Are we there yet? How much longer?' And like those kids, as tempting as it is to turn around and smack them, we can't. But we can, at least, yell back at them." The Corner posts an e-mail from a "high-level muckety muck friend" at the WH who calls this "arguably the most successful and significant, election in Iraq" so far, in large part because of the Sunni participation. Captain's Quarters: "Those left out of the negotiations, such as the Zarqawi faction, obviously will continue to attempt their operations to disrupt the elections, but the lack of widespread violence may indicate that Zarqawi's ability to conduct such operations has been severely curtailed." CQ's Ed Morrissey also wonders why the major papers aren't editorializing about the election: "The RSS feed for the Opinion page at the Times just updated with tomorrow's articles. ... Wait -- perhaps one of their guests addresses it instead. Er, no." And the Washington Post? "The Washington Post editorial board passes on the elections as well. Instead, they talk torture, ANWR drilling, and a recount in Virginia's election for attorney general. ... The LA Times doesn't do much better." The Jawa Report is offended that CNN, MSNBC and CNN carry reports describing the new parliament as "the first full-term parliament since Saddam Hussein's ouster": "Um, can we, like, not count anything during the Hussein era as democratic?" California Conservative writes that Iraqis' enthusiasm "seemed not to sit well" with CNN's Cooper. At one point his "retort of, 'Well, are you disappointed with anything about the election?' was met by dismissal by the young Iraqi woman who positively glowed with gratefulness for her newfound freedom." Pro-war centrist Joe Gandelman writes, "just as there have been no easy answers about this war all along... there are no easy answers. Just, on election day, hopes raised and -- in the often-courageous and defiant act of voting -- being realized. Which, on December 16, 2005 at least, may be enough and a lot." Pajamas Media rounds up the best of its on-the-scene reporting from various polling sites.

>> From the left -- Nico Pitney is amused that Lynne Cheney went to an elementary school to "marshal support," as AP put it, for the Iraq war. A photo shows L. Cheney holding up an finger; Pitney advises: "Lynne Cheney should have given the kids a lesson in the consequences of failing to plan." Steve Gilliard: "Elections are a good start, if there is a real government to support. But if it's just a debating society for basically gangsters and fanatics, all the elections in the world will not matter." At Crooked Timber, Daniel Davies does some analysis and figures Iraq will have a secular gov't soon. But he has caveats: "One, Iraq is a federal country under its new constitution. That means that a liberal secular government in Baghdad will not exactly be passing any French-style anti-hijab laws in Basra." 2nd, Anbar is still "bandit country." He also expects Iran will have a bigger say-so and terrorists will persist, so considering the cost in blood and treasure, "I think this is pretty lousy."

>> Debating the lack of debate -- Right-leaning Jeff Goldstein does a round-up of the top left-leaning blogs, who note the high turnout, or dismiss the effort, or say nothing. He adds: "I'm not passing judgment on these sites; I'm just trying to give you some idea about how the anti-war sites are reacting to the elections. Perhaps some sites are waiting for results. Or a really nasty explosion or something. You can draw your own conclusions." David at In Search of Utopia responds: "It isn't all about sour grapes Jeff." Although he was and is against the war, he adds: "None of that changes the fact that I am extremely proud of the heroism of the average Iraqi in going to vote today and in trying to put their country back together. So I wish them well, and most of all I wish them a speedy recovery of their Sovereignty, and a return of our troops to their homes." Another example -- Conservative SoCalPundit makes a more forceful argument, heading a post "Liberal Blogs Choose Silence On Iraq Elections." Liberal The Peking Duck "wouldn't be surprised if it's true," and explains why it's true in his case: "There comes a point when all you can feel about Iraq is cynicism and pessimism. It will take more than a feel-good photo-op to turn that around, especially after we've seen so many in the past few years." Indeed, Daily Kos' recently-promoted front-page contributor McJoan wants to be optimistic, but has seen too much go wrong: "I love the idea of purple fingers against insurgents' bombs. It makes for some lovely imagery. But we've long since learned that imagery isn't enough to win this war. All the 'Mission Accomplished' banners in the world aren't enough to overcome the reality of a poorly planned and ineptly conducted war. And all the purple fingers in Arabia aren't enough to create democracy. At least not yet." Header at Unclaimed Territory: "What exactly do Iraqi elections prove?"

CIVIL LIBERTIES: No Such Agency

New York Times reports this a.m., post-9/11, Bush "secretly authorized" the NSA to eavesdrop on Americans and others inside the United States to search for evidence of terrorist activity without the court-approved warrants ordinarily required for domestic spying, according to government officials. It gets top billing at both the Drudge Report and Huffington Post. His header: "Paper: Feds Eavesdrop On Americans Without Court-Approved Warrants." Hers: "Bush Secretly Authorized Eavesdropping On Americans Without Court-Approved Warrants..." TalkLeft walks readers through the main points of the article.

>> Volokh Conspiracy's Orrin Kerr: "I hope we'll be hearing more about this in coming weeks, as this is big news. While the statutory privacy laws have an exception for this type of monitoring ... and the constitutional limits on e-mail surveillance are uncertain even in traditional criminal cases, the constitutionality of warrantless interception of telephone calls in situations like this is really murky stuff." Instapundit: "I can't see any very compelling reason to bypass the courts here, especially given that warrants in these cases are almost always granted. Which makes me wonder what's up here." Power Line's John Hinderaker: "The Times believes that it should be the arbiter of what will and will not help the terrorists and thus impair our national security. I don't agree. Under the Plame precedent, this case is a no-brainer. The intelligence officials who leaked to the Times should be identified, criminally prosecuted, and sent to prison."

>> Liberal Politics in the Zeroes: "The Pentagon is spying on us, NSA is spying on us, Dubya is spying on us. Gee, it's so nice to be in the 'land of the free,' isn't it?" In light of everything else wrong with the Bush admin., Oliver Willis expects many to just ignore it: "It's so hard to care anymore." Liberal Xymphora notices the paragraph where the Times explains they held the story "for a year to conduct additional reporting" after the NSA requested they not run the piece. Xymphora isn't too impressed: "So what has happened in the past year to change the Time's view of what dark secrets it can let out? Answer: Judith Miller. This is a rather pathetic attempt to regain some credibility lost by publishing the Miller lies for so long, but the fact they hid the NSA scandal just reinforces the view that the Times is no place to find the truth."

PENTAGON: Flips Flops In Winter?

Bush's acceptance of John McCain's torture policy is taken by both the left and right as a sign of weakness -- either politically for the POTUS or militarily, as a liability in the war against terrorism.

>> Header at Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: "Why Don't We Just Surrender and Get it Over With?" At The Corner, non-Brat Packer Andrew McCarthy dubs it the "Al Qaeda Bill of Rights" because it "rewards the terrorists trying to kill us all with U.S. Constitutional rights." He also notes that McCain got the bill through by attaching it to a DoD appropriations bill, although he calls Sen. Ted Stevens' (R-AK) attempt to attach ANWR to the same bill "disgusting." Righty Bill Quick sees a different course of action -- because "al-Qaeda members will easily resist the milquetoast interrogation techniques that are still permitted ... there is no reason to capture and hold them. In fact, no reason to take them alive at all." Conservative Robert George thinks Bush got played: "In short, you're either with us or with the torturers. McCain arguably beat the administration at its own rhetorical game." Longtime torture critic Andrew Sullivan exults: "This is such a great, great day. Iraqis turn out in massive numbers to move their country forward; and America regains her honor by finally, unequivocally reasserting a ban on torture and adherence to the U.N. Convention on Torture."

>> At liberal MyDD, Matt Stoller isn't pleased with Washington Post's Baker's take on it. Arguing that the amendment "doesn't prevent torture," Stoller calls it "the usual movie review of the personalities involved, including that oh so valiant maverick John McCain who pushes back on the WH to ban torture, except not really." Blogenlust goes faux-patriotic singing "God Bless the U.S.A." andthen snaps back to reality with: "Have you noticed this administration has spent as much energy trying to ban gay marriage as they've tried to prevent the banning of torture?" Center-left Michael Stickings: "It's yet another White House flip-flop, but at least it's hypocrisy in the right direction."

Instapundit agrees with "the folks" at NRO that Andrew Sullivan "has been consistently, pompously, and annoyingly moralistic and irritatingly unspecific" on torture. "So if that's the chorus, well yes -- but it's a song that has a lot of notes, most of them struck by Andrew himself. And I'm irritated with him, not for the reason you might think -- because I disagree with Andrew -- but more the contrary, because every time I read one of his preening posts, I find my opposition to torture weakening in response, even though I've been consistently in opposition to torture."

CHENEY: Don't Call It A Comeback

VP Cheney's opponents are cheering McCain's victory with the passage of his anti-torture bill, but lefty think tanker Steve Clemons isn't so sure: "I don't trust Vice President Cheney on this front -- and nervous rumors are leaking out of the White House and State Department that Vice President Cheney's supposed 'containment' by Bush was a ruse, or at least was just temporary." What's more, "some of those who thought that the Libby indictment and combination of bad news items crippling the White House had harmed Cheney's status are now reversing themselves. At a minimum, they are talking less definitively about Cheney's downfall."

PATRIOT ACT: The Last Refuge Of A Patriot

AP reports, Sen. Pat Leahy (D-VT) says Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI) does have the 40 votes he needs to successfully filibuster the Patriot Act. Feingold has been posting about his campaign at TPM Cafe, and he posts 1 last entry before this a.m.'s scheduled vote. He concludes: "I will be on the floor for the vote and will post again as soon as I can this afternoon." Recalling that Feingold was the only sen. to oppose the Act in '01, Daily Kos' WisVoter comments: "I couldn't help but be reminded of Henry Fonda's character in '12 Angry Men.' For those who have not seen this movie ... it tells the story of how one jurist, Mr. Davis (played by Fonda), starts out as the only one on the panel unwilling to blindly accept the prosecution's claims of a man's guilt, and instead begins analyzing the facts of the case, eventually persuading the other members of the jury to acquit the man."

INTEL: Do You See What I See?

Washington Post reports, a cong. report has determined that the WH and cong. members did not have access to the same pre-war intel, contra claims by Bush and his admin. AMERICAblog: "Who would have guessed since the administration has repeatedly said otherwise so many times? Go figure why more and more Americans do not trust the administration." Daily Kos' SusanG: "Seems like it was just yesterday, Bush was saying" otherwise; she quotes Bush, and follows: "Whoops! It was yesterday! Ha ha ha ha ha!"

PLAMEGATE: Waas Happening Now

In today's National Journal, Murray Waas reports on the phone call between Robert Novak and Karl Rove that lead to Novak's column outing Valerie Plame as a CIA op.

Steve Clemons writes: "Waas makes a solid case that Rove was prepared to talk to Novak about the president's intention to make Fran Townsend Deputy National Security advisor for Combating Terrorism, not necessarily a campaign to out Plame. ... This does not alter the prospect that Rove was potentially fabricating answers or giving deceptive statements to Patrick Fitzgerald and the Grand Jury in this case, but it does add much more detail -- nuts and bolts style -- to what these retainers to Bush and Cheney were doing, and why they were doing it." Crooks and Liars: "There's so much information in this article that you need to read it carefully, but one thing is quite certain. Robert Novak is a tool of the government and should have been ostracized from the journalistic community a long time ago."

DELAY: Run Ronnie Run

New York Times reports, Bush was asked in an FNC interview whether he thinks ex-House Maj. Leader/Rep. Tom DeLay will be cleared of the charges he's facing: "Yes, I do." Firedoglake's ReddHedd is apoplectic: "Did he or his staff even stop to think about the consequences of this public display of affection for Delay? Has anyone explained to the Preznit the meaning of the words 'jury tampering'?" Hilzoy, guesting at Washington Monthly's Political Animal: "But here comes the funny part: Scott McClellan was asked about this in today's press briefing, and guess what? He refused to answer, on the grounds that that would constitute commenting on the Plame investigation."

MO Dem consultant Roy Temple reports at his blog: "Pursuant to a Missouri Sunshine Law request, Fired Up! has obtained records [PDF] which indicate that Texas prosecutors [i.e. Travis Co. DA Ronnie Earle] in the criminal case against Rep. Tom DeLay recently sought certified copies of campaign finance disclosure reports" for GOP MO Gov. Matt Blunt's '00 GOV campaign. Earle has previously looked into Blunt father/acting House Maj. Leader Roy Blunt's PAC. Records show MO's "response to Earle's request totaled 829 pages."

MIDTERMS '06: The Least Worst Option

Leon H of RedState considers the pros and cons of backing conservative Cranston Mayor Steve Laffey (R) over "RINO" Sen. Lincoln Chafee (R-RI), even if it means a Dem could win the seat instead: "There are ... some significant negatives to leaving Chafee installed that tend to manifest themselves at committee level. When Chafee is just one vote of 100, he can cause significant problems. When he is one Republican vote on an evenly divided committee of 18, he can be disaster. A rather strong case can be made that it would be better, for all those committees, to have a junior Democrat in a powerless position, than a senior unpredictable Chafee."

DIEBOLD: The Case For Chads

The Miami Herald reported 12/15 on the claims of Leon Co., FL's election supervisor that a political operative could hack into Diebold-made voting machines and alter results. Brad Friedman: "The bad news keeps rolling in for Diebold. But that is hopefully good news for democracy and America!" Idol Thoughts: "We celebrate the election in Iraq but pay scant attention to the loss of our own votes here in the U.S. That this is not the lead story everywhere is shameful."

Conservative John Cole: "At any rate, I have really decided this electronic voting movement is not a good thing -- at least for now. I just don't think that a system this open to fraud, with or without a paper trail ... is a good idea, and I rush to embrace every new technology there is."

BLOGS ON BLOGS: And The Winner Is ...

Voting has concluded in the 2005 Weblog Awards, the brainchild of Wizbang's Kevin Aylward. Winners in some of the major categories: Best Blog went to Daily Kos, besting Eschaton and Michelle Malkin; Best Group Blog went to Hit and Run over RedState and Think Progress. Other caegories: Best liberal Blog: AMERICAblog; Best Conservative Blog: Ace of Spades HQ; And ex-military Iraq corresp. Michael Yon knocked the rest of the competition flat for Best Media Blog.

Now accepting nominations is the 2005 Koufax Awards, named for southpaw Sandy Koufax, honoring left-of-center blogs in various categories.

MISCELLANY: Dingell Bells, Freeman Tells, John Gets Kerry-ed Away ...

• We've just noticed: a button link appearing on a number of left-leaning and primarily UK blogs, which says: "I'll publish the Al Jazeera memo." This refers to an alleged British memo quoting Bush considering (or possibly joking about) bombing al Jazeera's Doha HQ (see 12/2 Blogometer). Spearheaded by BlairWatch, 300+ bloggers have signed up.
• PoliPundit's Lorie Byrd picks up an AP story with actor/'04 Dem convo narrator Morgan Freeman saying: "I don't want a black history month. Black history is American history," and that "the only way to get rid of racism is to 'stop talking about it.'" Byrd: "Wow, I think I know who won't be on Jesse Jackson's Christmas card list this year. ... Talk is cheap, action is what really counts. Just look at Condi Rice and you will see what I mean when I refer to 'action.'"
• A handful of lefty bloggers are annoyed by a House vote to "protect" Christmas symbols. Rep. John Dingell (D-MI) read a "Twas the Night Before Christmas" parody, which is posted by bloggers like Demagogue's Zoe Kentucky, who adds: "Yes, this is truly beyond ridiculous. But at least some Dems are treating it as it should be treated -- as a joke." Jonathan Zasloff at The Reality-Based Community suggests there may be anti-Semitism at play: "Is that going overboard? Well, several Representatives asked the House leadership to amend the resolution to protect the symbols of Chanukah as well, and it refused.
• Michelle Malkin offers a brief eulogy for the late Sen. William Proxmire (D-WI), who passed away yesterday: "Didn't agree with everything he stood for, but he was the original Porkbuster -- a crusader against government waste who issued 'Golden Fleece Awards' to expose taxpayer-funded boondoggles. ... Would that we had more like him... in both parties."
• Hotline On Call reported John Kerry saying on 12/15 that if the Dems take over the House, "articles of impeachment" may be considered. Mark Coffey can hardly believe it, whether Kerry was joking or not: "Is John Kerry the worst politician alive? Is the sky blue? Is the Pope... well, you know the rest."
• Crooks and Liars' John Amato: "You knew when the Fox caption under Sean Hannity's face said 'Dirty Money' -- there had to be some evil, liberal agenda attached. Saudi Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal, made large donations to Harvard and Georgetown universities which seemed to give Sean and author Richard Miniter, the perfect evidence of anti-Americanism on campuses across the country." Amato: "Unfortunately for Hannity, he should have talked to Rupert Murdoch first." As Newshounds reports, "A 1999 press release by News Corporation, announces that Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal owns more than 5% of FOX News Channel's parent company."
• Before it hit the wires, Josh Marshall had word that NH GOP operative James Tobin had been convicted on 2 counts related to phone-jamming on election day '02. He adds: "DOJ lawyers plan to lean on him to flip on folks higher up the ladder in the GOP. So there's even more muck coming down the pike."
• On 12/14, Minnesota Republican Watch pointed out that state Senate candidate Dan Ochsner's (R) camp was using a doctored photo. As they demonstrate, the photo was almost surely taken at an '04 Bush rally, and then those signs were replaced with Ochsner signs.

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Now They'll Never Save Your Brain!

Hosting his usual Q&A Friday, Right Wing News' John Hawkins ponders the popular question: "Would you go back in time and kill Hitler as a teenager if possible? As a baby?" While most would almost certainly say "yes," Hawkins thinks hard and decides the answer is "no": "After all, Hitler did not rise to power out of the void. The Germans were a warlike people who were furious over the Treaty of Versailles and it seems likely that they would have eventually started another big war, with or without Hitler. Furthermore, Hitler made a lot of really dumb military decisions. If let's say the war had started about the same time with a more competent leader in charge or even worse, a few years later, when it's entirely possible that Germany might have been the first nation to develop the atomic bomb, the Axis could very well have come out on top."

LEST WE FORGET: This Is The Year That Was

If you haven't already seen it all over cable and local news, Jib Jab is out with a new musical video. In this latest, Bush takes questions at a presser, and reviews the calamities of '05. And because it's the end of the year, here's an end-of-year bonus "Lest": At this website, you can nominate anyone you'd like to be Time's "Person of the Year." While they won't actually be considered for the actual prize, they will be considered for inclusion on a large reader board in Times Square. Here's our entry.

12/15: Vote Or Die

The election in Iraq leads most blogs this a.m. Optimists tend to be found on the right, and pessimists lean left. But that isn't always the case. Most expect the election itself to be a success in terms of voter participation -- it's what comes after that has even some war supporters concerned. Otherwise, Plamegate chugs along with the intriguing assertion by Bob Novak that Pres. Bush knows exactly who his source is, some GOPers are irritated that Gov. Mitt Romney (R-MA) is (now officially) not seeking re-election; and the Washington Post's Dan Froomkin isn't out of the spotlight just yet -- nor is Post political editor John Harris. We also present our latest Blogger Spotlight, which also our last of the year, in this penultimate edition of the Blogometer for '05.

IRAQ: Pessimistic Optimism?

Starting at 1:00 a.m. EST, Pajamas Media is providing on-the-ground reporting from Iraqi polling sites. American Bill Roggio is covering the election from Barwanna. PoliBlog reproduces a few useful maps and charts.

Mohammed from Iraq the Model writes: "I see most of Iraqis making their choices by comparing the names at the top of the lists while there's an educated minority who look at lists as a whole but either way it is all fine, we're still carrying much of the totalitarian heritage from the past decades. Here we have a proverb that says 'health comes in steps' and the thousand mile journey starts with a step, you know."

In a front-paged diary at RedState, Iraqi Hassan Kharrufa evaluates some of the top parties. Hassan himself prefers secular parties, but expects the Shia-backed Unified Iraqi Coalition will win: "It will rule everything, and I have a feeling Iraq will be like a second Iran then. Needless to say, I am not giving them my votes."

Iraq pessimist Juan Cole: "The only way in which these elections may lead to a US withdrawal is that they will ensconce parliamentarians who want the US out on a short timetable. Virtually all the Sunnis who come in will push for that result ... and so [will] the members of the Sadr Movement, now a key component of the Shiite religious United Iraqi Alliance. That is, these elections lead to a US withdrawal on terms unfavorable to the Bush administration. Nor is there much hope that a parliament that kicked the US out could turn around and restore order in the country."

Ex-CIA agent Larry Johnson, at TPM Cafe: "With voting already underway in Iraq we should harbor no illusion about the ultimate outcome -- the Iraqi shias with the closest ties to Iran will secure the largest share of the votes." The Mahablog's Barbara O'Brien writes, "getting the constitution right was less important to the Bushies than meeting that milestone. They wanted that talking point. A missed deadline would certainly have turned into a talking point for the Dems leading up to our November 2004 elections."

Conservative Decision '08: "We need not have a free Iraq that is in love with America; we only need a country that loves its freedom. That is victory, and it is within reach." Picking up on a report by New York Times' Filkins that the vote will reveal a "fissure" between Islamic and secular Iraqis, pro-war Secular Blasphemy comments: "More or less like the US, then. If the secularists and their allies manage to get close to half the vote, that would be a quite decisive repudiation of any alleged Islamist agenda."

Liberal BAGnewsNotes features a poster by secular Afghans who weren't happy with how U.S. official Zalmay Khalilzad's work in their country; the implication is that Khalilzad will do the same in Iraq: "Of course, this process would be managed by pre-established guidelines advantageous to Western interests. So, if you asked me who won, I'd say Khalilzad did."

On 12/14, the New York Times caused a stir by reporting that fraudulent ballots had been stopped at the Iraqi border. But according to Reuters, the Iraqi general in charge of the borders says it never happened. News Busters points out that the Times story was single-sourced, and asks, "who is trying to discredit the election, the unnamed source or the New York Times?"

PLAMEGATE: The Bobs

Hardly a day after Bob Novak made waves by publicly asserting he and Washington Post's Bob Woodward shared the same source, Novak is now quoted in the Raleigh News & Observer saying: "I'm confident the president knows who the source is. I'd be amazed if he doesn't. So I say, 'Don't bug me. Don't bug Bob Woodward. Bug the president as to whether he should reveal who the source is.'" Andrew Sullivan makes it his quote of the day; NRO's K.J. Lopez figures this means Plamegate will overtake Iraq as the day's big news.

TalkLeft, who thinks the source was NSA Stephen Hadley, expects an indictment to be based on Karl Rove's initial failure to mention his conversation with Time's Cooper in 10/03, adding: "No matter which way I slice it, it seems Luskin needed to pull one more rabbit out of his hat at the 11th hour. Either his grand jury testimony did it, or Viveca buried Rove." JustOneMinute, which leans toward ex-State Undersec. Dick Armitage as the source, responds: "Oh, please -- Rove forgot to mention Cooper in October 2003? The Department of Justice also forgot to ask about Cooper in their original document request ... What will Fitzgerald's indictment say? 'How dare you forget about the reporter we forgot to ask about?'"

WHITE HOUSE '08: Commonwealth Of Speculation

NRO's Jim Geraghty: "Romney's one electoral victory in his political career ... strikes me as a rather light record, and obviously, the Massachusetts governor doesn't get many opportunities to work on foreign policy and the war on terror. However, a domestic-policy oriented governor ... may have a chance to surpass expectations... if, as some suspect, we are seeing signs of a resurgence of isolationism." Romney critic Pam's House Blend has a roundup of Free Republic posts on Romney, and suspects he's "got a lot of work to do to win over that crowd." FullosseousFlap's Dental Blog writes that Romney's negative is "never standing for re-election to his only political office. ... Romney can run but the nomination belongs to either Rudy Giuliani or John McCain." Liberal Oliver Willis: "The question is -- which Romney will you get? The pro-choice one, or the one who said he was just faking that? The one for rights for gays, or the one against it? The one who favored civil unions, but then flip flopped on it?"

Alexander McClure of PoliPundit calls Romney's move "the most selfish and stupid decision of his life. ... I hope the fates ordain that he suffers the same fate as his father, [ex-MI Gov] George Romney when he sought the Presidency in 1964 and 1968. ... Simply put, he ran instead of fighting for re-election in Massachusetts. We cannot afford to have that kind of politician leading the party."

PENTAGON: From Tort Reform To Torture Reform?

Balloon Juice's John Cole castigates a "shameless" Wall Street Journal op-ed arguing that the McCain amendment would outlaw practices that are far from torture, such as stress positions. But Cole thinks they avoid mentioning some of the worst practices. He snarks: "Maybe I am not as manly a man as say, Paul Gigot or Daniel Henninger, but ... it sounds to me like someone else is playing fast and loose with definitions." The amendment passed the House last p.m. by 308-122. Late in the a.m., Andrew Sullivan writes: "I'm told a White House statement is imminent on the McCain Amendent. I'm told the White House has embraced the amendment, with no changes. If true, this is a huge step forward for the president, the war and American honor. It also has, I think, implications for McCain's possible succession to Bush as president. "

John Hinderaker of Power Line, citing a Washington Times report that Dems plan to filibuster the Patriot Act: "We've come a long way, obviously, since 2001, and the Democrats appear to be betting on the popularity of their antiwar position. They also hope to gain political protection from the fact that four Republican Senators join in their objections to the Act, and may even vote against cloture, thereby helping to kill the extension of the Act. I think that's a political miscalculation; it appears that we're going to find out who is reading the situation correctly."

Instapundit's Glenn Reynolds has a lengthy round-up on the torture debate.

Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI) again updates on the progress of Patriot Act at TPM Cafe.

BLOGS VS. THE MSM: The Froom Of The System

UC-Berkeley economist Brad DeLong spoke on the phone with Washington Post's Harris, and posts a partial transcript of the conversation. DeLong wants to know whether Harris knew RNC eCampaign dir. Patrick Ruffini was BC'04 webmaster' Harris had approvingly cited complaints by Ruffini about Froomkin earlier in '05 (see 12/13 Blogometer, and our 4/4 edition for the original dispute). Harris would say little on the record; to DeLong it's an issue of "grassroots" organizing vs. "astroturfing."

Duncan Black defends WPNI columnist Dan Froomkin against complaints that his opinion column is too easily confused with news reporters: "One thing that people should ask" Froomkin's critics "why he hasn't seen fit to make any complaints about David Broder's presence at the Post? Broder has written a column for the Post for years, and he also still (though with declining frequency) puts his byline on news stories. I actually don't care that he wears two hats, but one would imagine that it would offend [the critics'] delicate sensibilities. Of course the answer is that Broder is Broder and no WATB is going to complain about the Dean." Black's acronymic term for Froomkin's critics -- WATB -- is spelled out here.

Centrist Jeff Jarvis has a lengthy post defending Froomkin as well. A sample: "Froomkin's column is popular with readers... but not with print editors. What does that tell us?"

IN THE STATES: It's The Little Things

Markos Moulitsas checks out the Web sites of the 2 Dems running for MT SEN. "Notice one major, substantive difference?" State Senate Pres. Jon Tester "is not afraid to say he's a Democrat." Aud. John Morrison "apparently is. It's impossible to rebuild the Democratic Party brand if they won't tell voters which party they represent. ... It's all part of rebuilding the party brand. [Dem MT Gov. Brian] Schweitzer is also unafraid to let people know he's a Democrat." In an earlier post, Kos notes that Schweitzer "is currently working to put an anti-lobbyist initiative on the 2006 ballot, allowing him and Montana Democrats to highlight the issue of corruption in those crucial mid-term elections. And Burns is doing everything he can do to validate the Democratic strategy."

MISCELLANY: Oh, Canada

• AP reports that the Ford Motor Co. is reversing itself (again), and will resume advertising in gay publications. Pressure from religious groups had caused them to withdraw the spots; AMERICAblog's John Aravosisled the counter-charge on this for several weeks. He headlines his latest post: "We Won." He also links to a letter (PDF) from Ford explaining its decision.
• Josh Marshall, on the Canadian elections, where the U.S. amb. David Wilkins admonished the Liberal party to relent in its criticism of the U.S.: "The whole thing vaguely reminds me of Gerhard Schroeder's 2002 reelection campaign. In the world of Bushdom, every center-left leader gets to win once on his own steam and then a second time by running on domestic disdain for George W. Bush. It's good politics. Everywhere." Captain's Quarters points out that PM Paul Martin, in criticizing the amb., mistakenly referred to him as "Williams," and made no correction: "He couldn't ask someone to double-check Wilkins' name? Martin supposedly has held high-level contacts with the American ambassador for months on the softwood lumber issue and other NAFTA concerns."
• As we've noted earlier this week, The Agitator's Radley Balko has been promoting the case of MS death row inmate Cory Maye, whose conviction Balko argues was highly unjust. But at Right Wing News, John Hawkins argues that Balko and others have got numerous facts about the case wrong, and that Maye is indeed guilty: "What it all comes down to is that the cops had a warrant, identified themselves as police officers twice, and then Maye deliberately and knowingly chose to shoot one of them to death. For that crime, Maye deserves the needle, the noose, or the chair -- not sympathy."
• At Confirm Them, Carol Liebau comments on the "reported strategy" of SCOTUS nominee Samuel Alito's opponents is to "paint him as the second coming of Robert Bork": "It seems pretty significant that the left has to cast back to 1987 for a template of a successful derailing of a Supreme Court nomination. Because that's the first (and, really, the only) time they were successful in accomplishing it."
• Crooks and Liars posts video and transcribed excerpts of Bush's interview on "Special Report" last p.m., singling out in particular a quote where he praises Defense Sec. Don Rumsfeld: "I tell you, he is doing a heckuva good job."
• This p.m., a handful of NYC political bloggers are throwing a party -- the invite is open, just like the bar, but it'll cost you $30 at the door. Details here.

BLOGGER SPOTLIGHT: From Sea To Sheinin Sea

Today the Blogometer talks to righty Karol Sheinin, who writes Alarming News.

What is your full name?

Karol Sheinin

What is your age?

28

Where did you grow up?

Born deep in the USSR, raised in Brooklyn, New York.

Where do you live now?

Manhattan

What is your occupation? Have you ever worked on a political campaign or for the mainstream media?

I'm a political consultant so I've worked on a number of campaigns. I do mostly PR.

When did you start blogging and why?

Three years ago. Like a lot of bloggers, I was forwarding articles with my snarky comments to friends and it just made more sense to have it all in one place. And also because there are so many hip-hop lyrics that make perfect post titles.

What has been your favorite post, or favorite story to write about, in that time?

I loved covering the presidential election. I was working for Bush in Colorado and got to be on the ground seeing the reality of what was happening. My favorite post was written the day after Election Day, when it was still unclear if Bush was definitely the winner, about the lessons I learned from this election. And just so it doesn't seem like my favorite post is one in which I gloat, I also liked my sad post about Herman Cain, who I worked for when he ran, and lost, in the US Senate primary in Georgia. Basically, I like my election round-ups.

Describe your typical blogging schedule. And what is your average output?

I blog several times a day. Less around election time because I get very busy.

Who is your favorite political blogger? Favorite non-political blogger?

I like the big ones because they tend to be so comprehensive. Michelle Malkin, Instapundit, LGF, I can't live without them. As for non-political ones, I follow the lives of two of my girlfriends, Jessica at The New Vintage, Ari Goes Down and Petitedov religiously. I love Post Secret. I also love the trashy celeb gossip at Perez Hilton though I only vaguely know who most of the people are. I guess I just like hearing secrets, either from regular people on postcards or about celebs via Perez.

Who is your favorite mainstream media columnist?

I know it's not very original because everyone loves him, but Mark Steyn. I also really like James Taranto and Jonah Goldberg a lot. Actually, do any of those three qualify as 'mainstream'?

What is your favorite television news program, either network or cable?

I rarely watch TV, in particular news programs.

What MSM-produced websites (i.e. newspapers, magazines) do you visit on a daily basis?

Opinionjournal.com, ABCnews.com (but only for The Note) and the NY Times.

What non-MSM websites (i.e. blogs) do you visit on a daily basis?

I try to visit every blog on my blogroll daily but when time is tight, I make sure to visit these:

• Clarified is one of the few readable liberals.
• Protein Wisdom has made me spit up laughing more times than I can count. Usually coffee.
• Ace of Spades, my co-host on the weekly talk show 'Hoist the Black Flag' (which airs Tuesdays 4-5 EST on www.rightalk.com), only like several hundred times a day.
• Urban Elephants has done a great job creating an online NY Republican community.
• Vodkapundit
• Cathy Seipp is my hero. I want to be as badass as her someday.
• The NY Observer's Politicker blog has become the daily must-read for anyone involved in NY politics.
• Dorian Davis -- if he blogged more often.
• Dean Esmay
• PoliPundit
• James Lileks' The Bleat and Screedblog are both always genius.

How often, or do you ever, read a newspaper in its dead-tree (i.e. print) form?

Once or twice a week, mostly local weekly papers that I read for my job that aren't available online.

How do you see the new media and old media affecting and influencing each other in the next five years?

They're in a symbiotic relationship. I don't see that changing for awhile.

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: What Democracy Looks Like

Conservative Patterico's Pontifications quotes radio talker Hugh Hewitt asking Los Angeles Times' Michael Hitzlik whether he thinks Iraqis are better off now than they were under Saddam Hussein. Hitzlik isn't sure. Patterico has a proposal to settle the issue. He writes, the "question is, of course, reminiscent of Ronald Reagan's question in the 1984 election: are you better off than you were four years ago? That question was decided by an election. Call me crazy, but maybe we should have an election in Iraq that puts Saddam on the ballot, vs. the current slate of representatives. Let the Iraqi people choose. Do they want Saddam back? Or do they want a free and democratic Iraq?"

LEST WE FORGET: Grand Olde Shoppe

Left-wing satirist Jesus' General has a new sponsor: "GOP MART." For those studying up on evolution vs. intelligent design, GOP MART offers a Do-It-Yourself Peer Review Kit -- i.e. a torch and pitchfork. Scroll down the page to find more great deals.

12/14: Briefing Papers

Today we've done our best to capture some of the reaction to the dispute over the identification of Dan Froomkin's "White House Briefing" blog at WashingtonPost.com (see 12/13 Blogometer for the background). It's Topic A in the blogosphere, and has taken on a number of different tracks. There's dispute over what the Washington Post is reacting to. Today, many on the left seem to think the paper is caving into the complaints of the right, instead of concerns over journalistic standards. There also is a wide expression of enjoyment in watching the Post's internal issues being played out so publicly. This is likely a popular topic to some because it shows how the MSM struggles to compete with the new emerging medium that is the blog. Sit back and enjoy.

An announcement: Since late 5/05, the Blogometer has been featuring prominent political bloggers in our regular Blogger Spotlight feature, much like The Hotline does for political and media figures inside the Beltway. Today we're launching a page dedicated to collecting all of those Q&A interviews (40+ and growing) in one place. So click over to The Hotline's Blogometer Spotlights to revisit previous spotlights or catch up on any you may have missed.

Another announcement: the 12/16 edition of the Blogometer will be our last for '05. That means we have 2 editions more left to go, but we didn't want you to be surprised. We'll be back -- with a few improvements -- in early 01/06.

BLOGS VS. THE MSM I: Next Of 'Kin

Driving the commentary on Froomkin-gate today is NYU prof. Jay Rosen's interview with "two key players" in the Post's internal dispute: Washington Post politics ed. John Harris, WPNI exec. ed. Jim Brady.

Reading the Q&A, Jane Hamsher traces Harris' concern back to ex-blogger/now-RNC staffer Patrick Ruffini, and she highlights Harris' statement that the WH "never complained in a formal way to me, but I have heard from Republicans in informal ways making clear they think his work is tendentious and unfair." Hamsher: "This flap is brought to you courtesy of the Republican Party, who will not stand to see itself criticized by a major media outlet without seeking to take down the one who is doing so. And John Harris bends over and spreads 'em."

Brad DeLong: "Shouldn't John Harris have told Jay Rosen that Patrick Ruffini is not some grassroots 'conservative blogger' outraged at Froomkin's bias but rather a Republican operative engaged in working the ref?" Spot-On: "The flap ... is an instructive little incident that ought to alert the journalism community to an unpleasant reality: having been regarded as the enemy for so long by the American right, it is now equally detested by the American left."

Oliver Willis: "[T]he perspective that Dan Froomkin presents in his column is that the media is much too deferential to the White House. Now, apparently in the world of the national politics editor of what is arguably the most important political paper in the country -- this is evidence of liberal bias." NRO's Media Blog: "What comes across in Rosen's post is how threatened Harris feels by what he perceives as an assault on the tradition of objectivity in journalism. ... [I]f Harris -- or [Post ombudsman Deborah]Howell -- really wanted to address this issue, they should take a look at some of the Post's news reporters who clearly do have a political agenda and whose reporting undermines the case Harris is trying to make for objective journalism." Daily Pundit: "Given how much to the left what the Post newsroom regards as being the center already is, Froomkin must be so far out there in the socialist sunset that he's glowing red-hot for anybody at the Post to actually notice his rampant and unrelenting liberal agenda." Ezra Klein at TAPPED: "Charges of bias require no substantiation whatsoever -- they merely have to be seconded enough times and they become, ipso facto, truth-esque."

Josh Marshall cites WaPo exec. ed. Len Downie's comments at EditorandPublisher.com, that "We want to make sure people in the [Bush] administration know that our news coverage by White House reporters is separate from what appears in Froomkin's column because it contains opinion." Marshall: "His primary concern appears to be what the White House thinks; what the paper's readers think is secondary."

Public Eye's Vaughn Ververs, RE: Howell's column.: "It's hard to remember the last time an ombudsman created this much of a flap all on their own, but The Washington Post's Deborah Howell seems to have touched off a real firestorm."

IRAQ: Who's Running? Iran

The New York Times reports that an Iraqi Interior Min. official said border police seized a tanker that crossed from Iran "filled with thousands of forged ballots." The Astute Blogger: "If you ask me: this is an act of WAR. Iraq's next government ought to declare war on Iran and Syria and ask us to attack them both. We'd get THREE birds with one stone." Sister Toldjah"[F]orcing the kind of representation that Iran wants in the Iraqi gov't would be all good for Iran." Unclaimed Territory: "It looks more and more like democratic elections in Iraq will legitimately install pro-Iranian Shiites who intend to do Iran's bidding." Confederate Yankee cites Reuters in challenging its accuracy. "The single-sourced story appears to be totally false."

Power Line runs an optimistic letter from a U.S. Army Colonel in Tikrit. He says: "[T]he elections will be a success, some wind will be taken out of the insurgency, the Iraqi Army and Iraqi Police will continue to improve, US combat units will begin drawing down, and Democrats will start a mad dash to take credit for the success. Just imagine, a Middle Eastern country holding three major elections in a single year, voting in a constitution guaranteeing individual rights, and electing a multi-ethnic, multi-religious government."

Captains Quarters wonders if the sentiment at home is changing, saying: "When the Gray Lady sees fit to start reporting that even the Sunni of Saddam's hometown have committed themselves to democracy in the upcoming elections, it might indicate that defeatism has finally jumped the shark."

TAPPED links to Greg Sargent's vision of how the Dems get their message straight on Iraq. In short, they should embrace different views and show they're a party of debate while the GOP is in denial about the war.

Mickey Kaus compares Rep. John Murtha's (D-PA) "If they'd talked to me, it wouldn't have happened" quote from Newsweek to then-Speaker Gingrich's suggestion that he "wouldn't have provoked a government shutdown if he hadn't been made to use the rear door of President Clinton's plane." Kaus: "Gingrich was widely denounced as a petty crybaby. How is what Murtha told Newsweek any different?" A reader suggests he's "conflating 'Gingrich's desire for status with Murtha's desire for input.'" He responds: "But if the current President Bush had heard Murtha out, but then ignored him, would Murtha really have refrained from going public ..."

Slate's John Dickerson raised issues with the RNC's Web video he RNC's "Retreat and Defeat." An image in the video shows a soldier in Iraq, as Dickerson puts it, "having his mission and Christmas tarnished by weak-willed Democrats." The original photo actually shows a soldier watching "The Grinch." "The RNC is pimping a mute and unnamed soldier not just to defend the Iraq war but to imply that Democrats are white-handkerchief-waving cowards who want the United States to lose." Blogs for Bush rebuts: "This hardly makes the ad fraudulent or misleading. It merely reinforces the reality that the defeatist rhetoric of the Democrats ultimately gets seen and heard by our troops fighting the war on terror."

BLOGS VS. THE MSM II: Iraq Edition

Tim Graham updates us on the latest survey of MSM Iraq coverage, courtesy of Rich Noyes. "The traditional broadcast networks air[ed] six stories in negative tones for every Iraq story with a positive angle."

The Mudville Gazette and Michelle Malkin take issue with the MSM's reporting of Bush's comment that 30K citizens have died in Iraq.

PENTAGON: Big Brother's Back

An NBC "Nightly News" report (and the related MSNBC.com story) alleging spying on war protesters generates some buzz. Big Brass Blog: "History is repeating itself. Anti-war and civil rights protestors ended up with government dossiers in the 50s and 60s. ... Now it's happening again." American Future: "Everyone who reads this blog knows that I've consistently supported the Bush administration's Iraq policy. ... While I strongly disagree with the protestors, it's their right as American citizens to express, in a non-violent fashion, their disagreement with the administration's policies." Macsmind: "Anyone who thinks that we don't have enemies within our walls who would tear us apart are either mistaken, in on the plot, or just plain stupid."

Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI) apparently goes straight from the Senate floor to TPMCafe, where he reports he debated Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA) on the Patriot Act. Feingold: "An actual debate of this kind, unfortunately, is rare on the floor of the Senate, but it was an excellent opportunity for people who might have been watching to really understand some of the issues that concern those of us who are opposing the conference report."

At The CornerMark Levin suggests renaming the McCain anti-torture amendment the "McCain Amendment with al-Qaeda." "And perhaps those who support it might form a group, with the help of George Soros, called 'People for the Ethical Treatment of Terrorists.'"

REDISTRICTING: Who Can Rewrite Congressional Maps? Kennedy Can, Kennedy Can!

New World Man at Red State writes about the role Justice Kennedy plays in the TX redistricting case. "In 2006 the Supreme Court is going to announce that whatever Mr. Justice Kennedy and his clerks come up with between now and then is the supreme law of the land on legislative redistricting, ending 300 years of elected officials being in charge of drawing districts in America. You don't know what Kennedy and his clerks will decide this supreme law is. You don't know if you'll like it or hate it till you hear it. All you know is that it's going to happen. So ask yourself now: Is this democracy?"

THE ALITO NOMINATION: When Dems Attack

John Hinderaker writes about a DNC e-mail claiming that Judge Sam Alito has "on multiple occasions" broken a pledge to recuse himself from cases in which he has a personal interest. Hinderaker: "The two cases referred to in the email are snoozers at best. ... What is significant is not that these charges have any merit, of course, but rather that the Democratic Party is officially campaigning to defeat Alito's nomination."

PLAME: The Original Novak Returns

JustOneMinute tries to extract info from Robert Novak's speech in Raleigh 12/13, and sticks to his theory that the source is ex-Undersec/State Richard Armitage.

THE MARCH OF THE BLOGS: Another One Bites The Dust

Recently we discussed CO Gov. Bill Owens' (R) office blocking staffers from posting on political blogs. Well, now the Springfield State Journal-Register reports that the insider tipsheet Capitol Fax has traced some comments about GOP IL GOV candidates back to Gov. Rod Blagojevich's (D) campaign.

MISCELLANY: Schiavo's Revenge

Liberal Matt Stoller interviews Michael Schiavo at MyDD. Schiavo: "The people leading the Republican party in Washington D.C. and in Florida today aren't like the Republicans I know. ... I have gotten hundreds of letters and emails from other Republicans who agree with me and many of them have joined me in leaving the party. My message to moderate Republicans is: Pay attention. Learn what these people are doing in your name and with your votes. That's why I started TerriPAC."

Author Clive Davis writes: "I'm always struck by the uniformity of views among the artists and literati I've interviewed. For almost all of them, the notion that there might just be another point of view simply doesn't exist."

A number of blogs are pushing for votes at the "Web Log Awards," started by Kevin Aylward of Wizbang. One exception is Power Line: "Given the recognition we received last year, we encourage you not to vote for Power Line this time around. There are some great blogs running in our category ("Best Blog"), and we'll be highlighting some of them in the coming days."

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Economics 101

On 12/10 Ann Althouse mentioned that her revenues from BlogAds have gone up since a number of top bloggers decamped for Pajamas Media. On 12/13, Tim Worstall said he'd had the same experience, and offered one reason why: "Pretty much all of the Pajamas bloggers used to run BlogAds. They now, as a condition of being part of the system, do not." But as yet, Pajamas Media has yet to lure advertisers who routinely buy space via BlogAds: "So we have a huge reduction in the number of page views available for purchase (what? 400,000? 500,000? on a daily basis?) but a similar number of advertisers looking for page views. The result?" There's more pie available for the bloggers who chose not to jump. Worstall concludes: "In fact, until PJM do manage to tempt some of those advertisers over to their system I'd say right now is an excellent time to be raising your BlogAd rates."

LEST WE FORGET: That's Officer Sheriff T.J. Hooker

"CSI: 70s" or something...

NOTES AND ERRATA

To read the unabridged edition of the Blogometer, visit http://blogometer.nationaljournal.com. Questions, comments, reservations? Drop us a line at blogometer@nationaljournal.com.

12/13: All Took Up

The execution of Stanley "Tookie" Williams occupied most of the discussion last p.m., after Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R-CA) and then the SCOTUS declined to intervene, and then this morning after it was carried out. We'd venture to say that most bloggers -- or at least most bloggers weighing in here -- label themselves anti-death penalty. This includes many conservatives, who are against it for either religious or libertarian reasons. However, they reserve their ire principally for the anti-death penalty left, whose reasons are different, and for Williams' most vociferous defenders. But even on the left there is little sympathy for Williams and less support; most pay lip service to their opposition to the death penalty but add that Williams was never a strong candidate for clemency.

Meanwhile, an internal conflict at the Washington Post over online columnist Dan Froomkin brings out his many defenders. The dispute pits Froomkin against the Post's WH reporters, who believe his opinionated column is too easily confused with the objective reporting they hope to be known for. First raised by the ombudsman this weekend, the story by now offers liberal bloggers another chance to criticize the Post, which some feel goes too soft on the WH.

In other news: Pres. Bush's speech gets some grudging praise but not all that much talk, the SCOTUS will decide what to do about TX redistricting, something may or may not be happening behind the scenes re: SCOTUS nominee Samuel Alito, and we present our latest Blogger Spotlight.

DEATH PENALTY: Oh Well, There's Always Mumia ...

Center-right Althouse: "Personally, I'm opposed to the death penalty, but I can't understand why this person deserves it less than others who don't get clemency. Fame shouldn't be enough. Having famous supporters shouldn't be enough." Balloon Juice has similar sentiments. Lefty Atrios makes comments similar to Althouse, and turns his focus to Cory Maye (see 12/12 Blogometer), agreed across the blogosphere to be unfairly convicted and sentenced to die." Liberal MaxSpeak does the same, under the header "CORY SI, TOOKIE NO." Scott Lemieux gives the flip-side of Althouse's formulation: "But if we're uncomfortable about executing him, the lesson should be to oppose the death penalty for everyone, rather than arbitrarily saving a few people based on factors that ultimately have little or nothing to do with fundamental justice."

Patrick "Patterico" Frey says "forget" Tookie: "Remember instead his victims: Albert Owens, Yen-I Yang, Tsai-Shai Chen Yang, and Yu-Chin Yang Lin. Tonight should be about honoring their memory, and bringing justice for their deaths." Michelle Malkin doubts that Tookie's advocates could name any of the victims.

TalkLeft's Jeralyn Merritt posted an image file with the text "An eye for an eye leaves the world blind." Header at Comments from Left Field: "Six Time Nobel Peace Prize Nominee Set To Die Tonight." The Next Left calls Schwarzenegger "incredibly undiplomatic": "His death is a painful setback in the fight against gang violence. Worse, Schwarzenegger's statement of decision is largely focused on insulting Williams fight against gang warfare."

' Liberal Booman Tribune's Susanhu had been hoping for clemency, and warns of rioting: "To our friends in large cities, especially Los Angeles, stay safe." Black conservative Juliette Ochieng: "Now we'll see whether the idea -- planted by Big Media -- that blacks will riot over anything, even over the execution of one who made some of their neighborhoods a warzone, is a true one. I say no."

James Wolcott: "No former movie action hero -- or Yale cheerleader with enough psychological baggage to sink the African Queen -- should be entrusted with the power of life and death over his fellow citizens. These are essentially frivolous, uninformed men playacting blue-suited roles of grave responsibility." Mark Kleiman on Maye, for Huffington Post: "This case is an interesting test of the power of the Blogosphere. Though the apparent injustice is two years old, it seems to have attracted exactly zero attention in the mainstream media ... Unless bloggers can somehow attract the attention of mainstream media outlets, or of the politicians whose statements the mainstream media will treat as news ... then the story is going to die, and so, probably, is Cory Maye."

BUSH: The Qs Have It

Bush's speech got relatively little play on either side of the aisle yesterday, and it was his opponents who weighed in with the most commentary. Right-leaning Bush critic The Cunning Realist gives Bush credit for taking questions, and suggests he do it again: "The speech was read by a tired, wooden robot. The questions were fielded by a passionate, introspective, knowledgeable chief executive who had no need for notes, scripts, or cues. I didn't agree with much of what he said, but Bush was persuasive and clearly in command of the subject matter." Arianna Huffington was also surprised and impressed by Bush's handling of the questions, but otherwise saw him as a "deluded cockeyed optimist." No More Mr. Nice Blog asks: "Does anyone else think it's weird that the Bush speechwriting shop simply copied five paragraphs from last week's speech and plopped them into today's speech without really changing a word?" One of the few, conservative WILLisms put together a Warholesque print of Bush at the speech, with an extended quote.

Early this a.m., Kausfiles noted Rep. John Murtha's (D-PA) quote in Newsweek -- "If they'd talked to me, it wouldn't have happened" -- and compared it to then-Speaker Newt Gingrich's part in the gov't shutdown in '95: "Gingrich publicly suggested he wouldn't have provoked a government shutdown if he hadn't been made to use the rear door of President Clinton's plane. Gingrich was widely denounced as a petty crybaby. How is what Murtha told Newsweek any different?" Last p.m., James Taranto had made the same point: "The difference between the two incidents is that Gingrich's 'tantrum' didn't endanger national security. But how is it that their respective fits of pique led the media to make Newt a goat and Murtha a hero?"

THE ALITO NOMINATION: A Specter Of Reversal?

RedState's Leon H: "Sources close to the Alito confirmation process are telling RedState" that Senate Dems "are attempting to get" Senate Jud Cmte chair Arlen Specter, "at least privately, on their side. By raising the abortion issue, Democrats hope to persuade Arlen Specter to help resist the effort to confirm Alito." The sources say Dems want Specter to press Alito on abortion, as he would make a more credible critic. Leon H adds: "Thus far Senator Specter has not gone for the idea. But, a couple of judiciary committee staffers are fearful that Specter just might be too agreeable with the Democrats behind the scenes. As I have said before, this is exactly the sort of situation in which I would fully expect Arlen Specter to betray his party. We will see if it pans out that way."

Daily Kos' Armando suspects that National Journal legal columnist Stuart Taylor "will be leading the conservative charge" for Alito, whom he refers to as "ScAlito." He zeroes in on Taylor's critique of "mindless liberal" complaints about Alito's record in part by highlighting instances of non-liberals making critical statements about Alito, and in part by invoking Taylor's abortive plans to go work for Ken Starr in '98.

REDISTRICTING: Merry Gandering!

TX Dem Charles Kuffner wants it to go forward, but acknowledges "it's too late for any court to give redress for this wrong, if it decides there was one. You can't give the defeated Congressmen their incumbency back, so even if you reinstated the old boundaries, most of them would be as big an underdog in a rematch election as any other challenger." SCOTUSblog's Lyle Denniston writes, the case is likely to focus on "both the broader question of whether mid-decade redistricting is ever allowed constitutionality, when a valid plan is already in effect, and the more particularized question of whether mid-decade redistricting is allowed when it is done for purely partisan purposes." Bark Bark Woof Woof: "It will be interesting to see if any of the members of the Senate Judiciary Committee will ask Judge Alito about his views on redistricting. He will dodge it, of course, but still it would be fun to hear how he avoids tipping his hand." Univ. of WI-Madison law prof Ann Althouse: "Setting a standard for the judicial scrutiny of gerrymandering is a problem that has dogged the Court. But as long as it is staying in the business of monitoring political redistricting, it seems necessary for it to take a case of this importance. Perhaps it will use this occasion, however, to set a clear standard for bowing out of these controversies altogether."

BLOGS VS. THE MSM: A Froom With A View

In the 12/11 edition, Washington Post ombudsman Deborah Howell traced over the line between the Post proper and its website, which is run by Washington Post-Newsweek Interactive, with a thicker marker. Her reason: the WH reporters are concerned that Froomkin, whose column is titled "White House Briefing," is often confused for their work. And because Froomkin's opinions are readily discernible from the column, the Post reporters -- particularly John Harris, whom Howell quotes -- is concerned they could get pegged as a biased newsroom.

At washingtonpost.com's editor's blog, Froomkin defends himself: "There is undeniably a certain irreverence to the column. But I do not advocate policy, liberal or otherwise. My agenda, such as it is, is accountability and transparency. ... I was prepared to take the same approach with John Kerry, had he become president." Harris responds, in part addressing Froomkin's following: "It might be the case that he would be writing similarly about John Kerry if he were president. But I guarantee that many people who posted here would not be Froomkin enthusiasts -- or be so indifferent to the concerns I raise -- in that case." But for Harris, the title is the main problem: "The confusion about Dan's column unintentionally creates about the reporter's role has itself become an obstacle to our work." Froomkin brother Michael Froomkin points out that an avalanche of comments follow each of the above posts, and that they are overwhelmingly pro-Froomkin.

Indeed, Froomkin's left-leaning fan base turned out to support him: Josh Marshall, responding to a possibility raised in the Howell piece: "As for balancing Froomkin with a conservative blogger, can't we just match him with Jim Hoagland and it call it a draw? That would be pretty generous, I think." Hullabaloo: "Call it The Whorehouse Report. It amounts to the same thing." AMERICAblog is disgusted: "Of course, the non-budsman thinks Froomkin is too liberal, because, you know, at the Washington Post if you actually question the 'facts' the Bush administration puts out, before you publish them verbatim in a best-selling book or the editorial page, that makes you a 'liberal' rather than something more than a whore. That newspaper really is intent on pushing itself into irrelevance." Under the header "Ombud Sides With Stupid, Hits 'WH Briefing,'" liberal Garrett Graff comments at Fishbowl DC: "It seems all of the complaints could be easily fixed by one of those annoying disclaimers that are pervading society for the benefit of stupid people/ideologues."

On the other hand, centrist Justin Gardner thinks the WH pool has a point: "Also, since it's a daily column, the confusion becomes even be more pronounced. Sure, most of what Froomkin does is merely point to other reporting, much like us bloggers do, but that doesn't make it look any less official when it's at washingtonpost.com." == And conservative News Busters hopes the site adds a conservative, noting, "it's not just Froomkin, it's every political or cultural opinionator I can think of there -- Froomkin, The Nation alum Jefferson Morley, Terry Neal, Emily Messner, ... they all hail from left of center, some more than others."

WHITE HOUSE '08: I Am Sam

DaveGOP at RedState argues that ex-NYC Mayor Rudy Giuliani (R) should balance his moderate social policy positions by tapping Sen. Sam Brownback (R-KS) as his running mate. He counts a few other advantages: "He would be selecting a fellow Catholic to create a ticket that would appeal to the heavily Catholic swing regions of the country, the northern midwest and the southwest." And: "He would be giving strategic social conservatives one more reason to vote for him: to make Brownback heir-apparent for the GOP nod in 2016. Naturally, the Left would start a 'Vote Rudy; Get Brownback' campaign. Perfect."

MIDERMS '06: The Laffey Curve

Townhall's Tim Chapman is angered that the NRSC released a "dirty attack document" against conservative Cranston Mayor Steve Laffey (R), primary challenger of moderate Sen. Lincoln Chafee (R-RI), following his endorsement by Club for Growth. "The NRSC should not be spending its money against conservative Republicans... period." He wonders if the NRSC would still back Chafee if he has to run as an indie. In the other primary of the same race, RI Sec/State Matt Brown does an interview with Basie!'s Jonathan Singer.

Dem activist David Sirota writes that "despite all the hype" about OH SEN candidate/war vet Paul Hackett (D) "and the blogosphere's willingness to ignore serious questions about his candidacy," OH voters "in the real world see things quite differently." A poll shows Brown "absolutely crushing Hackett" in a primary. Sirota hopes the poll will convince Hackett to run again "against Congress's freshman crazy person," Rep. Jean Schmidt (R).

PLAMEGATE: Overlooked?

vidCrooks and Liars has video from MSNBC's "Hardball" where WaPo's VandeHei "revealed [more] ... than any of us would have thought possible" about the identity of the Plame leaker. He said: "We still don't know exactly where Karl Rove originally learned about Valerie Plame, that's still one of the mysteries. We know one of them he had heard it from was Hadley as sort of just chatter inside the office, but he had learned it earlier from some other place and we still don't know where that is."

Jane Hamsher: "I really had to pick myself up off the floor. Nobody batted an eyelash. Were Chris Matthews and Norah O'Donnell just so completely uninformed that they did not recognize what a bombshell this was? ... Did they not realize that up until now any knowledge of the mad gabbing and plotting had been limited to the Vice President's office? That other than the memo from Karl Rove following his conversation with Matt Cooper nobody had ever tied Hadley to the leak? I guess they did not want to appear stupid, but they wound up looking all the stupider for it."

THE MARCH OF BLOGS: The Wages Of Sin

As New York Times reports and AdRants clarifies, MSNBC's porn-related ads (see 12/12 Blogometer) are the largest ad buy in the history of Henry Copeland's BlogAds company. It's a minor controversy, as they had surely hoped. Simple Thoughts: "I am angry because when I initially accepted their Ad they were somewhat off-color but still acceptable. Now after accepting their ad they decide to switch it. That wasn't what I bargained for." Captain's Quarters isn't bothered by it himself, and he notes that some common T-shirt blogads appeal even more to the prurient interest, but he understands readers may feel differently. Ace of Spades HQ still thinks it's a miscalculation: "I'm not sure why MSNBC did this, though. You don't really need to go too over-the-top to interest people in tittilating material... and it sort of reduces, I think, MSNBC's credibility. This is the biggest ad-buy in BlogAds history, and they've kind of sold their network with one of the more aggressively-prurient ads to run on political sites." Meanwhile, TV Newser reports that MSNBC has axed its blog-focused show, "Connected."

MISCELLANY: Tales From The DarkSyde

• Markos Moulitsas announces the slate of front-page bloggers for '06: DarkSyde, Georgia10, McJoan, Superribbie and SusanG. '05 front-pagers including Armando and Hunter will still contribute on an occasional bases.
• On CNN last p.m., Air America's Sam Seder went opposite Christian activist Bob Knight. In a segment getting attention from the lefty bloggers, Seder satirically called for a "war on Christmas." Crooks and Liars has the video.
• A handful of conservative bloggers find reason to oppose the renewal of the Patriot Act in its current form. One isGlenn Reynolds , who identifies the problem of "Mission creep," noting that provisions to curtain meth are included in the bill. A little later, an anti-meth lobbyist wrote in to point out the meth rules were simply attached to the bill, not part of the Patriot Act itself. Reynolds concedes the point, but adds, "bills about the war, in a time of war, call for a degree of self-discipline that's lacking here."
• Yahoo reports, Diebold CEO Walden O'Dell has resigned for "personal reasons." O'Dell is the Bush Ranger criticized in '04 for saying he would deliver the election for Bush, even as his company was manufacturing voting machines. Liberal Brad Friedman of Brad Blog, which has been expects litigation over securities fraud and insider trading to hit Diebold soon. A source tells him, O'Dell's ouster "has the earmarks of an internal coup d'etat."
• Antipodean blogger Tim Blair rounds up news reports from the anti-Muslim/anti-immigrant riots in Sydney, Australia. Pundit Guy: "Prime Minister John Howard must get a handle on the situation as soon as possible. Australia doesn't need to rival or best the recent riots in Paris."

BLOGGER SPOTLIGHT: Pop Rox

Today the Blogometer talks to liberal Roxanne Cooper, who writes Rox Populi.

What is your full name?

Roxanne Cooper

What is your age?

42

Where did you grow up?

Southern CA

Where do you live now?

Washington DC

What is your occupation? Have you ever worked on a political campaign or for the mainstream media?

I'm the Director of Sales & Marketing for the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies (aan.org &AltWeeklies.com ). I interned for Mondale's campaign back in '84. I've spent most of my career working at alternative newsweeklies. Though I did have a three-year stint with Stars and Stripes in their Tokyo and Washington DC offices. So, no. I've never worked in mainstream media.

When did you start blogging and why?

I started blogging in the Spring of '04, mostly because I was intrigued by all the media attention blogs were garnering.

What has been your favorite post, or favorite story to write about, in that time?

My favorite project was an April Fool's stunt I pulled this year -- a parody of Michelle Malkin's site.

Describe your typical blogging schedule. And what is your average output?

Because of my busy job, I usually blog early in the morning or later in the evening. I pump out 2-3 posts a day.

Who is your favorite political blogger? Favorite non-political blogger?

I read different blogs for different reasons. Some of my favorites are Feminste, Michael Berube, Body and Soul, The Heretik, Whiskey Bar, Firedoglake, and Pandagon.

Is there such a thing as a non-political blog? I've always felt the personal was political. My favorite mostly-not-political blog is I Am Dr. Laura's Worst Nightmare. I also enjoyed reading Michele Catalano's A Small Victory when she was still publishing.

Who is your favorite mainstream media columnist?

I honestly can't think of one mainstream media columnist I couldn't live without.

What is your favorite television news program, either network or cable?

"The Daily Show," of course. I'm also growing fond of Olbermann. If anyone from the networks is reading this, I strongly suggest you look at moving more folks from the sports desk to news. Olbermann, Costas, even Gumbel are much better journalists than the current crop of talking heads coming up. I think that may have something to do with fanatical sports audiences and the fact that sports journalists know they can't snow them.

What MSM-produced websites (i.e. newspapers, magazines) do you visit on a daily basis?

I skim the BBC, NYT, WaPo, LAT and The Merc just about every day.

What non-MSM websites (i.e. blogs) do you visit on a daily basis?

AltWeeklies.com, of course. Romenesko, Atrios, Editor & Publisher, Media Post, and Arts & Letters Daily.

How often, or do you ever, read a newspaper in its dead-tree (i.e. print) form?

If we're talking MSM, I prefer reading longer pieces, investigative reports and long, narrative features in the dead tree editions. Since MSM has all but abandoned these kind of pieces, I don't kill a tree all that often.

How do you see the new media and old media affecting and influencing each other in the next five years?

When television first started, folks in that industry didn't make full use of the medium. It looked like the TV-version of radio. That's where I think online is today. Most of it is just a re-purposing of what's in print. Save a few links here and there. And the occasional Podcast or video. The medium hasn't yet become what it could be. Looking into the future, I think print and online versions of newspapers, magazines, etc. will complement each other.

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Running Against Washington? Meh. Try Running Against The Consultants ...

A new blogad went up on Swing State Project this week, supported by FL House candidate Laura Leyva (D). Her pitch is a unique one. The ad's main caption reads: "My Consultant Said This Wouldn't Work." It then links to a fundraising page, where Leyva expands on the pitch: "My consultant thinks blogs are a waste of money. So we have a friendly wager going. I bet him the readers and supporters of Swing State Project would help us raise just $5,000 in two weeks. He, of course, said "not a chance." And he said if we raised $5,000 from Swing State Project, he'd pay for the ad himself! So I need your help."

LEST WE FORGET: Are You Dead Or Are You Sleeping?

FYI: 260.59 cans of Mountain Dew Code Red + The Blogometer = Death. How much of your favorite caffeine delivery system would it take to 86 yourself from the land of the living? Energy Fiend's "Death by Caffeine" calculator will tell you.

12/12: Bob & Viv

In today's edition: Viveca Novak spills the beans; on the verge of parliamentary elections, Iraq is truly a Rohrschach test; are the Sunni insurgents about to turn on Zarqawi?; should Pres. Bush thank the Dems for his slight rebound in the polls?; the left-blogosphere keeps the heat on SCOTUS nominee Samuel Alito, and the OH Legis. as well; a death penalty case that brings the left and right together; are conservative blogs really "more effective"?; plus, the unlikeliest paired obituaries you'll ever see.

PLAMEGATE: Do Plameologists Believe In The Multiverse?

Time's V. Novak describes how she accidentally informed atty Robert Luskin that his client, Karl Rove, might have been a source on Valerie Plame's identity for her Time colleague, Matt Cooper. She notes that Luskin "is unhappy that I decided to write about our conversation," but so too is she unhappy that Luskin disclosed their conversation to special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald. Time notes that Novak is now on leave, "by mutual agreement."

Firedoglake's Jane Hamsher doesn't see how this could be helpful for Rove, and doesn't quite get how Novak missed an earlier Luskin meeting over an a.m./p.m. mixup: "However Fitz has learned about the March conversation, it clearly didn't come from Vivak -- who can't search her Covey planner for anything that occurs before 8 am. Are people in DC just naturally document challenged?" Running through multiple scenarios, she concludes, "my money is on Fitz not buying" the idea that Rove only remembered his Cooper conversation thanks to Novak, "at least on this first pass, and I look for more grand jury activity in the weeks to come. Fitz wouldn't have brought them back for just a social visit." First Draft's Holden has another problem with it.

Liberal Needlenose thinks Luskin has "torched Novak's career" with Time by revealing to Fitzgerald their conversations, and photoshops an amusing Windows XP error window satirizing the situation. Daily Kos diarist Pontificator writes, "it certainly doesn't reflect too well on her. In fact, it is somewhat painful to read, as Ms. Novak recounts the many irresponsible things she did in this matter that she wishes she hadn't done."

Washington Monthly's Kevin Drum recalls an 11/28 report by sometimes unreliable Raw Story, which had Fitzgerald re-interviewing ex-Rove asst. Susan Ralston about testimony "that Rove instructed her not to log a phone call" he had with Time's Matt Cooper in 7/03. Writes Drum: "I don't know if Raw Story has this right, but if they do then Patrick Fitzgerald probably isn't very impressed by Luskin's intensive search."

Righty Tom Maguire allows it to stand as an "alternative theory," and asks an MSM question: "[A]re Mr. Woodward and Ms. Novak the only two reporters in Washington who don't talk to their editors about every little (and not so little) thing? Or is keeping the boss in the dark a much more common journalistic practice than the hand-wringing about Woodward might have suggested?" Jeralyn Merritt thinks it might fly: "If Karl Rove doesn't get indicted for perjury, it will be because of Viveca Novak." Novak friend David Corn writes that Novak should have told her editors sooner, and offers a mixed assessment of Luskin's side: "It's not a great defense. ... But perhaps this is the best defense Luskin can concoct. (It might be true.)"

Vanity Fair's James Wolcott: "I don't want to hear another "name" journalist defend a colleague based upon friendship. I'm sick of journalists vouching for each other's sterling character and unimpeachable integrity based upon social contacts and shared histories. ... Besides, all anyone has to do is pay minor attention to the bilious career of Robert Novak, and that'll tell you all you need to know about the quality of character assessment in the Beltway press corps."

Conservative Macsmind rolls eyes at the Novak piece and links back to a recent post describing a very different alternative interpretation of the entire Niger uranium scandal.

WMD INTEL: From The Left Bank

Los Angeles Times reports, "More than a year before" Bush's Iraq-selling SOTU with the 16 words about African uranium, "the French spy service began repeatedly warning the CIA in secret communications that there was no evidence to support the allegation." Laura Rozen accepts it: "And the French were in a position to know, controlling Niger's uranium mines." So too Hullabaloo: "In case anyone still wonder why the cheese eating surrender monkeys and the ungrateful bastards we liberated from Hitler didn't join in our war party, here's the reason." The Astute Blogger points out that the piece has Bush both using the forged docs to back up his WMD assertions, and also mentions that Bush cited a British report predating the Italian-sourced forgeries.

IRAQ: The Cusp Of Victory Or The Edge Of Defeat?

A Reuters reports, Saddam loyalists who "violently opposed January elections have made an about-face ... urging fellow Sunni Arabs to vote and warning al Qaeda militants not to attack" and are "even prepared to protect voting stations from" from Zarqawi's Qaedists. Conservative bloggers typically loathe Reuters (which soon after 9/11 ceased use of the word "terrorist"), but here Reuters has up a positive report, one not mentioned by major U.S. papers. Dean's World lists a couple other positive developments in the Muslim world, including: "In Indonesia, volunteers at the country's largest Muslim organization are pledging to guard Christian churches on Christmas in order to prevent attacks." Wizbang's Jay Tea makes note of similar developments. Blackfive's Uncle Jimbo allows himself to get a little teary-eyed: "I shudder at the possibilities, and can't imagine actually discussing the blooming of democracy, and not just in Iraq. The whole balance of power in the Middle East, and also between the US and the rest of the world changes completely if Iraq flourishes. Let freedom reign."

There's also the claim of one Sunni insurgent from the Reuters report: "Zarqawi is an American, Israeli and Iranian agent who is trying to keep our country unstable so that the Sunnis will keep facing occupation." Poliblog: "How paranoid and out of touch with reality do you have to be to conjure that concept?"

Meanwhile, Daily Kos' Armando updates the list of horribles in Iraq, citing and quoting NYT and WaPo stories under the headers: "Torture in Iraq Prisons"; "Election irregularities"; "Violence"; and the assessment: "Leaving soon? Not likely." Anti-war liberal Chris Bertram of Crooked Timber takes issue with interpretation of an Iraqi poll by pro-war liberal Norm Geras. Dem from CT, at The Next Hurrah: "Americans are a pragmatic group and the voters have rejected both the rationale and the trust behind the rationale for being there. The only question on the table is how to extricate ourselves and do the least harm. There are no good solutions, only least worst ones."

The Political Teen quotes, and hosts video, of CNN's Hess telling CNN's Kurtz that while the U.S. media is "quite vigilant about U.S. propaganda, they are "less so about insurgent propaganda." Say Anything compares it to Newsweek's retracted Koran abuse story (see previous coverage).

Since last week, Citizen Smash of The Indepundit has been encouraging readers to "lobby Congress in support of our ongoing mission in Iraq." In most related posts, he issues "orders" for what readers and fellow bloggers should do.

BUSH: A Herd, Not A Pack?

Newsweek's 12/19 cover paints Bush inside a soap bubble for a cover story designating Bush "the most isolated president in modern history." UCLA law prof Stephen Bainbridge quotes a paper of his own, which argues, "groupthink is an adaptive response to the stresses generated by challenges to group solidarity. To avoid those stresses, groups may strive for unanimity even at the expense of quality decision making." He adds, this "may also explain the pattern of cronyism -- appointing people who won't rock the boat." He concludes: "Bush likes to think of himself as a CEO President. Good CEOs are self-aware and self-critical. A good CEO faced with the pervasive groupthink that seems to plague this Administration would clean house and then set up new decision-making processes to prevent a recurrence."

Blogging from the road in Tel Aviv, Steve Clemons praises Pentagon detainee treatment adviser Matthew Waxman. He also asks ex-FLOTUS Barbara Bush -- who reportedly is gunning for the likes of VP Cheney and Rove -- to also take out admin. officials David Addington, Stephen Cambone, and William Haynes, whom Clemons holds largely responsible for the "nefarious practices."

DEMOCRATS: The Rescuers

Ex-GOPer/DLCer Marshall Wittmann has some harsh words for Dem leaders: "There is only one force that can save the Republican Party and it is called the Democratic Party. The truth of that axiom has been reinforced over the past three weeks. When the President was plummeting in the polls, the Democratic cavalry came riding to the rescue. Rather than calling for a success strategy in Iraq, the donkey opted for pessimism and defeatism. The Democrats overreached and now the President is rebounding." More: "Here's another insight for Reid, Pelosi and Dean -- you are the minority party. You control nothing in this town. And it is unlikely that you ever will or should control anything as long as you apply a litmus test on prominent elected officials. Get used to the smaller offices with the poor view." He concludes: "So, listen up Democrats, you do not enjoy the luxury of contracting your ranks. If you want to expand the party, a purge is not what the doctor ordered." Centrist AmbivaBlog summarizes, Dems "decided antiwar was the way to go. Back to the '60s! YYEEEAAAAHHHH!!! So Bush is rebounding in the polls. Nice work, assholes." In a front-paged diary at MyDD, Alice Marshall asks, not necessarily related to the above post: "What evidence is there that Marshall Wittman is a Democrat? ... If someone is a Democrat, there should be evidence to support that fact. Voting history, political donations, fundraising, volunteering, are all ways to indicate party loyalty. I am unaware the Wittman does any of these things."

Conservative Balloon Juice: "Half the Republican leadership is under investigation, the President is down in the polls and fighting an unpopular war, people think the country is headed in the wrong direction, and the Democrats best response is to help Bush. The crooked party vs. the stupid party. Take your pick."

THE ALITO NOMINATION: Does Frist Now Wish The Dems Would Filibuster?

Matt Stoller: "I wonder how Alito feels about this. Does he believe in threatening Senators for votes? How about Bush? Or any Republican Senator? Do Republicans believe that threatening to accuse Democratic Senators of ethics problems is a legitimate political subject when trying to pick the next Justice of the Supreme Court?" Dadahead: "It's becoming more and more clear that Alito, who looked like a reasonably smart pick at the time, is actually an enormously flawed nominee. Even conservatives have to admit as much, if they're being honest."

Washington Post reports that Senate Maj. Leader Bill Frist is warning Dems not to stall a vote on Alito and reiterating his willingess to use the "nuclear option" if the Dems filibuster. NRO's Bench Memos notes it approvingly, but without commentary. AMERICAblog and Bark Bark Woof Woof both would like to know why once-and-still WH counsel Harriet Miers didn't get the same consideration.

LANDSCAPE: Mmmmm ... Hunger Strike

Brad Blog calls attention to OH divinity student Jonathan Meier, who is protesting OH's impending HB3 with a "his prayer vigil and hunger strike at the Ohio Statehouse despite heavy snow and brutally cold winter temperatures." Sec/State candidate Jennifer Brunner (D) is sponsoring a petition to oppose it. According to the lefty Free Press, HB3 "opens voter registration activists to partisan prosecution, exempts electronic voting machines from public scrutiny, quintuples the cost of citizen-requested statewide recounts and makes it illegal to challenge" any fed'l election. Brad Spangler: "I was one of the libertarians who, early on, asked" '04 nominee Michael Badnarik to challenge the OH vote "over widespread post-election reports of voting irregularities and/or outright election fraud. Apparently, someone didn't like that very much. You see, Ohio is now about to outlaw election challenges in US presidential races. How convenient." The story also got attention in the diaries of Daily Kos. Buckeye Politics' Tim Russo: "I was a Kerry challenger last year, I spent a lot of time studying just how hard the GOP tried to game the voting process, and could not believe that the election observer techniques I used to train on in post Soviet republics would suddenly be urgently required in my own home state."

MIDTERMS '06: A Better Lottery Than Shirley Jackson's

Beltway Blogroll reports, in his capacity as honorary chair of the Progressive Patriots Fund, Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI) has run blogads inviting the "netroots" to "pick their favorite from among 11 candidates. The candidate who gets the most votes will receive a $5,000 donation from the fund." Among the eligible candidates are Nick Lampson (D-TX), who is challenging ex-House Maj. Leader/Rep. Tom DeLay, and FBI whistleblower Coleen Rowley (D-MN). On a bit more of a WH'08 note, Feingold is also taking up the "Table for One" guest-blogging slot at TPM Cafe this week.

BLOGS VS. THE MSM: Girls! Girls! Girls!

MSNBC has Blogads up promoting a forthcoming report on the porn industry; the rotating ads include neon-outlined nude female silhouettes. Liberal Bitch Ph.D explains the presence of the ads to her readers, and notes that while she doesn't oppose porn per se, she is "opposed to the idea that advertisements of hetero porn, especially when the text reads 'hey ladies, it's not just for men any more' necessarily has to depict a naked *woman* -- since, of course, 'woman' = 'sex.' So, if any of you are ticked off by the thing, my apologies." The ad is running across a wide range of blogs, left and right. We haven't seen any further controversy about it yet. If it does, it could resemble something like the Daily Kos "pie fight" controversy from early this summer (see 6/10 and 6/14 Blogometers).

New York Post editorialized 12/10 about Dean's can't-win comments from last week, "Dean's meaning seemed plain enough: Hang in there, terrorists! Time's on your side -- the Democrats are seeing to that." The final section accuses Dean of "sedition." Brendan Nyhan takes exception: "This is not idle rhetoric -- it is quite literally an accusation that Dean has committed treason against the United States."

OBITS: Pryor-ities And Gene-ialities

Ex-Sen./'68 Dem WH candidate Eugene McCarthy died over the weekend, and eulogies are coming in from both ends of the spectrum. Of course, the other major passing of the weekend was comedian Richard Pryor, and was certainly the more commented-upon of the 2 (compare this search against this one). Among the political blogs, some combine obits into both posts, including lefty Marc Cooper and righty Jeff Goldstein. Liberal Street Fighter links to probably the best photo, and Roger L. Simon has personal memories to share, having written a film for him.

CA-based Joe Scott: "His death is a deja vu moment for a sputtering Democratic Party. A shameful number of Senate Democrats voted for the Iraq war, including many potential 2008 candidates -- with the notable exception of the McCarthyesque anti-war Russ Feingold. Perhaps some solons may now find the courage to unequivocally speak out." At Skeptic's Eye and in a cross-post to RedState, conservative Allison Hayward reminds readers that while an antiwar icon, he "was also one of the litigants in Buckley v. Valeo, and stauchly critical of campaign finance reform."

Power Line's Paul Mirengoff offers a eulogy from the right: "McCarthy's most ardent supporters were college students. Most of my anti-war friends preferred him to Kennedy, as I did (and still do). First, McCarthy had shown more guts than Kennedy by challenging Johnson before it was clear how weak the president's position was. Second, McCarthy came across as cool; Kennedy as anything but. ... In many respects, some of them superficial, Robert Kennedy's position in 1967 can be compared to Hillary Clinton's position today. It's more difficult to identify the new Gene McCarthy (it's certainly not Howard Dean). He was one of a kind." == Left-leaning Glenn Greenwald disagrees: "[W]hatever else one thinks of Dean, it is impossible to praise McCarthy's candidacy without praising Dean's candidacy as well. The factors cited by Paul for admiring McCarthy -- the adoption of his anti-war stance before it was safe and popular, the way in which he galvanized young voters, the obvious authenticity of his beliefs, even his "cool" image -- are all entirely applicable to Howard Dean."

THE MARCH OF BLOGS: Coming Soon ... The Wikified Legal Brief?

>> In the 12/11 New York Times Magazine, TNR's Crowley argued, as the title explains: "Conservative Blogs are More Effective." Because the piece was not posted to the web until late 12/10, many worked off the E&P account published mid-12/9. Crowley and the NYT probably knew it would kick up a minor storm, and indeed it has. No one quite believes it, but the left is happy if the MSM believes it, while the right aims to blow apart Crowley's assertions.

Markos Moulitsas: "Good. Let people think that. People have always been naysayers. Instead of getting riled up about, we'll keep doing what we're doing. And at the end of 2006 we'll be able to take stock of the situation and declare, definitively, that the conservative blogosphere is merely a redundant extension of their noise machine." Duncan Black writes, "the liberal blogosphere is a much greater value added for our side because we have such a shitty media infrastructure. If all the wingnut blogs disappeared tomorrow it really wouldn't have any impact on the national discourse." Matt Stoller, who is quoted in Crowley's piece, weighs in at MyDD. Header at Sadly, No!: "Y'Know What the Left Blogosphere Needs? More Mindless Hacks."

Captain's Quarters points to a new ABC News poll as evidence that "the Iraqi polling numbers tossed around by Democrats for the past month in defense of their cut-and-run 'strategy' were bald-faced lies." As ABC News writes, "Despite the daily violence there, most living conditions are rated positively, seven in 10 Iraqis say their own lives are going well, and nearly two-thirds expect things to improve in the year ahead." More CQ: "I predict that Murtha will continue to spout the obviously bad survey numbers as he clings to the remnants of his national relevance, and that the Democrats try to bury these new numbers as soon as possible." Democracy Arsenal's Suzanne Nossel lists a a number of things to watch for after Iraq's Thursday vote. On a final note, she adds: "The spin should tell us a lot about whether the Administration is going to claim 'decent interval' and start moving out or whether, as the President claimed but a week ago, the plan is to see this through until Iraq's security forces are truly capable of taking over."

Instapundit writes, "the bit about Drudge being quick to pass on the latest tidbit from the blogosphere is also dubious. Drudge is, in fact, pretty aloof where the blogosphere is concerned. In fact, the whole "superior message discipline" theory seems doubtful to me. The Democrats' real problems come from their positions, and their candidates, not from Republicans' media operation." Via Ace of Spades HQ, Strange Women Lying in Ponds differs: "The reason why conservative bloggers are more effective is that we don't have the MSM to count on to toe the party line. Having the MSM as a mouthpiece for the Democratic Party allows the left-wing bloggers more freedom to play to the bleacher seats." Michelle Malkin contests the notion that the right-blogosphere is an efficient conductor of the GOP's message, citing Harriet Myers, Terri Schiavo, immigration and Porkbusters. She writes, at 283 words, it "has to be one of most insipid, shallow, and uninformed wastes of space to grace the NY Times' pages." Ed Morrissey concurs: "He should sue E&P for lifting his entire 283-word article for their 360-word description of it."

>> Los Angeles Times Magazine interviewed Crooks & Liars' John Amato, asking: "If Howard Dean and Dennis Kucinich types make it to the White House and Congress, will you keep a lookout for liberal crooks and liars?" Amato: "I've thought about this often, and I would say yes. Power has to be questioned."

>> New York Times reports, Internet privacy activist Daniel Brandt narrowed in on the culprit who put false information on the page of ex-Tenessean editor John Seigenthaler, prompting that person to out himself. He is Nashville-based delivery company manager Brian Chase, who, "in trying to shock a colleague with a joke, he put false information" on Seigenthaler's page. Chase has since resigned his position with the company. Brandt is behind the website Wikipedia Watch, as well as similar watchdog sites targeting Google and Yahoo. Naturally, there is also a page at Wikipedia titled "John Seigenthaler Sr. Wikipedia biography controversy." A commenter at Bopnews: "It is probably 99% accurate and the steps that they would need to take to become 100% accurate would kill it. No one should ever trust one source for something important." Betsy Newmark: "Just wait until someone less tolerant than Siegenthaler decides to take Wikipedia to court." In fact, Google Blogoscoped's Philipp Lenssen points out there is now a class action suit against Wikipedia in the works.

MISCELLANY: The Next Crusade?

• While the Stanley "Tookie" Williams death penalty case plays out in CA, liberal and conservative blogs are coming together to support MS death row inmate Cory Maye, who appears to be the victim of overbearing police tactics and a racist jury. Leading the charge has been libetarian Radley Balko at The Agitator; essentially the entire last week of blogging has been devoted to Maye. Battlepanda jokes that rather than cooperate, they should compete -- and proceeds to list which side's blogs have linked to the story more. So far the right has a slight edge. Silent Running wrote a letter to MS Gov. Haley Barbour (R) about it.
• The Moderate Voice's Joe Gandelman considers an Arab News column which argues bin Laden is less likely in Waziristan than the "urban jungle" of Karachi, adding: "Al-Jazeera has broken any number of stories. Why doesn't it break the biggest story of all: Where is Bin Laden?" Gandelman offers a list of possible current situations for bin Laden, settling upon: "Modern technology may do wonders but it is still possible to elude the searchers, even with all kinds of electronic and satillite surveillance. For instance, he could be holed up in an inaccessible area of Pakistan, somewhere in the mountains, and only use couriers to get his messages and orders out."
• Daily Kos' Hunter interviewed ex-CBS prod. Mary Mapes. Published 12/11, it runs over 5K words. In the preface, he recommends her book strongly: "Some parts of the book are blistering, especially when recounting internal politics at CBS -- so don't expect to see her on the Viacom-owned 'Daily Show' anytime soon. But I'd be lying if I said it wasn't a sometimes-frustrating, sometimes-hilarious, and often thought provoking read."
• Meanwhile, time is coming soon for Daily Kos founder Moulitsas to reveal next year's slate of co-bloggers; in a 12/9 post he announces his decision has been made. Frequent Kos critic Dean Barnett points out that Kos' criteria is apparently unburdened by considerations about diversity, as Markos himself explains in the above-linked post.

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: The Evolution Of Elitism

Mickey Kaus compares the "elite condescension" toward anti-Communists in the 50's, welfare reformers in the face of the "Nixon-Moynihan" consensus, and immigration hawks (specifically the Minutemen) as late. He writes: "In the 70s, then-governor Reagan labelled Nixon's sophisticated guaranteed income plan a "megadole." The rest is history! We're still waiting for the politician to credibly take on the equivalent Bush-McCain-liberal pro-amnesty consensus -- and its disdain for those rustic, unsophisticated voters who actually want resident illegals to return to their home countries and get in line before they're legalized."

LEST WE FORGET: High Art

How could you not want to click on something called Mike Ditka & The Grabowskis?

12/9: Imagine There's No Controversy

More than Pres. Bush, more than DNC chair Howard Dean, Sen. Hillary Clinton or even Karl Rove, one of the most visible personages on the blogs over the last 24 hours was none other than John Lennon. 12/8 was the 25th anniv. of his murder, and many in the political blogosphere weighed in with their thoughts, including Jeralyn Merritt, Joe Gandelman, Ann Althouse, Gerard Vanderleun, Bill Nienhuis, and even political treatments from David Corn on handguns and lesser-known The Solid Surfer, who suggests Lennon would be a GOPer today. This a.m., "John Lennon" is still ranked near the top of Technorati's most-searched phrases.

So what does this mean for the Blogometer? Just that this already quiet week ends even quieter, and today's edition is shorter than the usual.

IRAQ: Goodbye Dumbocrats, Hello Defeatocrats

Speaking at the Nat'l Press Club on 12/8, ex-Pentagon Dep. Sec./World Bank pres. Paul Wolfowitz said: "If somebody could have given you a Lloyds of London guarantee that weapons of mass destruction would not possibly be used, one would have contemplated much more support for internal Iraqi opposition and not having the United States take the job on the way we did." The report gets prominent play at Huffington Post, heading it: "Maybe No War If We Had Known There Were No WMDs..." Lefty Tim Dunlop at The Road to Surfdom: "So can we finally be clear on this: the administration had three "concerns" about Iraq -- WMD, links to terrorists, and Iraqi oppression -- but only the WMD was considered serious enough to justify an invasion and that became the case for invasion. As it turned out, the first two were wrong. The third one was true, but to them, it wasn't a good enough reason to invade. The notion that it was about liberation first and foremost, or that that was even a serious concern, is a rationale used by the administration once it became apparent that there were no WMD." Conservative Paul Mirengoff covered the speech's focus on trade, but followed up when he saw Washington Post's Dana Milbank had focused on the Iraq angle: "Milbank seems to consider it evasive of the World Bank President to deliver a speech about issues relating to the Bank's mission, when he could have been, in Milbank's phrase, saying he was sorry for the war in Iraq. ... Milbank twice refers to Wolfowitz's prediction that U.S. forces would be welcomed by Iraqis as liberators. The fact is that many Iraqis, particularly Shiites and Kurds, did so welcome us when we overthrew Saddam Hussein. But even if one disputes this judgment, Milbank's account suggests that Wolfowitz was further off the mark if he believed he would be welcomed with civility by the National Press Club."

Last p.m., Drudge Report reported that the RNC is putting out a video showing a "white flag waving over images of Democrat leaders making anti-war remarks." Dean is pictured in the Drudge version. Header at Conservative Outpost: "It's about time!" Header and 1st line from A Lady's Ruminations: "The White Flag Wavers"; "No, not the French this time." Power Line approves: "The Democrats need to pay the price of their defeatism." The title of their post is "Defeatocrats"; in an unrelated post, Hugh Hewitt also employs the term. It's similar to the term "Defeaticrat Party" from a recent Mark Steyn column, and the 1st usage appears to be on the blog Sharp Knife in 10/03. Austin Bay calls the ad "long-overdue," but warns, "there are problems with this 'smart guy' interpretation. ... The White House is filled with 'political cycle' types. They may win elections, but they don't win wars. This White House needs a better balance."

On 12/7, House GOPers John Kline (MN) and Jack Kingston (GA) held an RNC-arranged conf. call with conservative bloggers to discuss their recent trips to Iraq. Kingston started late due to a meeting with Rumsfeld and Bush; Kline began, and among other things shared a few experiences of currently deployed Black Hawk pilot Dan Kline, his son. Among those participating were Blogs for Bush, Kennedy v. Machine, Blogs of War and Decision '08. According Tim Chapman, Kline said Dems have "overreached," and that they "have a wish, not a plan." They also criticized Rep. John Murtha (D-PA). Kline and Kingston agreed with John Hawkins of Right Wing News that Pelosi and Dean "understand that the troops are coming home anyway and are just trying to steal credit for that, when it happens." Kingston said this was one area the MSM has not illuminated: "We can't get this information out in the mainstream media, so it's up to the blogs..."

RUMSFELD: If McClellan Says He's Got Bush's "Full Confidence," It's All Over

New York Daily News' DeFrank and Bazinet reported 12/8 on the rumors that come early '06, Defense Sec. Don Rumsfeld is out and Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-CT) is in at the Pentagon. Later in the day, Reuters reported a denial from Rumsfeld himself. OR-based Ron Beasley comments: "Take this with a grain of salt. If Bush is to gain any credibility on the war in Iraq Rumsfeld must go. Regardless how you may feel about the war in Iraq unless you are totally delusional you have to see that Rumsfeld's tenure has been marked by incredible incompetence. Supper hawks like Bill Kristol agree."

Andrew Sullivan is optimistic: "The timing may be imminent. With Rumsfeld gone, Cheney sidelined, and the McCain amendment passed, the omens look good for restoring credibility to the war effort."

TORTURE: Don't Look Now, But We May Have An Actual Debate Here ...

New York Times reports, "it was not until after" an al Qaeda suspect named Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi (see 11/7 Blogometer) he was handed over to Egypt that he made the most specific assertions, which were later used by the Bush administration as the foundation for its claims that Iraq trained Qaeda members to use biological and chemical weapons." Huffington Post posts the link above all else, with the header "The Truth Comes Out..." Washington Monthly's Kevin Drum is skeptical of this line, from the Times: "American officials ... have defended the practice, saying it draws on language and cultural expertise of American allies, particularly in the Middle East, and provides an important tool for interrogation." He comments: "Ah yes, 'cultural expertise.' It's funny how little we normally care about these countries' cultural expertise, but then suddenly develop trememdous respect for it as soon as it comes time to interrogate prisoners." Left-leaning Yale prof Jack Balkin: "The ticking time bomb scenario often used to justify torture generally assumes that we already know there is a ticking time bomb and that we must resort to torture to elicit necessary information to stop it without delay. The prior question, however, is where we got our understanding that there was a ticking time bomb in the first place." AMERICAblog's Chris in Paris: "This goes so far beyond an impeachable offense, it should be reviewed at The Hague."

From the right, Troy State prof Steven Taylor writes at PoliBlog: "There is debate to be had about coercive interrogation, and I suppose we are having it (although the quality of the debate is lacking, it seems to me). ... The idea that the right kind of pressure on a person will result in the truth being spilled strikes me as a highly dubious proposition. Of course, there is also the problem of relying too heavily on one source for key information. That will get one in trouble in reporting and it will get one in trouble in a research paper, so it is hardly shocking that it would get one in trouble over matters of war and peace. "

PLAMEGATE: Are Other Plamegate Watchers Necessary?

On 12/7, special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald convened a new grand jury, and on 12/8 he deposed Time's Viveca Novak at her atty's office. CNN also reports, Fitzgerald deposed Karl Rove atty Robert Luskin "last Friday. Time and Luskin refused to answer CNN's questions about Luskin's conversation with Novak." Jane Hamsher of Firedoglake: "Can I just say it is absolutely crazy out there? Nobody involved in this little drama (except, we presume, Fitzgerald) has any clue what the hell is going on. I called around trying to nail down the CNN story about Rove's attorney, Robert Luskin being deposed last Friday and nobody else had even heard of it." Washington Post reports: "A source familiar with Novak's account said she believes the conversation took place in March or May, and definitely took place after February 2004, when Rove first testified before the grand jury. But one person close to the case said the conversation took place before Rove's first grand jury appearance in February. This person said the conversation was not the event that led Rove to change his testimony." Hamsher follows up on the same: "It makes absolutely no sense that Luskin would be the promulgator of the pre-February tale that is certainly in circulation. Hard to know what's truth, what's spin and what can be chalked up to the impenetrability of the moment." Daily Kos' Armando asks, "would it not be strange that Luskin would be arguing for the earlier date? I think not. And here's why. Luskin is stating that the Novak conversation is NOT why Rove 'clarified' his testimony." Wampum points out, per Rule 3.7 of the DC Bar's conduct rules, Luskin cannot be both a witness and counsel, so "would be ethically bound to step aside" if the case goes to trial.

PRIMARY CALENDAR: NH Needs Help? No Hope?

At The Fix, Washington Post's Cillizza reports that the DNC's primary calendar commis. is set to recommend the IA caucuses remain the 1st delegate-allocating contest in '08, but up to 2 primaries or caucuses may be scheduled prior to NH. He quotes NH Dem chair Kathy Sullivan: "Frontloading the calendar with new caucuses would make the process narrower and less democratic, and it would be a huge setback to Democrats' efforts to carry Iowa and New Hampshire in the future."

Taegan Goddard quotes a conversation with ex-USA Today columnist/Salon DC bureau chief Walter Shapiro, who makes his case for the NH primary: "New Hampshire is the state most likely to slow a rush to judgment. What New Hampshire offers is a chance for voters and reporters to see would be presidents away from the trappings of the Imperial Candidate Machine. There is an anti-royalist streak in the state that prompts voters to rebel against wind-up candidates ... being championed by party kingmakers."

ECONOMY: Wave Jumping

For some time, right-libertarian Jon Henke at QandO has been watching, and challenging, the assertion that 150K new jobs are needed each month just to provide jobs for new entrants to the work force: "This is simply false. It may have been true at another time, but it is not true today." He cites BLS numbers showing the number is closer to 110K. A worthwhile debate follows in the comments. Liberal Ezra Klein picked up on the post, asking: "Are his numbers wrong and, if not, what accounts for the drop?" The comments to that post are interesting as well.

CULTURE WARS: The Passion Of The Christmas

Seeing the Forest's Dave Johnson warns of "mainstreaming extremism," i.e. GOPers "injecting hard KKK stuff, disguised to sound more moderate, into mainstream outlets." His example is from Townhall, where ex-LAT writer Burt Prelutsky gives his take on the "war against Christmas": "I blame my fellow Jews. When it comes to pushing the multicultural, anti-Christian, agenda, you find Jewish judges, Jewish journalists, and the ACLU, at the forefront." Johnson quotes from the piece, although not this section, and comments: "You think I've been kidding when I say that 'liberal media' comes straight out of the old far-right 'Jew media' and 'Jew York Times' stuff? 'Liberal' and 'Jew' used to be interchangable words for the Right. They have always been able to talk about the ACLU to get votes in the South, but here you see what they have meant."

One Good Move hosts video of a "war on Christmas"-related segment from "The Colbert Report."

THE MARCH OF BLOGS: One Step Forward, One Step Back

Denver Rocky Mountain News' Sprengelmeyer and Bartels report, Gov. Bill Owens (R-CO) "warned state employees that they would be subject to disciplinary action if they use state computers to post comments" critical of Sen. Ken Salazar (D-CO) and others at political blogs, notably Colorado Pols. More: "The directive came after the Rocky Mountain News informed the governor that anonymous and sometimes caustic postings from someone using the nickname 'Real Deal' had been traced to a computer" in the gov's office. On 12/8, Owens CoS Bob Lee issued a memo reading in part: "It has become apparent that Executive and Legislative computers have been used to post commentary on political web logs (blogs). Today, the governor ordered that we develop new policy prohibiting the use of government computers from being used to post to any such sites. Please make certain that all members of your respective staffs are notified that this policy is effective immediately."

At Beltway Blogroll, National Journal's Glover reports that Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) has placed the Porkbusters logo on his Senate website. Glover: "Though only symbolic, the posting of the graphic is yet another milestone for bloggers and even more proof that they are a force to be reckoned with in Washington."

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: What It Takes

#2 liberal blogger Duncan "Atrios" Black gives advice: "To have a very high traffic blog a necessary condition is that you post consistently a lot. It means that great writers who take a lot of time to craft their prose are unlikely to have a high traffic blog. That is not unfair or wrong or anything, that's just not how you generate consistently high traffic. If you are a tremendous writer who spends lots of time crafting your prose, blogging is perhaps not the best medium for you except as a useful tool for self promotion if your goal is high daily readership."

LEST WE FORGET: Maybe He Could Get The Guy From American Movie To Direct A Campaign Documentary

Politics1's Ron Gunzburger writes, on 12/8 he added MN GOV Vampyres, Witches and Pagans Party nominee/ex-GOP House candidate/ex-pro wrestler Jonathon Sharkey -- aka Rocky "Hurricane" Flash -- to his page for MN campaigns. But there was something wrong. Gunzburger explains: "I had mistakenly described Sharkey ... as a 'Wiccan Dark Priest.' Because of this I quickly received the following email from Sharkey's campaign: 'Thank you very much for placing Jonathon's name for the race for Governor. However, he is a Satanic Dark Priest, not a Wiccan. Wiccans do not believe in Christianity at all. Satanist are against the Christian God ... Can you please update this as soon as your time allows, to avoid the Wiccan Communities becoming angry at Jonathon.'" Gunzburger complied: "We certainly don't want to offend the Wiccans, does we. FYI: Sharkey has also filed paperwork with the FEC to run for President in 2008 as the VWP nominee."

12/8: Slow Burn

It remains a slow week in the political blogosphere. Several debates from previous days -- about DNC chair Howard Dean, ex-House Maj. Leader/Rep. Tom DeLay (R-TX), and Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-CT) -- have faded, though Sec/State Condoleezza Rice and her statements about the treatment of US detainees still remains a pointed topic. Meanwhile, a new CBS/NYT poll has Pres. Bush's supporters sensing a turnaround, while war critics point to the same poll and see public support for the war still on the wane. The Miami air marshal incident also figured as a big story last p.m., but has diminished some.

But it would be wrong to say there are no interesting stories out there -- it's just that they aren't picking up that much buzz. There's the now-corrected claim by liberal bloggers that SCOTUS nominee Samuel Alito's father was not born in Italy, and there's some talk about Sen. Hillary Clinton's name turning up in Able Danger's test run. And there's some flame-fanning re: the House Dem leadership's division on Iraq. So there's all that, and our latest Blogger Spotlight.

BUSH: 40 Is Over The Hill, But Is It Over The Hump?

A new CBS/NYT poll shows a "bump" in Bush's approval rating, up to 40% -- but it also contains some ominous numbers re: Iraq. John Hinderaker: "It shows a five-point bump since last month, to 40%. That still isn't a great number, of course, but this is also a 'random adult' poll, and it is reasonable to assume that a 'likely voter' survey would yield a higher number. Mystery Pollster hadn't been willing to say Bush had turned things around based on the Rasmussen and FNC polls, and is still cautious. He too focuses on Iraq: "At the very beginning of the interview, they ask respondents to say in their own words why they approve or disapprove of Bush's performance. The results show just how central the Iraq war is to those who disapprove."

Centrist Joe Gandelman: "So this means: (1) People who totally wrote off the Bush presidency perhaps jumped the gun (if his polls continue to go up) (2) He has regained some of his lost base, and (3) When Democrats call for some kind of timetable they're more in sync with what most Americans want than the White House and those who insist no kind of timetable should be set."

DEMOCRATS: Hoyer Story

David Sirota argues that House Min. Whip Steny Hoyer (D-MD) is "doing everything he can to self-servingly undermine his party as a way to hurt," then topple, House Min. Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA). Not only did Hoyer criticize Pelosi's recent comments on the Iraq war, but while she has been fighting to limit the influence of "corporate interests," he has been "deliberately landing stories in newspapers about his efforts to formalize his own system of legalized bribery." Hoyer, Sirota writes, "is clearly interested only in his own self-promotion, not his party."

Oliver Willis looks at the CBS/NYT poll, focuses on the low approval of the war, considers Dems' Iraq stance, and declares: "It's 2002 all over again." Dems are ignoring their anti-war base, they' ve "conceded the most important issue of the last thirty years" to the GOP, and are positioned again to get whipped electorally." He adds: "The most insane part is that getting out of Iraq isn't just morally superior, it's politically smart!"

IRAQ: Still Not Much Of A We-Must-Stay Cry From The Right

AP reports, the Pentagon has "tentative plans to halt the scheduled deployment of two brigades to Iraq and instead send in smaller teams to support and train Iraqi forces in what could be an early step toward an eventual drawdown of U.S. forces." James Joyner is concerned that this report comes from an unauthorized leak, but adds: "Sending select soldiers for cadre duty rather than whole brigades and their attendant support tail will reduce the American footprint somewhat."

ABLE DANGER: Another Brick In The Wall?

A National Journal/Gov Exec report turns up more info on Able Danger (see previous coverage), including reports that names caught in the data mining included then-First Lady Hillary Clinton, then-Stanford provost Condoleezza Rice and then-Defense Sec. William Cohen. The program was soon terminated. Ed Morrissey observes, "as the results got wider exposure in Washington, the pressure of having all these important political players sitting in a database must have triggered a case of nerves at the Pentagon." AJ Strata had previously entertained the possibility that Able Danger had been tested on Chinese sources and abandoned when it implicated Clinton officials. He writes: "It is now highly possible 9-11 happened because the Clinton administration was afraid of bad PR."

MIDTERMS '06: Wait, Does This Count As Voter Fraud?

Markos Moulitsas posts an e-mail from Lieberman's re-elect campaign urging voters to go participate in a Hartford Courant poll "in which we have just fallen behind" ex-Sen. Lowell Weicker. More: "We've been ahead all day, but one of the internet bloggers got hold of it and is promoting it among the extreme lefties." Moulitsas is amused: "It's kind of funny talking about 'extreme lefties' voting for Weicker, a former Republican. It's also kind of funny hearing talk about 'extreme lefties' coming from a Democrat."

THE ALITO NOMINATION: Dadblamed Dad Blame

Earlier this week, KRT's Henderson wrote an article portraying Alito as promoting a "conservative legal agenda" through his rulings. The WH pushed back (see 12/7 Blogometer) and a few conservative bloggers have cried foul. One with the clout to move the issue is Hugh Hewitt, who had Henderson on his radio show last p.m. Hewitt posted a follow-up, quoting a Henderson appearance on C-SPAN recently, saying: "I think for example that we didn't find a single case in which Judge Alito sided with African Americans alleging racial bias, which I think, is again, rather remarkable. We found very few cases, maybe one or two, in which he sided with a woman in a gender bias case." Hewitt claims this is wrong, noting that "there are three employment discrimination cases in which Alito ruled at least in part for the female plaintiff, at least two of whom were black." Andrew Hyman, at Confirm Them: "What we're hoping for is a judge who will faithfully interpret the laws in a judicially conservative manner, which means interpreting laws in a manner that respects the intent of the words of the law, rather than seeking particular outcomes."

In the last edition, we passed along a report that Alito's father was not an Italian immigrant, as Bush and other Alito backers had claimed. Now a more thorough records search indicates that Alito Sr. did immigrate to the U.S. as a young child. The report origiinated on Daily Kos, and that's where the correction is noted. Daily Kos contributor Uncle Bug shows how he put this together using records from Ancestry.com, and concludes: "Looks like George was telling the truth, for a change."

TERRORISM: The Marshal Plan

The 12/7 fed'l air marshal shooting of a mentally ill man who claimed to have a bomb in Miami got plenty of attention. Wizbang's Jay Tea probably speaks for most of the conservative blogosphere: "Hindsight is 20/20, and all sorts of people will probably form a line to vilify the unknown air marshal, but there's 118 passengers and crew on the flight who are probably glad they didn't have to find out whether or not he really had a bomb." TalkLeft's Jeralyn Merritt posts the news without adding much. In the comments below, her commenters are split between defending the marshal and second-guessing the decision to shoot. JustOneMinute expects plenty of comparisons to the mistaken shooting of a man on the London Tube following the 7/7 bombings.

Counterterrorism Blog: This incident "doesn't have a terrorism nexus, but we'll learn a lot from this incident for use in airline protection from possible terrorist attack. We've gone from 32 air marshals pre-9/11 to hundreds of them, and they have the toughest shooting accuracy standards to meet among all federal agents. Now we know that the air marshal system worked, and the terrorists have to consider it."

PLAMEGATE: Stalking The Elusive "Vivak"

Lawrence O'Donnell, for Huffington Post: "If Fitzgerald does not indict Rove after hearing from Novak, then it will be Viveca Novak who saves [Karl] Rove. Which is to say it will be Luskin's relationship with the press, with Viveca Novak in particular, that saved Rove." Jane Hamsher disagrees completely: "Fitzgerald is dogged. He may not indict until he thinks he has enough to do so, but if he thinks Rove's guilty -- and my guess is he most certainly does or he would not still be pursuing him after two years -- he will keep digging and keep digging until he has enough to go after him."

Also worth noting, Hamsher has nicknamed V. Novak "Vivak."

ABRAMOFF: Let's Not Kidan Ourselves Here

Noting that ex-lobbyist Jack Abramoff business partner Adam Kidan has agreed to testify, Josh Marshall wonders how Kidan avoided the murder rap: "I'm sure Kidan's more than happy to testify against [Kidan's mafia associates arrested for the murder of SunCruz founder Gus Boulis]. But it seems to me that given the associations, context and movements of money, it would be awfully hard to see where these three whacked Boulis without also believing that Kidan wasn't part of it. Or, for that matter, Jack Abramoff ... Both guys happened to be out of the country when Goulis was iced. Is it really possible that they pass on charging Kidan for a killing if he was the guy who ordered the hit? Or is the theory of the case that Kidan just wanted these three gents to sit down with Gus and have a talk and things got out of hand?"

WHITE HOUSE '08: Windows Manager

TNR's Lizza wrote recently that Sen. Barack Obama's (D-IL) best shot at the WH will be '08, going on the law of politics that one must win the WH from 14 years of their 1s "major elected office" or they do not win at all. Kevin Drum is skeptical, and suggests measuring "how long it usually takes between becoming nationally famous and becoming president" -- which suggests that WH '16, when Obama will have been in the public eye for 12 years, is closer to the sweet spot than it is to the upper end of his shelf life."

TORTURE: You Put Your Terrorist In, And You Shake Him All About ...

Washington Post quotes Sec/State Rice saying of the U.S.'s prohibition of inhumane treatment: "those obligations extend to U.S. personnel wherever they are, whether they are in the United States or outside of the United States." Slate's Eric Umansky, at his personal blog: "Now, here's the trick: Do 'those obligations' apply to U.S. treatment of foreigners abroad? Not according to the Justice Department's legal opinion. And bonus weasel: The anti-torture treaty also says that countries are only responsible for the actions that occur in 'any territory under its jurisdiction.' Those secret CIA prisons? They aren't in 'territory under U.S. jurisdiction,' so, in the administration's opinion, the U.S. isn't responsible. QED!"

BLOGGER SPOTLIGHT: I Can See Cleary Now The Rain Is Gone ...

Today the Blogometer talks to Nat'l Assn. of Manufacturers VP Pat Cleary, who writes NAM's Manufacturer's Blog and contributes to RedState.

What is your full name?

Patrick J. Cleary

What is your age?

50 (Oldest blogger on earth. Don't believe me? Google it....)

Where did you grow up?

Butler, NJ

Where do you live now?

Fairfax County, VA

What is your occupation? Have you ever worked on a political campaign or for the mainstream media?

Sr VP -- Communications, National Association of Manufacturers; Worked for the Republican National Committee from 1982-1985; Never worked for the MSM;

When did you start blogging and why?

Started blogging almost a year ago -- before I was in the Communications job. I thought it would be a good way to show that manufacturers were cutting edge (which we are). In the ensuing year, it has become an essential part of our communications. Thanks to Gov. Engler for giving us a green light, and for not asking, 'What's a blog?'

What has been your favorite post, or favorite story to write about, in that time?

Favorite story... Hmmmm... That's tough. The implosion of the AFL-CIO really launched us, but we've had fun with Lou Dobbs, energy and of course our Saturday videos of 'Cool Stuff Being Made.'

Describe your typical blogging schedule. And what is your average output?

Typical blogging schedule: I write the blog on my own time -- from home -- in the 8 p.m.-11 p.m. window, every day. I post usually 2-3 entries a day, each one anywhere from 100-500 words.

Who is your favorite political blogger? Favorite non-political blogger?

Favorite political bloggers are my brothers at RedState. They are edgy, great writers, and a lot of fun: Mike Krempasky, Erick-Woods Erickson, Pejman Yousefzadeh, Mark Kilmer, Nick Danger, the whole gang. Favorite non-political blogger: Eric McErlain of Off Wing Opinion. For non-political blogs, there is also Make magazine's blog. Way cool.

Who is your favorite mainstream media columnist?

Favorite MSM columnist: Don't really have one, but Bob Samuelson and Charles Krauthammer usually write stuff I agree with.

What is your favorite television news program, either network or cable?

Favorite TV news program: Don't have one. I leave CNN on in my office all day, in case a bus overturns or there's a high-speed chase in LA.

What MSM-produced websites (i.e. newspapers, magazines) do you visit on a daily basis?

Don't visit any MSM-produced websites routinely.

What non-MSM websites (i.e. blogs) do you visit on a daily basis?

Websites? I check Drudge every day, and RedState.

How often, or do you ever, read a newspaper in its dead-tree (i.e. print) form?

Dead-tree papers: Sad to say, yes (remember, I'm old, standing in the technology gap): Daily: Washington Post, Wall Street Journal. Sunday NY Times.

How do you see the new media and old media affecting and influencing each other in the next five years?

Eric McErlain describes every blogger as a termite eating away slowly at the MSM. I think he's right. I see a synergy coming, however: I think there will be an eventual marriage of talk radio and blogs. Talk radio creates a community and the blogs will allow those communities to live on after the show is on the air. Podcasting (which we do) is the third leg of this stool, so people will listen to talk radio on their time and then go to the appropriate blog sites to continue the discussion. The final step (how many legs am I up to...?) is activism, i.e., where these groups are harnessed to take action. We do quite a bit of that on our blog, with growing success. I see that conversion: talk radio, blogging, advocacy as the future. As for MSM television and newspapers, they will continue to try to figure out blogging but in the end it spells the end of control for them. At the end of the day, blogging comes out of their hide. That's bad for them, good for democracy and information flow.

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: We Didn't Start The Fire

At TAPPED, Garance Franke-Ruta posts an unknown contributor's outline for why Dems should support a flag-burning amendment: "Get it off the table," as its only purpose is to put Dems "in an awkward position over an almost purely symbolic issue"; it only affects a "couple of jackassess who think burning flags is a groovy way to protest. Screw'em. They should get a life"; "Let conservatives expend money and manpower getting this thing passed all across the country. It'll take years"; "Watch them look stupid as years of silly litigation unfolds" to answer "obvious questions" such as, if you burn a T-shirt with with a flag on it, "are you burning the flag?" Franke-Ruta comments: "I'm not sure, however, that kicking controversial questions over to the courts to decide is going to be a reliable strategy for much longer. ... The courts have already become conservatism's favorite scapegoats -- no need to make life harder for the judiciary."

LEST WE FORGET: All The Fluff That's Fit To Print

If it's too good to be Google News, then you're probably looking at Goodle News.

12/7: Not Confused, Just Well Mixed

Iraq is at the center of nearly every controversy and conversation related in this edition. It's the primary cause of both Pres. Bush's low approval ratings and the Dems' current disarray. Iraq is a major component of the long-running "torture" debate, and without it there would be no Plamegate. It's back to being a a bit of a slow week again for political blogging; most of it focuses on the Dems' Iraq dilemma and the controversy surrounding Sens. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) and Joe Lieberman (D-CT). The other big topic concerns U.S. detainee policy and human rights abuses, a conversation given currency by European leaders' differences with traveling Sec/State Condoleezza Rice.

DEMOCRATS: The Answer May Be Blowing In The Wind, But The Answer Is Not To Blow In The Wind ...

Washington Post reports, "Strong antiwar comments" from House Min. Leader Nancy Pelosi and DNC chair Howard Dean "have opened anew a party rift over Iraq, with some lawmakers warning that the leaders' rhetorical blasts could harm efforts to win control of Congress next year."

Suburban Guerilla's Susie Madrak points out that public opinion is not behind the war, so it makes little sense to stand with Bush: "I didn't think it was possible for the Democrats to lose next year's Congressional mid-term election, but I'm having a lot of second thoughts." Just a Bump in the Beltway concurs: "This is a Dem deathwish. 60% of the public thinks that the war is a "mistake" and they are running in the opposite direction? Way to read the wind, Dems, you idiots." Publius at Legal Fiction writes, "the domestic politics of Iraq" are enough to drive someone "insane." Though "Dean was clearly right" in his comments, the problem is that if Dems "become associated with the idea of defeat, it's going to be another long, cold November night next year. Statements like Dean's just don't help, politically speaking. In fact, they're pretty dumb."

Worldwide Standard's Dan McKivergan mourns the apparent demise of hawkish Dems: "While they may dress their rhetoric up a bit to sound less Howard Dean-like, most of the 'Blair Democrats' are fast becoming 'Dean Democrats,' putting an exit strategy ahead of a victory strategy." Balloon Juice: "With each new excuse, my assessment of the majority of Democrats decreases, and my opinions of the true anti-war left (see Kucinich, Dennis) increases. They at least believe in something, as wrong as I think their position might be." New York Post's Robert George, at Ragged Thots: "If Bush & Co. have been willing to take on a clear military hero like John Murtha over the issue of withdrawal, ya think Dean and Pelosi have the White House quaking in fear?"

LIEBERMAN: Joe Says It's So, And Underlines It For You Just In Case You Missed It

Sen. Lieberman made news again last p.m., calling on Bush to form a "war cabinet," and saying: "It's time for Democrats who distrust President Bush to acknowledge he'll be commander-in-chief for three more years. We undermine the president's credibility at our nation's peril." Conservatives are still happy to have him on board; most liberals are now past fed up with him.

Conservative Decision '08 urges Lieberman to "get over it and switch parties already!" He adds: "You know, it's good to see many Democrats of high visibility being more vocal in support of the war -- kudos to Lieberman, Obama, and Clinton..." PoliPundit's Alexander McClure, on a possible Weicker run: "If anything," a Weicker candidacy would "pretty much guarantee that the Republicans in Connecticut will vote for the Democratic Senator in roughly the same proportion that Democrats in Connecticut will vote for the incumbent Republican Governor."

The Moderate Voice's Joe Gandelman summarizes the partisan perspectives as "some Democrats: Lieberman is a traitor for supporting the war; some Republicans: Lieberman is the only sincere and motivated-by-patriotism Democrat in office."

Oliver Willis rejects Lieberman's admonition not to criticize the war: "It's one thing to be George W. Bush's sock puppet while angling for a cabinet job, but Lieberman has now aligned himself with the fascistic elements of the right." Markos Moulitsas: "Funny thing is that he thinks he's helping Israel out by supporting this "transformation" in the Middle East, when all this war did was replace a secular dictator with an Iran-style Islamic regime and Iranian ally." He updated a bit later to clarify he meant nothing controversial: "I think most rational people wish the Israeli people the best -- peace and prosperity. Same for the Palestinians."

Matt Stoller at MyDD: "I hope someone steps forward (Weicker would have to be on the Democratic ticket for this strategy to work); this is the time for one of those people in the machine with integrity and ambition to come out and test the waters. Lieberman is not well-liked, and he can be beaten in a low turnout nasty primary that centers on Bush." AMERICAblog: "Joe Lieberman needs to get the hell out of our party. I don't know if he thinks he's running for president or what, but it better be as a Republican, because if he dares run as a Democrat, he's toast."

CLINTON: Well, She Was A Republican At One Time ...

Unlike Lieberman so far, Sen. Clinton faces actual opponents in her NY SEN primary. Unlike Lieberman, she is not perceived as vulnerable, which may explain why there is less buzz around her. But buzz there is, on the left and right.

Liberal Pam Spaulding at Pandagon: "Hillary, like her colleague on the other side of the aisle, the Bush-humping, AZ marriage amendment-supporting John McCain, will do whatever it takes to try to bring that public image to the perceived center. The error is they choose to kowtow to the lowest common denominator -- the 35% or so of wingnut sheeple that are probably not going to vote for either of them anyway. ... Bill gave us Don't Ask Don't Tell and DOMA, and even told Kerry to toss gays overboard to get the win in 2004. When we compromise and bite the bullet for the centrist Dems that curry favor with the Right Wing, progressives get a condescending pat on the head and a lecture to be quiet." AlterNet's Don Hazen: "Hillary has a lot of New Yorkers scratching their heads ... and some are beginning to wonder if the activist [Jonathan] Tasini's quixotic run against her in 2006 [see 12/5 Blogometer] will increasingly pick up steam, if this is what Hillary is all about."

Conservative Vodkapundit's Stephen Green comments on the left's opposition to HRC, and also makes a reference to WJC: "If Hillary 'suffers' enough from these people, she'll finally get her 'Sister Souljah moment.' If not, she'll keep angling until she does. ... My anti-Hillary credentials are as solid as anybody's. But the Democrats need a viable hawk in 2008, a definition which probably excludes Joe Lieberman, I'm sorry to say. If Hillary is faking it, I don't care - not so long as she'd govern like a hawk." JunkYardBlog: "So US troops are terrorizing women and children in the dead of night now? Well, federal agents did terrorize a little Cuban boy on Clinton's orders a few years back, but that's a different thing."

RICE: State Department's European Vacation

Sec/State Rice has been running into skepticism with European leaders re: torture, and bloggers have noticed. Most here are left-leaning blogs, who note the spate of news reports with a told-you-so weariness.

Political Animal: "Rice has assured European audiences that the United State does not tolerate torture, but for some reason they don't believe her. That's astonishing. I wonder why not?" The Next Hurrah: "Apparently, we're not the only ones who have had it with outright lies and deceptions from this Administration." Demagogue: "The Dutch government has been one of Dubya's staunchest supporters in the Iraq adventure, but Foreign Minister Ben Bot has shown a disturbing independence of thought on the subject. Now he doesn't seem willing to take Dr. Rice's word for it that the U.S. doesn't torture prisoners in Europe."

On a related note, New York Times reports the ACLU is suing the CIA on behalf of Khaled al Masri, a German citizen wrongly imprisoned and subjected to "rendition" in a CIA prison. Crooks and Liars has video of MSNBC's report on the suit. Stop The ACLU asks: "In a time of war, how can a foreigner be represented by the American Civil Liberties Union? Shouldn't this incident be worked out between the American and German governments first? And its more than a mistake the ACLU are going after, they are going after the entire practice of secret prisons." American Prospect's Laura Rozen: "It would be a beautiful thing for there to be a debate between Dr. Condoleezza "We do not condone torture" Rice and Mr. al-Masri about how much the US condones torture. Someone could tell her to stuff it in her Ferragamo shoes. ... Is Rice denying Masri was tortured? Not that I've heard. She's just admitting snatching and torturing him was a mistake because he had the same name as the guy the US meant to snatch and torture."

TORTURE: But It's For A Good Cause!

A new AP poll released 12/6 finds majorities in the U.S., UK, France and South Korea "say torturing terrorism suspects is justified at least in rare instances." It's a surprising result for most; so far at least, it's not a topic the left has picked up.

The Jawa Report: "This is surprising. AP comes right out in their lead with the real point of the poll, fudging only a little bit, implying that 'rarely' is the most popular answer. Actually, the poll shows that 38% of Americans would allow torture 'often' or 'sometimes,' with 23% saying 'rarely.'" CNN used a different AP story with a different emphasis, heading it "U.S. allies oppose interrogations." TJR adds: "Typically, CNN obscures the most significant poll results by looking for an anti-American angle." Blogs for Bush's Mark Noonan: "This does not mean that people want torture to happen," but: "I think, on balance, that we'd all rather risk having the wrong guy roughed up from time to time rather than have the right guy sit there smilingly silent while the bomb goes off on the school bus."

Instapundit: "I suspect that the over-the-top hysteria of some torture opponents, equating things like fake menstrual blood and wrapping people in the Israeli flag with torture, is actually creating a backlash." Lorie Byrd adds: "I wonder how some of those answering the poll define torture. If their definition includes things like sleep deprivation, they would be more likely to think torture sometimes justified than if their definition only consisted of the infliction of intense pain. But who knows, maybe it is the '24' Jack Bauer effect. I wonder how many of the countries surveyed air '24.'"

Liberty Street: "It's too bad that we can't take a retroactive poll on how many Americans thought torture could be justified if there was "a good reason" before George W. Bush popularized the idea."

IRAQ: Get Out While The Getting's Good?

Liberal Steve Gilliard was impressed with ex-CIA agent Robert Baer's pessimistic take on Iraq, as delivered in his appearance on last p.m.'s "Hardball": "Basically, he said, the next president of Iraq was going to be fundamentalist favorite Moqtada Sadr. Which means he's got all the smart money on him. Why victory is impossible in Iraq?" Gilliard lists 4 reasons: "There is no government"; Iraqis "They tell us what we want to hear"; "We haven't got enough troops and the clock is running"; "The resistance is larger than we think." Gilliard: "The only victory possible in Iraq is an honorable exit after negotiating with the new Shia overlords. As far as influencing Iraq or 'finishing the job,' that's way off the table."

Conservative Jon Henke studies the exit strategy remarks of 4 foreign policy experts in a CFR symposium. All plans share at least these 4 points in common: "Train Iraqi security forces"; "Give the Iraqis time and space to establish democratic institutions"; "Reassure the US and Iraqi public about US goals, intentions and progress"; "Withdraw US troops at a slow to moderate pace." Henke: "Excepting perhaps the Murtha plan, there's really not an awful lot of daylight between many of the strategies being put forth by supporters and critics of the war."

THE ALITO NOMINATION: He's No Conservative!

Philly Inquirer/KRT's Hutcheson reports that the Bush admin. is objecting to the descriptor "conservative" for SCOTUS nominee Samuel Alito. In one passage, Asst. AG Rachel Brand "rejected the conservative label for Alito," saying: "The term conservative means different things to different people. A judge is supposed to apply the law, not make it." The story hasn't reached critical mass yet, but expect it to pick up later today. Left-leaning Political Briefs: "This is laughable. Would the Bush Administration have nominated anyone other than a conservative? And why are they so embarrassed by the label 'conservative'?" Daily Kos' Armando: "Shouldn't they be screaming about this on the Right?"

Via an apparently-removed post from Daily Kos, Jeralyn Merritt of TalkLeft points out that Alito's father was probably not an Italian immigrant, which Alito backers have claimed. The evidence is the U.S. Army's free, searchable online records: "Go here and type in serial number 32186682. It appears that Sam Alito enlisted on 3/14/41 as a private. He was born in New Jersey in 1914. At the time of his enlistment, he was single and a teacher."

BUSH: The "Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up" Bounce?

In recent days, bloggers including Tom Maguire and Mickey Kaus have been noticing a small turnaround for Bush in the Rasmussen robo-polls. == Now Mystery Pollster Mark Blumenthal has looked at it closely, and still he "can only speculate about why Rasmussen always seems to show Bush doing consistently better than other pollsters and whether other pollsters will confirm the upward trend in the coming weeks." He mentions he's sent a note to Scott Rasmussen, and will report what he can. == Political Arithmetik's Charles Franklin adds: "Approval of President Bush may have taken an upturn in the wake of his Veteran's Day defense of the Iraq war and renewed White House emphasis on responding to critics of the war. However, the upturn is not yet statistically significant, leaving some doubt based on the seven polls currently available since Veterans Day."

KERRY: Swift Enough On The Pushback?

Rush Limbaugh mentioned it during his 12/6 radio show, and posted a transcript of his commentary to his website. Like the pro-war bloggers mentioned in our 12/6 edition, Limbaugh complains that Kerry has called U.S. troops "terrorists." The Democratic Daily: "As anyone who has any understanding of the English language would realize, saying it would be terrorizing to kids to have American soldiers come into their home at night is both true and in no way calling the soldiers terrorists. 'Terrorizing' and 'terrorists' are very similar words, but do not necessarily mean the same thing. The context makes the distinction quite clear." AMERICAblog's John Aravosis agrees, and suggests that Kerry seek a libel charge against Limbaugh: "John Kerry is a public figure, but if Limbaugh knows that what he's saying is factually wrong, he's liable for what he says to the tune of millions."

CALIFORNIA CABLE: Reality Check For The Tancredo Crowd?

The special election for the CA 48 seat, vacated by now SEC chair Chris Cox, was held on 12/6. Rep.-elect John Campbell easily retained the seat for the GOP, despite the presence of Minuteman founder Jim Gilchrist, who ran on an anti-illegal immigrant platform, and who might have aided Dem Steve Young.

Hugh Hewitt congratulates Campbell: "Despite massive media attention and around-the-clock boosterism from local radio flaks and know-nothings John & Ken, the candidacy of anti-illegal immigration single issue candidate Jim Gilchrist could only muster 23,237 votes." He adds: "GOP incumbents will study these results very closely and recognize that while there is a 5-to-10% that must be reassured on the security of the border, there is no national tide running that demands an exclusve and relentless focus on illegal immigration." Swing State Project's DavidNYC: "Alas, it didn't happen. Whereas I had hoped that Gilchrist would pull votes only from Campbell, he appears to have pulled them from Young, too. ... I'll let the spinmeisters take it from here." On 9/29, Townhall's Tim Chapman interviewed Campbell; this a.m. he reposted the interview.

PLAMEGATE: Parts Included, Some Sembler Required

Josh Marshall points out that the "Scooter Libby Legal Defense Fund is being headed up by none other than Mel Sembler, the Cheney-fan and the big-ticket GOP fundraiser from Florida who was the US Ambassador to Italy when all the secret meetings took place" re: the forged uranium documents. Although he knows of no bad acts by Sembler during that time, it still seems to Marshall "like a pretty big part of this story to be collecting money for the one person under indictment for their role in it."

LANDSCAPE: The Goldwater-Ticker And The Super-Watergate

Over the last weekend, liberal journalist Rick Perlstein, popular with many lefty bloggers, participated in a conservative conf. at Princeton. He has now posted a transcript of his remarks at Huffington Post. In the speech he argued that GOPers today are less the party of Goldwater (whom Perlstein wrote a book about) and more the party of Watergate. Liberal Ezra Klein agrees, except he things the GOP is more "like Nixon, who ended up obsessed with neither ideology nor outcomes, but simple power. Today's conservative movement, by virtue of its success, is obsessed with perpetuating Republican dominance." Perlstein also quotes Hullabaloo's Digby saying: "'Conservative' is a magic word that applies to those who are in other conservatives' good graces. Until they aren't. At which point they are liberals." Andrew Sullivan -- himself ostracized by many on the right -- concurs: "I think that just about sums up our current situation." In the speech, Perlstein asks where the principled conservatives have gone. Orrin Judd, a conservative but not a Bush fan, replies: "As a matter of fact, there are rather few people of principle and the ones who pretend to be are pretty useless to a political movement. A principled conservative would be obligated to sit by and watch everything he supposedly wants to conserve be destroyed because the exercise of power to save it requires pragmatic compromise. That's why the Right hated Reagan while he was in office and hates W now."

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: A Blogger Defending The MSM? If You Say So!

Building on an argument at TNR's The Plank and disagreeing with Atrios, Washington Monthly's Kevin Drum defends the MSM from the blogosphere: "The things we choose to emphasize are often a reliable guide to what we think, and even if we don't always set those thoughts down directly on the page, they nonetheless expose our real motivations. ... It's not that pointing out the shortcomings of the MSM is out of bounds. Far from it. But when blog coverage of the MSM focuses solely on its shortcomings -- as it generally does -- surely it's safe to conclude that the blogosphere is not just practicing its own version of toughlove on a beloved but wayward institution. Rather, the blogosphere hates the MSM with a white hot passion. And that's long been my problem with what passes for media criticism in the blogosphere: it consists solely of scathing critiques and just about nothing else." He concludes, while the MSM deserves its criticism, so too does it "deserve equally sustained praise for the stuff they do well. It wouldn't hurt to combine a bit more of the carrot with the everpresent stick."

LEST WE FORGET: iRegrets

At his ABC News blog Down And Dirty, Jake Tapper writes: "So watched the premiere of LOST on my new video iPod last night on the flight down here. Not the smartest thing I've ever done. ... You know how airline officials have all plane crash references edited out of in-flight movies? There's a pretty good reason for that."

12/6: Play It Again, Dean

Who's a bigger deal right now -- ex-House Maj. Leader/Rep. Tom DeLay, who just had some criminal charges dismissed and others upheld? Or DNC chair Howard Dean, who just said the war in Iraq is unwinnable? Conservatives are paying attention to both stories and as yet liberals said little or nothing about Dean, making DeLay arguably the hotter of the two. But the intensity is stronger around Dean. It's been awhile since he said something of this sort, whereas the DeLay story is a rather equivocal development.

Others under fire: Depending on which way you lean, either Sec/State Condoleezza Rice and Pres. Bush or ABC News and anonymous CIA officials -- at issue are secret CIA prisons holding al Qaeda suspects in Europe, some of which have apparently closed due to media scrutiny; from the right, John Kerry, for comments about the war separate from Dean; from the left, Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) for backing a flag-burning amendment. Not under fire but worth mentioning anyway: our latest blogger spotlight.

DEAN: Silent Scream

In an interview on WOAI Radio in San Antonio, DNC chair Howard Dean saying the "idea that we're going to win the war in Iraq is an idea which is just plain wrong," calling for a "strategic redeployment" to other countries, much as Rep. John Murtha (D-PA) had suggested. The Political Teen makes audio of the speech available.

The reaction was swift and sure; it was almost like late '03 all over again: Cold Fury asserts: "[A]s of today, officially, one half of the United States, the party that represents one half of the U.S. anyhow, just gave up in Iraq. I don't say things like this often -- those of you who are regular readers know that I'd rather not personalize political fights -- but I hate that irresponsible, egomaniacal, unthinking, faux intellectual son of a bitch Howard Dean." Header at Confederate Yankee: "Captain Meltdown Rides Again." bRight & Early: "It's almost amazing, what the left believes is support for the troops." RedState's Blanton: "If Howard Dean did not exist, Republicans would have to invent him." Michelle Malkin posts a photo of Dean holding T-shirts for the group Code Pink, whom she calls "terrorist-sympathizing agitators."

Bill Quick: "Excellent. Unless GWB folds his extremely successful new policy of attacking idiotic Democratic policies like these ... that should be just about enough to assure the utter devastation of any Democrat hopes in 2006 or 2008." Center-right Ann Althouse: "We've heard the stock comparison to Vietnam many times, of course, but why bring up Watergate -- except to let the world see that you're drooling over the idea of impeachment?" Centrist Justin Gardner: "Listen, people may be dying right now, but we won the war in Iraq. It's not like the terrorists are going to overthrow the country," unless perhaps we leave too early. He adds, "the best they can hope for is to cause disruptions and kill more innocents and soldiers. That's tragic, yes, but it's no Vietnam." John Hawkins asks, "what's the point of sending more troops to Afghanistan if you cut and run in Iraq? Setting aside the fact that we don't need any more troops in Afghanistan, is the idea supposed to be that we're going to give in to Al-Qaeda in Iraq so we fight harder against them in Afghanistan? If we don't have the guts to fight them in Iraq, what makes Howard Dean think the terrorists wouldn't just relocate there?"

Dean's comments hit the blogosphere just as WSJ's James Taranto and Captain's Quarters were calling attention to a little-remarked segment from John Kerry's appearance on "Face the Nation," where he said: "And there is no reason, Bob, that young American soldiers need to be going into the homes of Iraqis in the dead of night, terrorizing kids and children, you know, women, breaking sort of the customs of the -- of -- the historical customs, religious customs." Kerry's words reminded them of his Winter Soldier testimony listing alleged atrocities carried out by Americans in Iraq." Taranto jokes: "Terrorizing kids and children and breaking sort of the customs! Didn't 'Jenjis Khan' used to do stuff like that in Vietnam? ... It's highly reminiscent of Vietnam, only back then Kerry's words carried some weight because he sold himself as a veteran against the war, whereas now he's just the junior senator from Massachusetts."

DELAY: Is That A Fork Handle Sticking Out Of Your Back?

The Carpetbagger Report: "This isn't a huge surprise; the conspiracy charge was always the weakest element of the case against DeLay, but the money-laundering counts are where DeLay has a real problem. After all, DeLay practically admitted to his role in the problem"; the Washington Post notes, DeLay "said he was ... generally aware of a plan to shift money" between TX and DC.

Jesse Lee at DCCC's The Stakeholder heads the DeLay post "DeLay Finished": "Look for Republicans to start jockeying for January Leadership elections very soon, as well as some very disappointing poll numbers out of Houston tonight." The poll numbers he references are DeLay's re-elect numbers, which are at approx. 36%. A generic Dem would get 49% of the vote. At TPM Cafe, Paul Begala writes: "My question is: who are the 37 percent? Are they fundamentalists? I can't imagine it. I'm a Catholic, but I used to love going to Vacation Bible School with my fundamentalist friends. I never heard a preacher say it was okay to help gambling lobbyists or support cigarette companies, or help rum-makers -- all things Congressman DeLay has done." DavidNYC, on the same poll: "Bottom line: Tom DeLay is out as majority leader, and soon enough, he's gonna be out of Congress altogether. Hell, maybe he'll follow the Dukester's lead and just bail now."

Lee also speculates about who might run to replace him, suggesting a John Boehner "ticket, possibly with Tom Reynolds of the NRCC or Zach Wamp running for Whip," a "DeLay, Inc. ticket, featuring Roy Blunt and the DeLay deputies," and the "Wingnut Caucus," led by the RSC's Mike Pence and Jeff Flake.

Conservatives see some positive news for DeLay go unreported -- Power Line's John Hinderaker: "The spin in the MSM media is that the court's rulings, taken together, were a defeat for DeLay since the judge declined to dismiss a "money laundering" charge against DeLay as a matter of law. The "money laundering" count is the one that Ronnie Earle brought in a fit of desperation when DeLay's lawyer filed a brief that made it overwhelmingly clear that the 'conspiracy' charge was a dead duck." Captain's Quarters' Ed Morrissey also notes that the judge delayed a decision on prosecutorial misconduct, and observes that the New York Times and Washington Post underplay its significance: "The motion regarding prosecutorial misconduct relates directly to the two remaining charges. If the judge rules that Earle acted unethically or illegally in getting the indictment, the remaining charges will also get dismissed -- and it seems a fair bet that it will happen, especially since Priest hasn't yet dismissed the motion out of hand."

And The Moderate Voice comments on Cheney's appearance at a DeLay fundraiser: "Cheney is -- once again -- providing the very worst imagery for the GOP. To be sure, there are many Republicans who will defend DeLay...but there are also some that will want to keep a distance because the DeLay story is going to reinforce perceptions that the GOP has grown arrogant and corrupt in power."

INTEL: If Loose Lips Sink Ships, Do Careless E-mails Shut Down Jails?

ABC News' Ross and Esposito report via "current and former CIA officers" that CIA prisons in Poland and Romania have been closed down due to media pressure, and 11 al Qaeda suspects there were moved to a North African facility prior to visits by Sec/State Condoleezza Rice. Header at The Strata-Sphere: "CIA Traitors Tell AQ Where To Find Prisoners." A commenter at Never Yet Melted makes a similar comment: "The word treason comes to mind here." Suggestions that the CIA be shut down come from Power Line and The Strata-Sphere, if not others.

Echidne of the Snakes is concerned for human-rights abuses, and notes that so is Europe: "The U.S. administration doesn't understand the Europeans at all, which is not very surprising as this administration has shown itself incapable of understanding anyone who isn't a religious wingnut or a wealthy corporation." A commenter at Think Progress: "Thank God for liberal organizations like Human Rights Watch! Too bad these prisoners are simply being moved over to the Middle East somewhere..." Re: Condi's visits, The Left Coaster writes: "Condi will get her moment to display her spike-heel boots tomorrow and kick a little European ass around, to satisfy her need for attention and constant approval as one of the boys. And in the process, the Bush Administration may find that it will lose several more allies and its rendition program all at the same time, when a little quieter approach to the criticism would have been the smart play." Right-leaning In The Bullpen: "I agree with Secretary Rice: we must use 'every lawful weapon' to defeat the radical Islamic jihadists."

IRAQ: Feaver Pitch

As the New York Times reported on 12/4, Bush's plan had major input from Duke poli sci prof Peter Feaver. Learning this, War and Piece's Laura Rozen dismissed the plan as such: "The strategy is mostly designed as PR for the American public. Sound familiar?" U. of Chicago's Daniel Drezner, an acquaintance of Feaver, agrees it's a PR move but disagrees that it's a mistake. He writes, "if a sufficiently large majority opposes an ongoing military intervention, any administration will have to withdraw regardless of the strategic wisdom of such a move. This is why, I suspect, the administration reacts so badly whenever it deals with domestic criticism about the war -- it recognizes that flagging domestic support will translate into a strategic straitjacket." But Washington Monthly's Kevin Drum isn't sure the numbers add up. While Feaver holds that Americans will support the war as long as victory is in sight, Drum notes that the U.S. has fought only 3 prolonged ground wars since '45: Korea, Vietnam, and Iraq. Drum writes, "with only three wars to work with, and one of them with scant polling data, there's just not enough information to draw any firm conclusions."

Kausfiles notes 2 contradictory statements by Rep. Murtha on "This Week" -- both asserting there is already an Iraqi civil war and then saying there will not be, and asserting Iraqis don't want us to leave and then saying they do. Kaus: "Sorry, this man seems confused. In his current state I wouldn't follow him either into battle or out of it."

At First Draft, Holden points out that Rumsfeld and unnamed Pentagon sources don't agree on one detail of the Lincoln Group stories: Rumsfeld says the reports planted in the Iraqi press were accurate, while the officials cited said they did not know yet if that was so.

LIEBERMAN: Which Way Is The Joementum Going?

Rumors are flying not just that Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-CT) will be made Defense Sec., but also that ex-Sen. Lowell Weicker (R-turned-I) may challenge him in '06.

Markos Moulitsas considers: "So things would be a wash at the Pentagon. We'd lose a seat in the Senate, and add a seriously contested Senate race to the 2006 calendar. But, we could finally get rid of Lieberman and we'd stand a good chance of replacing him with a better Democrat ... Not an easy call." Instapundit's Glenn Reynolds writes: "I've noticed lots of Democrats on various TV shows calling for Bush to replace Rumsfeld with Joe Lieberman. Given that the Democrats don't exactly see eye-to-eye with Lieberman on defense matters, I wonder what's going on? Are they trying to get him out of the Senate for some reason? Do they expect things to get a lot better in Iraq before 2006, and want to split the credit? Do they think Bush is going to do it anyway, and want to make it look like they pressured him into it?"

Sirotablog writes, "there may be a perfect storm developing against Lieberman. And the more he continues to shill for the Republicans, the more that storm is going to intensify." Middle Earth Journal, on Weicker's "I don't want to do it" confirmation of interest in the race: "Not exactly an 'up and at 'em' type of start for a campaign announcement. But the fact remains, it would certainly be interesting to see somebody with a solid record opposing the Iraq invasion knocking Joe off his comfortable little perch."

ABRAMOFF: Dirty Linen?

On 12/5, Hotline On Call cited this quote from the San Diego Union Tribune: "Wilkes befriended other legislators, too. He ran a hospitality suite, with several bedrooms, in Washington -- first in the Watergate Hotel and then in the Westin Grand near Capitol Hill." Josh Marshall picked up on the story, adding snark: "After all, what possible need could congressmen and senators and their staffers have for access to private hotel suites near the Capitol registered in someone else's name?" Markos Moulitsas: "While I don't doubt some sleazy lobbyists would consider such a thing, I can't imagine any elected officials so stupid as to avail themselves of such services. This seems insanely improbable. Tinfoil hat territory. But first, it does demand an answer -- what exactly were those hospitality suites for?"

WHITE HOUSE '08: Flagging Support

Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) got a positive mention from conservative bloggers Mary Katherine Ham and Joe Malchow both give Hillary positive mentions for supporting the anti-flag burning amendment -- more for shrewdness than for the substance; neither indicates whether they support the amendment. Georgia10 of Daily Kos writes: "Hillary's actions sicken me. They sicken me because they are tinged with fascism, the silencing of dissent, and the homogenization of our attitude towards the government." Matt Stoller for MyDD: "Flag burning is a stupid. We should wash the flag in protest, not burn it. But this embrace of symbolic reactionary politics is just bad news."

MIDTERMS '06: For Whom The Brown Tolls

OH SEN candidate/Rep. Sherrod Brown (D) has given an interview to Jonathan Singer, a frequent interviewer of politicians and a recently-added contributor to MyDD. Buckeye Politics' Tim Russo is irked that Brown gave the interview to "out of state media" when he and others have been angling for Brown to participate in their Meet The Bloggers podcast. Russo also points out that the interview is hosted at a blog founded by his strategist, Jerome Armstrong, along with unsubstantiated allegations about the interviewer's motives.

In the interview, Brown said he expects drug, oil and insurance companies "to come into this state under a different name" and run "sleazy attack ads" against him, but said message will be "strong enough that I think it's going to cut through a lot of the noise of typical political ads. ... I don't need to outspend" Sen. Mike DeWine (R). "I think there are connections between these oil interests and drug companies and ... I'm not saying Mike DeWine votes that way because he gets drug company money, but I do say that the drug companies write big checks to Mike DeWine and say, 'Well done, faithful servant." Asked why it took so long for him to jump in the race, Brown said he was busy working to defeat CAFTA and "some family issues, which I'm not going to discuss." He also said, "I'm not critical (of) Paul (Hackett) as a person by a long shot, but Paul has taken at least three different positions on the Iraq War."

THE ALITO NOMINATION: New Jersey Fried Movie

Lefty Slingshot writes: "The administration intended to lie about" SCOTUS nominee Sam Alito's "legal views long enough to get him confirmed. The surprise release of the internal Solicitor General's office memorandum, in which Alito schemes about how to undermine Roe v. Wade, has ruined their plan. It's too late for Charles Fried, though. He already went on the record" saying he did not "realize that Alito was a strong conservative." But the "new memo, however, is rock solid, indisputable evidence that Fried was lying. He was intentionally hiding Alito's legal extremism and he has been for 20 years. Fried received Alito's anti-Roe memo and circulated it to other conservative activists, specifically warning: 'I need hardly say how sensitive this material is, and ask that it have no wider circulation.'"

At NRO's Bench Memos, Matthew Franck notices 2 op-ed columns -- from the left and right -- arguing that the WH is "ducking a Senate fight over Roe v. Wade by none-too-credibly downplaying the significance of the judge's views on that case when he was an executive branch lawyer 20 years ago. They're both right. It's past time drop this approach and confront the issue head-on.

BLOGS ON BLOGS: If True, This Would Actually Make Pajamas Media Kinda Cool ...

Over a series of posts (here, here, here and here), L.A.-based Tony Pierce has been theorizing that just like the Lincoln Group being paid to plant stories in the Iraqi press, perhaps the DoD is paying bloggers -- specifically Pajamas Media -- to write favorably about the war as well. There is no evidence, but a few neat coincidences -- a Hit and Run-noted NSC report advising the DoD to set up blogs in hostile countries, and PJM co-founder Roger L. Simon "gleefully admiting that his venture is indeed in the propaganda business." He refers to a 12/2 post where Simon wrote: "Some have said the most important battles in the Iraq War are being fought in the news rooms of New York, Washington and Los Angeles. We are indeed in a propaganda war and our primary target is our fellow citizens."

Pundit Drome founder and PJM critic Scott Ferguson points out that Pajamas Media is still without RSS feeds: "Sort of like the old MSM newspaper sites used to not do before they started to understand how the New New Media works. How very retro."

BLOGGER SPOTLIGHT: Go West, Young Blogger

Today the Blogometer talks to lefty activist/blogger David Sirota, who blogs at Sirotablog (also hosted by Working for Change). He also contributes to Huffington Post.

What is your full name?

David Jeremy Sirota

What is your age?

30

Where did you grow up?

Huntingdon Valley, PA

Where do you live now?

Helena, MT

What is your occupation? Have you ever worked on a political campaign or for the mainstream media?

I am an author (my first book is called "Hostile Takeover" which will be released in the Spring of 2005). I am also a freelance magazine writer (I am a senior editor at In These Times and I am a regular writer for the Nation, the American Prospect, and Working Assets website, among others). I also serve as the co-chair of the new Progressive Legislative Action Network -- a new organization being created to support progressive state legislators.

Yes, I have worked on political campaigns since I was in college. Most high-profile of these include Rep. Joe Hoeffel's (D-PA) first successful race for Congress in 1998, Brian Schweitzer's 2000 race for Senate, and Schweitzer's 2004 race for governor.

When did you start blogging and why?

I started blogging in March of 2004 -- I was tired of only writing long form and figured blogging was a good way to add a day-to-day component to my writing, and a way to make my writing more interactive in terms of getting feedback/input from readers in real-time.

What has been your favorite post, or favorite story to write about, in that time?

I have particularly enjoyed trying to explore why today's Democratic Party has behaved so timidly in the face of more and more extreme policies from Republicans. I think the blogosphere can be a particularly powerful and effective force in calling out the political parties when they are not true to their stated goals. For the Democrats, that means questioning the party and pressing the party to avoid the split-the-difference, cower-in-the-corner politics that have destroyed it over the last 10 years and embrace a more confrontational, progressive politics. It is a politics that stops trying only to win the debates that happen on the Washington cocktail party circuit, and starts trying to win the debates that occur everyday among ordinary people outside the Beltway.

Describe your typical blogging schedule. And what is your average output?

I write the bulk of my blog posts in the morning from around 7am to 9:30am, and then do a bit more toward the mid afternoon. I do between 3-5 posts a day.

Who is your favorite political blogger? Favorite non-political blogger?

My favorite individual bloggers are Duncan Black, Nathan Newman, Jordan Barab, Jonathan Tasini and Matt Singer.

Who is your favorite mainstream media columnist?

Harold Meyerson

What is your favorite television news program, either network or cable?

"The Daily Show"

What MSM-produced websites (i.e. newspapers, magazines) do you visit on a daily basis?

Billings Gazette, Great Falls Tribune, Missoulian, Helena Independent Record, Financial Times and Businessweek.

What non-MSM websites (i.e. blogs) do you visit on a daily basis?

Daily Kos, Eschaton, MyDD, Left in the West, Think Progress, Political Animal, The ITT List, Nathan Newman, Working Life, Confined Space.

How often, or do you ever, read a newspaper in its dead-tree (i.e. print) form?

Once or twice a week -- once at some point during the week over a bagel at Helena's bagel shop, and once when I am traveling (which is averaging about once a week).

How do you see the new media and old media affecting and influencing each other in the next five years?

I think the 'old' media (aka newspapers, radio, TV) and 'new' media (blogs and the Internet in general) will continue on symbiotically, with the 'old' media continuing to do much of the basic research and original investigative journalism that deals with human sources (as opposed to documents). I think the 'new' media will continue to do more analysis and also more investigative research that revolves around database/document research. Overall, however, I think the 'old' media will continue building its presence on the Internet -- but that there will be an ever-growing role for individual citizens to create their own media through blogs, podcasting, web radio and all sorts of technologies that will continue developing.

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Sort Of Like How Ann Coulter Is A Grateful Dead Fan?

At The Plank, TNR's Jason Zengerle adds this bit of trivia to what we know about ex-Rep. Duke Cunningham/Jack Abramoff associate Brent Wilkes: "A helpful reader (who also happens to be my father) has reminded me of the fact that the name of Wilkes's Washington lobbying firm, Group W, is also the name of the bench where Arlo Guthrie, in his Vietnam protest/Thanksgiving celebration song 'Alice's Restaurant,' gets sent by Army recruiters after he confesses that he was once arrested for littering."

LEST WE FORGET: This Means War

Atheist activist Brian Flemming and his Beyond Belief Media has issued a declaration of war against Christmas. The declaration reads in part: "Whereas there has not heretofore ever been a war on Christmas; and whereas conservative Christian pundits relentlessly claim that there is such a war; and whereas nobody would want these pundits to be made liars; Therefore let it be resolved that Beyond Belief Media hereby formerly declares War on the holiday known as Christmas." For what it's worth, the attending release makes clear it's all a publicity stunt to promote a documentary film.

12/5: Cool As Ice

The weekend was relatively uneventful in political blogging, except for some interesting activity in the Plamegate case -- which only a relative few are now following with any intensity. Events in Iraq make for frequent discussions, as do the weekend shows, and plenty of topics that do not bear directly on nat'l politics. But Sens. Joe Lieberman and John McCain both get some interesting mentions, as does a Washington Post reporter and a handful of '06 campaigns. The cong. recess, the holiday season, and perhaps even burnout from a hyperactive autumn may help to explain why the 'sphere seems so subdued. Note for instance, that the top search on Technorati all weekend has been for the phrase "Xbox 360."

PLAMEGATE: Tending The Plame

On 12/3, Nation corr. David Corn posted his report on the conversations between Time's Viveca Novak and Karl Rove atty Robert Luskin. Citing "completely trustworthy sources," Corn reports: "Novak wasn't trying to tip off Luskin or to help him. During a conversation, Luskin said to Viveca Novak that Rove had never spoken to [Time's Matt] Cooper about Valerie Wilson. Novak instinctively pushed back, in the way many a reporter would challenge a source whom he or she believes is spinning or lying. "She assumed that Luskin was giving her BS,' one close-to-Novak source says. "And she replied with something along the lines of, 'This is not what I hear.' She assumed that Luskin did know about the Rove-Cooper conversation and that she was not telling him anything he did not already know." Corn discloses that he has played basketball with Novak's husband: "I've known Viveca Novak for close to 20 years, and this all squares with my nothing-but-positive impression of her." At Huffington Post, C&L's John Amato pronounces himself "confused" about Corn's latest, asking him about "your friend Viveca Novak." Where Corn notes a fact that had "been wrongly reported," Amato asks: "I wonder why you failed to mention that it was you who reported this fact incorrectly?" As Corn wrote, "What Viveca Novak said to Luskin, a friend of hers, is unclear," Amato asks: "I would also like to know if her husband was the 'source' that is close to Viveca?" Jane Hamsher comments: "Maybe if they'd been a little better friends she might have told him that her meeting with Luskin took place 'over drinks' in February, 2004 before he went out on a limb defending her. I guess she's better friends with Jim VandeHei," author of the Post story linked in the previous sentence. Hamsher pushes back more: "Matt Cooper quite nearly went to jail. Karl Rove never intended to give him any kind of waiver ... You think V. Novak might have wandered into her editors at some point over the past year and a half and said 'you know, I don't know how this might fit into anything, but before they send Matt to Romania for waterboarding maybe I should mention ...'"

Meanwhile, Fitzgerald is requesting that 8 pages of redacted info re: the Plame case be revealed, but not other sections dealing with identities of people who have not been named publicly so far. Hamsher assembles a list of people mentioned -- hinted at, not named -- in the Libby indictment; it could be one of them. Merritt lists those she thinks Fitzgerald is protecting with the request, including Bob Novak and his source, the sources of Walter Pincus and Bob Woodward; and others. Mickey Kaus writes, some Plame-watchers had assumed those pages "contained top secret eye-only information on the grave national security consequences of CIA 'operative' Plame's outing," but instead they "seem to mainly disclose information about witnesses, etc. involved in Fitzgerald's perjury case -- not a case about horrible damage done to our intelligence agents or their sources."

Eric Scheie at Classical Values, long one of those who doubted the scandal had much substance, finds it strange that Rove's pursuers put such stock in the CIA's version of events: "The CIA knows how to run individual agents, blackmail people, persuade them in all sorts of ways (again, legal and illegal), foment coups d'etat, and topple governments. It is an agency capable of great mischief at the very least."

INTEL: Natasha Fatale Implicated In CIA Rendering Scandal! Must Credit Blogometer!

Washington Post's Priest -- whose recent reporting on secret CIA prisons was much debated in past weeks -- now reports that the U.S. released a German national it had wrongly detained. At Daily Kos, Armando calls Priest "remarkable," and approvingly quotes Justice Brandeis on habeas corpus: "The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding." Obsidian Wings' Hilzoy: "We claim to be a nation of laws. If we are, we will hold people accountable for this."

The article raises different questions on the right. In a post titled "Pouting Spooks Leak Again," Never Yet Melted takes issue with the line of Priest's article which describes "a former Soviet analyst with spiked hair that matched her in-your-face personality who heads the CTC's al Qaeda unit," whose "name is being withheld because she is under cover." To NYM and others, this is awfully close to outing this woman, a la Valerie Wilson/Plame. JustOneMinute: "Quick, subpoena Dana Priest of the WaPo -- someone with a political axe to grind has leaked to her the name of a covert CIA officer!"

PENTAGON: America -- Love It Or Lieb It

Lefty bloggers remain irritated with Sen. Lieberman for his recent WSJ op-ed reaffirming support for the current course in Iraq (see 11/30 Blogometer), and now that his name is surfacing as a possible replacement for Sec/Defense Don Rumsfeld, they're not enthusiastic. Atrios: "It'd be a smart move for the Bush administration. The press loves them some Lieberman, and they love them some 'bipartisanship.' Rumsfeld's clearly mad as a hatter these days and needs to go for reasons going beyond mendacious incompetence." And Lieberman is willing "to put his name on a pack of lies in service to the Bush administration. Politics aside, though, what a nightmare." Conservative David Wissing doesn't exactly protest: "Of course if Lieberman were to accept a position as Secretary of Defense, that would give a chance for [GOP Gov.] Jodi Rell to appoint a Senator to fill his vacant seat. But right now, I'll wait until it actual happens before I really start thinking about that turn of events." Steve Soto also doubts it will happen, but for different reasons: "Frankly, I don't see it happening, because if Bush were to replace Rummy, the PNAC cabal and [VP] Cheney's imperialist faction will want one of their own for the job, and not a Democrat, no matter how much Rove wants bipartisanship and the Jewish lobby on board for this."

At TPM Cafe, ex-Clinton official Ivo Daalder promotes an op-ed he co-wrote for the LAT which argues it "would be unfortunate if President Bush's doctrine of preemption were a casualty of the Iraq war. We should avoid waging unilateral preventive wars of regime change. But circumstances will probably arise in which the option of using force preventively should be available -- whether to kill terrorists, prevent weapons proliferation, halt genocidal killing or stop the spread of deadly disease. The task is to make the idea a more limited and more legitimate tool for dealing with new security threats."

WHITE HOUSE '08: Is He Still A Maverick?

Sen. McCain's "Meet the Press" appearance on 12/4 drew a variety of reactions -- Arianna Huffington comments: "If today's show was any indication, the Straight Talk Express has gone seriously off the road. ... You got the feeling that McCain knew the stuff coming out of his mouth -- 'the president has done a good job' -- was absurd, but both he and Russert lacked the energy either to make it believable or to address its absurdity. I kept waiting for Russert to ask: "But wait a minute, aren't you John McCain? What's happened to you?" Centrist Joe Gandelman credits McCain for standing firm on the "torture ban": "Many news reports have noted that Cheney is adamant on nixing a torture ban. Well, now -- if these reports are to be believed -- the White House is slowly, seemingly inexorably, inching towards accepting some kind of ban." But having read Byron York's TNR piece on McCain and the Bush WH, Scott Shields calls McCain a "Bush loyalist whose position on Iraq is 'stay the course,'" pointing out his that fiscal policies don't necessarily mesh with his Dem fans: "I strongly doubt that many Democratic McCainiacs support the privatization of Social Security that McCain does."

MyDD's Chris Bowers is hosting the Dec. straw poll, asking readers to select their picks for '04. With a few thousand votes registered so far, the results show Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI) with a slight edge over typical straw poll winner Wesley Clark, both comfortably leading Gov. Mark Warner (D-VA) and ex-Sen. John Edwards.

MIDTERMS '06: The Do-Nothing Party

• Late last week, Kennedy V. Machine reported: "A little birdie whispered to us last night that the ethically challenged, temperamentally unstable, not-ready-for-prime-time [comedian/radio talker/rumored SEN candidate] Al Franken will, in fact, be moving forward with his anticipated move to Minneapolis next month to the lovely brownstone shown below."
• At MyDD, Jonathan Singer argues that Dems' '06 strategy should focus on Bush's "complete dearth of domestic accomplishments": "The Democrats must focus on George W. Bush and his Republican allies by pointing to utter policy failures such as Social Security privatization and the tax reform package ... rather than falling into the same traps as they did in 2002 and 2004. It's that simple."
• TN-based Team GOP reports that GOP consultant Chris LaCivita, best known for the SBVT ads, will likely be leaving Chattanooga Mayor/SEN candidate Bob Corker's camp early in '06: "One source told TeamGOP.org that Mr. LaCivita has been demoted and will now only be doing some of the mass mailing for the Corker campaign. Another source close to the situation said Mr. LaCivita may not even remain with the Corker campaign at all, but a decision will likely be made around the first of the year."
• OH GOV candidate/Rep. Ted Strickland (D) is backing OH SEN candidate/Rep. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) for the Dem nod; Brown's Grow Ohio blog hosts video of a speech by Strickland on behalf of Brown.
• Labor activist Jonathan Tasini, who runs the blog Working Life, has announced he will be challenging Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) for the NY SEN nod. He notes this on his blog, but says he won't address the race further on the blog; his campaign site is tasinifornewyork.org. At Huffington Post, Tasini explains why he's running against HRC.

ABRAMOFF: Games People Play

A reader writes in to Talking Points Memo to argue why Senate Min. Leader Harry Reid getting Abramoff money is less problematic than other pols: "Representing Nevada, he could not politically support the opening of new casinos and was, indeed, probably required as a condition of reelection to do everything he could to prevent such an result. Abramoff probably had a computer program automatically dispensing contributions to those who opposed the new Indian casino permits, which Reid independently had great incentive to do."

MISCELLANY: You Furnish The Christmas, Murdoch Will Furnish The War

• AMERICAblog's lefty John Aravosis appeared on CNN this weekend, and during his visit to the studios, he ran into Sen. Dick Lugar (R-IN). Aravosis had his picture taken with Lugar, and posts it to the website, commenting: "I'd traveled with him a lot when I worked in the Senate in the early 90s. He's just a very smart, VERY smart, decent fellow."
• Conservative Bill Hobbs posts an e-mail from Rep. Jack Kingston (R-GA) comm dir David All, summarizing the costs/benefits of MoveOn's controversial ad best known for using British troops in place of American ones: "Amount MoveOn.org allegedly spent in Georgia's first district on a media buy: $480,000 ... ZERO calls, emails, or letters resulting from the ad: PRICELESS."
• NJ state politics too confusing? Not sure who Goerge Norcross is, or why you should fear him? Blue Jersey has a handy beginners' guide to NJ politics, which will expand in the near future.
• Cori Dauber of Ranting Profs: "As I noted last night, NBC reports that al Jazeera is showing video from a terrorist group that is claimed to be footage of the attack that recently killed 10 Marines. While NBC notes that the military has told them that it can't be footage of that attack, since in the footage it's clearly daylight, while the attack in question took place at night, they go ahead and show the video anyway." Dauber links to a Marine website which warns soldiers that the video is "disinformation."
• Daily Kos contributor Superribbie argues that atty Steve Young (D) can win the CA 48 race, in part because of Minuteman founder/American Independent candidate Jim Gilchrist, because it's a CD where Kerry outperformed Gore, because a number of House Dems represent more-GOP areas than 48, plus the "twin albatrosses" of Bush and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R).
• At RedState, California Yankee notes that the DNC has "unanimously approved three resolutions supporting illegal aliens" -- such as a measure condemning a proposed CO constitutional amendment to deny non-emergency gov't services to illegals -- and that DNC chair Howard Dean "ridiculed President Bush's recent tough talk about stronger enforcement of border security." He asks, "How are we going to control illegal immigration if the leadership of the Democratic party supports it?"
• Donklephant's Justin Gardner, on the ongoing "war on Christmas" debate, a controversy raised almost exclusively by FNC: "Personally, I think this is a pretty weird push by Fox, and a fairly transparently partisan one at that. Also, as far as I can see, nobody else besides Fox is pushing this story. But I have seen our local Fox affiliate here in Kansas City pick it up and run with it in no less than two stories in four days." Crooks and Liars posts a screen shot from

BLOGS ON BLOGS: Nation-al Security

Last week, Pajamas Media founder Roger L. Simon finally announced it would begin rolling out ads. Soon BlogAds disappeared from the sidebar at Instapundit and others, soon replaced by PJM ads. The ads as yet are all in-house ads for PJM, but they do sport a new, improved pajama logo and offer a means to comment on the ads (but they are e-mail links, not comment boards). Others are raising questions about their choice of ad servers. Chapomatic: "PJM uses the previously very ugly popup user Doubleclick for their ad server. A few years back I just blocked out all those things. So I don't even see any of the ads. I wonder how many other folks also, uh, miss out?" Meanwhile, AmbivaBlog reports that getting linked by PJM so far "has brought precious little traffic. I count 19 hits out of the last 160, yesterday and today. (Told you I'm a wee blogger.) If it isn't driving more traffic than that, it makes you wonder how much traffic it's drawing, and, more intangibly, how much credibility it has with its readers. Has anyone yet experienced a PajamaLanche?"

On a related note, left-leaning PJM participants Corn and Marc Cooper have continued to draw criticism from fellow progressive bloggers. James Wolcott quotes Cooper in the comments of a post at Cooper's site a couple weeks back, criticizing his fellow Nation contributors as people who think "it's a pity the Soviet Union collapsed." Wolcott: "I must say, this isn't very collegial of Cooper. It teeters on the brink of journalistic disloyality. Are the editors and staffers at The Nation aware that one of their "name" byliners is badmouthing them like this?" It appears that Cooper has removed the specific comments from the board, though comments still in the thread refer to them. Atrios, never a fan of Cooper's, writes: "I'm all for people having the freedom to criticize the publications they work for -- in fact I welcome it -- but this kind of Reynoldsesque smearing isn't really something sensible editors should put up with."

Right Wing News' John Hawkins has announced the "4th Annual Warblogger Awards," compiled the favorite blogs of 50 participating right-of-center bloggers. Among the results: Favorite left-of-center-blogger was Kevin Drum, most annoying left-of-center-blogger was Markos Moulitsas, and favorite columnist who's not a blogger was Charles Krauthammer. Instapundit and Michelle Malkin compete for top honors in several categories; Malkin wins best overall blog.

INTRODUCING: For Any Remaining Academics Without Blogs Of Their Own ...

Launching today Cato Unbound is a new blog-like website produced by libertarian think tank Cato Institute. Each month, it will feature an essay by 1 major thinker, followed by replies and rebuttals from other public intellectuals. It kicks off with Nobel laureate James Buchanan arguing for 3 new constitutional amendments.

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: The Wiki Shall Be Punished

Picking up from last week's debate over the vandalized Wikipedia entry for John Seigenthaler Sr. (see 12/1 Blogometer), New York Times' Seelye spoke to Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, who says he is "trying to make Wikipedia less vulnerable to tampering. He said he was starting a review mechanism by which readers and experts could rate the value of various articles. The reviews, which he said he expected to start in January, would show the site's strengths and weaknesses and perhaps reveal patterns to help them address the problems." Alternately, Jeff Jarvis suggests: "If I were a reference publisher, a library association, a university, a media company, or a foundation, I'd take Wikipedia as raw material and vet entries, perhaps even charging for the service: On demand or on the basis of traffic and links, I'd go in and vet already-written pieces and bless that version of it. Then maybe I'd publish a book from it."

LEST WE FORGET: Pro-Bush?

Via Crooks and Liars, evidence that at least one Bush is enjoying a surge in popularity.

12/2: The Longhorn Of The Law

In today's edition: the Washington Post's report on the DoJ and TX redistricting, increasing objections to the U.S. military planting stories in the Iraqi press, Ralph Reed's lobbying trouble in TX, rumors that Pres. Bush's mother is out to get VP Cheney, a bit on John Kerry's curious claim about the troops, a bit more on Plamegate, and the "war against Christmas."

REDISTRICTING: Maybe They Just Didn't Want To Mess With Texas

Washington Post's Eggen has a blockbuster story this a.m., reporting that 6 DoJ attys had unanimously concluded that the '03 redistricting spearheaded by then-Maj. Leader Tom DeLay failed to meet requirements of the Voting Rights Act, but they were overruled. What's more, the relevant 73-page memo "has been kept under tight wraps" since then. That memo is now publicly available, here in PDF at the Lone Star Project. Via Technorati, we see that 60 blogs are linking already, including some of the most-read on the left. As yet, few GOP-leaning bloggers have weighed in; Gateway Pundit does, heading a post: "Democrats Declare Fair Representation Illegal."

Liberal bloggers are incensed about the redistricting, but feel vindicated by the report. Not many are surprised, either. Just a Bump in the Beltway: "There is the law, and then there is Texas, which still hasn't decided if it wants to live under the Constitution and the Bill of Rights." Oliver Willis invokes the widely popular "shocked, shocked" line from "Casablanca." Rising Hegemon calls it "The Republican War Against Voting." DCCC's Stakeholder: "The list of offenses and outrages in this article almost defies enumeration. ... This is exactly the kind of thing the Voting Rights Act was supposed to prevent. It's called racism." The Carpetbagger Report: "Aside from the substance of the argument, this is yet another telling example that career officials at the Justice Department just aren't willing to tolerate ideological nonsense anymore. The message to Bush appointees is as subtle as a sledgehammer -- you play politics with the law, and we'll embarrass you on the front page of the Washington Post. Good for them."

Others picking up on the story include Daily Kos, The Moderate Voice, Susie Madrak, AMERICAblog and The Left Coaster.

REED: 4.2 Million Oversights?

News that GOP consultant/GA LG candidate Ralph Reed failed to register as a lobbyist in TX during 2001-02, while allegedly recieving $4.2M to lobby TX officials to shut down 2 Indian-owned casinos, is making the rounds, primarily on the left. It hasn't got wide attention just yet, but considering the Jack Abramoff connection, it'll probably stick around.

Non-FNC pres. Roger Ailes is a bit disappointed that "the criminal penalty for lobbying without registering with Texas authorities is a monetary one." Irregular Times focuses on evidence that Reed lobbied Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), although Cornyn's office denies it: "Now, what, oh what, did Ralph Reed talk with John Cornyn about? This corrupt deal is enough to bring criminal indictments against Congressman Tom DeLay, so the fact that Senator Cornyn now has his fingerprints on the scheme ought to have his lawyers scrambling. It's time to hand over your emails and memos, Senator Cornyn."

GA-based GOP consultant Erick Erickson, best known for his contributions to RedState, comments at Peach Pundit: "I actually am a big Ralph Reed fan. I'm not sure where I'll fall in this race and really am of the opinion that not all the candidates have entered yet. But, I have a serious question and I address to those of you who are on the record supporting Ralph in this race (Cagle people need not chime in, we already know what you think). My question is this: At what point can we accurately use the phrase 'embattled Ralph Reed'? I think we may definitively be there."

PENTAGON: It's Only A Bad Thing If You Get Caught?

The news 1st broke about the Pentagon paying the Lincoln Group to plant pro-U.S. stories in the Iraqi press 1st broke on 11/30, and it's been building ever since. Next to the redistricting report, it's a top story today. Many more blogs have picked this up than we're counting.

>>From the left -- Laura Rozen: "You know, this is how this administration has always approached the truth -- whether it be pre-war intelligence or the issue of detainee treatment -- as something to be assaulted, denied, bought, manipulated, spun ... It's amazing to see that there's anyone left to even be surprised by this stuff. ... Gen. [Peter] Pace may be on his way out and not even know it." An ex-employee of an "embassy of another American war zone" tells TAPPED's Garance Franke-Ruta that "the work the Lincoln Group is doing as pretty standard psy-ops stuff that goes on all the time and is in no way limited to the American approach to Iraq. The obvious follow-up question is whether someone has a contract to do similar work in Afghanistan." She proposes some "unique questions": "Did former Bush staffers write any of the stories being placed in the Iraqi press?" While not illegal, she writes, it would be "unseemly." LAT, KRT and NYT have all reported on the story, and to Kevin Drum it seems they were all working on it prior to the LAT breaking it. He observes: "All of these articles are the product of weeks of research, and it's not just coincidence that all of these reporters have been working on the exact same story. Somebody's been trying to get the word out about this. Somebody who's not very happy with this program. But who?" Pacific Views: "The Bush apologists are the 'let the market rule' true-believers and they've been watching our news cycle go from news about candidates, debates, issues, to devolving into the 'if it bleeds, it leads' media that never has anytime to devote to real politics or issues because it is chasing after the next fear-mongering or sensational story. And if you live in Iraq, a story about a car bomb blowing up a mosque" is a big story.

>> From the right -- Jeff Goldstein argues that the "wisdom" of using propaganda is different from the "ethics" of it. He notes, "this campaign was designed to retaliate not only against enemy propaganda in Iraq and other parts of the middle east, but ironically (and sadly) against our very own media, whose coverage has been almost uniformly sensationalistic and dire. Was it a good idea? That depends. Do Iraqis read the LA Times...?" Captain's Quarters expands on the same: "The problem with propaganda is that it only works for a short time, until it gets discovered. When that happens, the propagandist soon discovers that their ability to tell the truth has been hopelessly compromised. No one will believe them." He is pleased that the WH has begun investigating the issue: "In order for our long-term relations with the Iraqi people to remain strong, we must not just be seen as another bull-tosser in a long line of bull-tossers; we need to maintain our credibility." And Tim F. of Balloon Juice is even less happy: "This story discredits every positive thing that's ever been written about us in Iraq, whether Americans had anything to do with it or not. How can Joe Iraqi know if the story's real or if the writer's on the take? He can't. So our brilliant imagemeisters in DC have once again managed to achieve precisely the opposite of what they set out to do."

BUSH: Your Mother Should Know

The Washington Note's Steve Clemons passes along a rumor picked up from an unnamed source: "Barbara Bush is allegedly TICKED off at Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, Andy Card, nearly all of them -- except Karen Hughes -- for how her boy is faring in the hearts and minds of Americans. The matriarch of the Bush clan is colder than North Pole ice right now to those around her son who she thinks have undermined him. I'll tell who my sources are if Patrick Fitzgerald gives a call and makes me -- but the sources are very close to Poppa Bush (41), who has been traveling a bit with some of his old entourage, including Brent Scowcroft and others of the first Bush regime." For what it's worth, Clemons sources have been incorrect in the past, such as the report that Fitzgerald had obtained more office space just as he was indicting ex-Cheney CoS Scooter Libby. Clemons did follow up with a quick retraction when that proved wrong. Blinq's Daniel Rubin puts together a brief summary of others who have sensed a split between Bush and Cheney during the fall. That includes liberal Huffington Post as well as the Washington Times.

Paul Mirengoff at Power Line looks at Bush's rebounding approval numbers in the latest FNC poll. He writes: "The swing isn't surprising inasmuch as the economy is booming, the stock market is climbing, gasoline prices are sinking, and the president is finally defending himself and his policies with respect to Iraq. ... These trends could easily produce further increases in the president's popularity. However, to get to break-even (and certainly to get much beyond that point) I think we'll have to see a reduction in the level of violence in Iraq, or a disengagement of a decent share of our forces with no surge in the level of violence."

IRAQ: Leveling With The Troop Levels

John Kerry is getting hit by conservatives for criticizing Bush for using military backdrops, and saying: "Every troop I've met in Iraq comes up to me and says, 'Thanks for speaking out on this.'" While the line has not been published in any MSM outlets, it apparently came from his post-Bush speech rebuttal, and seems to have been 1st posted at The Corner by John Podhoretz, who scoffs: "Every single one? Gee, I really don't believe him." Karol Sheinin points out that during WH '04, Kerry used to say there should be more troops in Iraq, now he says less. She adds, "as far as I can tell ... Kerry hasn't been in Iraq since about a year ago, in January 2005, right after the election when his position was still 'more troops needed.' So, were the troops in Iraq thanking him for speaking out on the need for more troops?"

Red State's Mark Kilmer notes House Min Leader Nancy Pelosi's support for Rep. Jack Murtha's Iraq plan and notes, as he sees it, 3 schools of thought on Iraq from Dems. "This is deep, folks. The divisions, that is. The Dems have the fringe elements -- MoveOn.org, dKos, Dean, Pelosi -- trading barbs and gobs with the DLC'ers and Clintonistas. This is good news, in that it assures us that we will remain in Iraq until the Iraqis are ready to stand on their own and the Republicans will retain their Congressional majorities."

Don't Bomb Us, the unofficial blog by Al Jazeera staffers calling attention to the memo said to show Pres. Bush and British PM Tony Blair discussing the idea of bombing the satellite network, has been up for 1 week now. Although attention is down compared to its launch, it's still picking up links at mid-to-top tier blogs such as Politics in the Zeroes, Dread Pundit Bluto and Firedoglake. In a post noting the brief anniv., a Jazeera staffer writes: "While some writers on our blog have been emotional, the official position of Al Jazeera has been to suspend judgement and conclusions until the Memo is seen. So will someone get on with it and publish the damn Memo already..."

BLOGS VS. THE MSM: Bloggers Demand, NYT Supplies

Mickey Kaus is mocking New York Times' Bajaj for spinning falling gas prices as an ominous sign. One Bajaj line in particular stands out: "Gasoline prices ... have fallen because higher prices held down demand and Gulf Coast supplies have been slowly restored." Kaus writes: "It's indeed deeply disturbing to learn that higher gas prices have held down demand, causing those prices to fall back to a level at which demand begins to rise again! It's almost as if some insidious law was at work -- as prices rise, demand declines! As supply increases, prices fall! You can't win!" Earlier, The One-Handed Economist noticed the same thing, taunting: "How else are prices going to fall? Are the magic pricing fairies going to wave their sugar-sweet pixie sticks and mystically change the market-clearing price? Have you ever even taking an economics class, Vikas Bajaj?"

PLAMEGATE: Advantage -- Jane Hamsher's Rolodex!

On 11/30, Firedoglake's Jane Hamsher wrote: "According to a source who wishes to remain anonymous because they don't want to be identified ... Viveca Novak is indeed being called to testify before Fitzgerald at [Karl Rove atty Robert] Luskin's request. Rumor has it that in May of 2004 when [Matt] Cooper and [Tim] Russert were first subpoenaed, 'inveterate gossip' Viveca knew that Matt Cooper's source was Karl Rove and she just happened to mention it to her buddy Luskin. Luskin is now claiming that this surprise revelation to his memory-challenged client is what prompted them to go hunting through his emails and call up the one he had written to Hadley." The New York Times carried a similar report on 12/1, as Hamsher noted later. Jeralyn Merritt summarizes a few loose ends, including the "discrepancy between Cooper and Rove's description of the call in which Rove said centered around welfare reform while Cooper doesn't recall that being discussed." And: "Cooper's July, 2003 articles mention White House sources. How could Rove not remember his own conversation with Cooper when Cooper said Rove asked him to treat the conversation as 'deep background?'" Atrios tries to piece it together: "If what we've learned recently is true, Matt Cooper, who went to court so that he wouldn't have to reveal a source, told colleague (not editor) Viveca Novak who that source was, and she in turn blabbed about it to a likely target of the investigation. Can someone explain the journalistic principles involved here?"

Tom Maguire posts the transcript of a 6/26/03 report on pre-war intel by NBC's Andrea Mitchell, and he comments: "She was all over the State Department side of things, wasn't she? She even led with the story about the misplaced INR dissent on Saddam's uranium plans, which was not announced by DCI Tenet until July 11. In fact, her opening paragraph is all CIA-bashing. Any chance she was told a bit more than she reported here? Who knows? Currently, only Don Imus is asking, so until Libby's lawyers get an opportunity to put her on the stand, we may have to wait patiently."

LABOR: The Janitorial Vanguard?

Labor blogger Nathan Newman reports in a header: "5000 Janitors Organize in Delay's Back Yard." Calling it a "tremendous victory of historic proportions," he argues for what it means: "The failure to organize the South is the number one, two and three reason why the labor movement peaked after the end of World War II and has been in slow then faster decline ever since. ... think of the Houston janitors as a beachhead in hostile territory. We can sometime look at the numbers and forget how significant even a small union presence can be in an area with very little organizing at all." At MyDD, Matt Stoller considers the blogosphere's relationship to labor, and concludes there isn't much of one: "The blogosphere isn't very conducive to discussing labor issues, mostly because blog readers probably don't belong to unions and don't know much about them. I know I didn't know anything about unions a few years ago. This can often blind us to important political developments."

MIDTERMS '06: Lucas With The Lid Off

On 12/1, Bluegrass Report's Mark Nickolas launched a blog to draft ex-Rep. Ken Lucas (D-KY) to run for his old seat, currently held by Rep. Geoff Davis (R). Appropriately enough, it is titled Draft Ken Lucas. Nickolas writes at DKL: "I am committed to leading the charge and committing my time and energy over the coming weeks to get Ken into this race, but I cannot do this alone. ... We probably have 2 to 3 weeks to accomplish this task. That's it. We need help now."

Daily Kos highlights a National Research (R) poll, which shows that an ad the NRSC ran against Cranston Mayor Steve Laffey (R) may have actually helped him in his primary challenge to Sen. Lincoln Chafee. Kos: "[NRSC chair] Liddy Dole's NRSC is lagging behind the DSCC in fundraising, yet it has spent a significant amount of its meager war chest running ads against a fellow Republican. ... Dole can't do much right these days." [Update: The poll was commissioned by the Club for Growth.]

CULTURE WARS: The Spirit Of Christmas

Last p.m., "The O'Reilly Factor" featured a poll result showing 42% of Americans believe there is a "war on Christmas," whereas 48% do not. Frequent O'Reilly critic Crooks and Liars comments: "It's pretty bad Mr. O'Reilly, when your constant pounding of the 'War on Christmas' theme doesn't even resonate with your own audience." However, the poll was not one of O'Reilly viewers, but was conducted by Opinion Dynamics.

NYC radio talker/blogger Kevin McCullough is encouraging blog readers to inundate the ACLU's NYC HQ with Christmas Cards, as a means of protesting the org.'s opposition to religion in public life. He recommends: "Go get as 'Christmas' a Christmas card as you can find... something that says.. 'Joy To The World,' 'For Unto Us A Child Is Born,' but at least 'Merry Christmas,' put some of your own thoughts into it, sign it respectfully and zip it off in the mail..." So far the project has been promoted on mid-to-top tier blogs such as bRight and Early, Hugh Hewitt and Captain's Quarters.

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: The Big Gap Between Love And Hate

Blog analysis blog Duel analyzes the 6-month trend (via Blogpulse) for the terms "love" and "hate" in blog postings. Duel explains: "It appears that love has trumped hate in the blogosphere with an approximately 3-fold higher volume of posts over the entire period. While the proportion of weblog posts that include these terms has been relatively stable, there has been a decrease in the use of both terms over the past month. The use of 'love' has dropped by approximately 33% (13.5% to 9% of all weblog posts) and the use of 'hate' has declined 25% (4% to 3% of all weblog posts). It's an interesting phenomenon that I can't explain. Have we become less polarized on issues over the last month? Doubtful. It would be interesting to take a look at longer term data to see how much variation there has been in these numbers so that we can determine whether it's real or not."

LEST WE FORGET: It's A Fact!

Ace of Spades HQ is soliciting "Cool Facts About Dick Cheney" from readers. Make that "facts" -- with scare quotes around them. Apparently the blogosphere knows a lot of cool facts about Cheney, because the post has gathered 500+ comments. Not all of them are suitable for a family-friendly blogsuch as this one, but here's a few that are close enough:

• "He's a huge Bette Midler fan and he tears up a bit during those Hallmark commercials."
• "So mean he laughs throughout Old Yeller."
• "He has refused to keep a defillabrator [sic] at home, choosing instead to throw himself on the 3rd rail at a nearby Metro station."
• "Dick Cheney started a war to make billions of dollars for Halliburton."
• "The only thing hard enough to cut Dick Cheney is Dick Cheney."
• "Barbara Bush was a brunette until the day she walked in on him in the can at a 70's GOP gathering."

NOTES AND ERRATA

In the 12/1 edition, we repeated information to the effect that the MoveOn ad criticized for using British soldiers to represent U.S. soldiers was pulled. In fact, MoveOn is continuing to buy airtime for the spot.

In the same edition, we also insinuated that comments we quoted by John Fund about Senate Min. Leader Reid were from his column, when in fact they were from an e-mail to Power Line.

To read the unabridged edition of the Blogometer, visit http://blogometer.nationaljournal.com. Questions, comments, reservations? Drop us a line at blogometer@nationaljournal.com.

12/1: The Nano Edition

As we promised yesterday, we return today with a bit more reax to Pres. Bush's 11/30 Iraq speech. Unlike his immigration speech from earlier in the week, this one slipped through no cracks -- it was easily the most-blogged story of the past 24 hours. Beyond that: a report that the U.S. military is planting stories in the Iraqi press gained wider attention as the day wore on and the SCOTUS held oral arguments on its 1st major abortion case in 5 years. And we present our latest Blogger Spotlight.

Today's edition of the Blogometer will be an abbrev. one, as we're live-blogging the Hotline/UVA 8th Annual American Democracy Conf. for Hotline On Call at the Hotel Washington in scenic federal DC (and also on C-SPAN).

BUSH SPEECH: So I Married A Reax Murderer

From the right:

• National Review's Rich Lowry: "One rhetorical problem the administration has had in the Iraq debate is that it has put itself in a 'stay the course' box that suggests to people that we aren't going to do anything differently, when they don't particularly like the way things have been going in Iraq. ... Bush and his speechwriters finally got out of the box today."
• Under the header "Read My Lips: No New Timetables," Captain's Quarters writes: "George Bush made his case clear today in a largely uneventful speech at Annapolis today simply by repeated the same plan he has enumerated for the American public for over two years."
• At Hugh Hewitt's site, Mary Katherine Ham ticks off a few accomplishments Bush listed, such as "90 square miles of Baghdad province turned over to Iraqi security forces," adding: "This is where I wish he would use some good, old-fashioned charts and pointers. A little too Ross Perot?"
• Michelle Malkin is pleased that Bush read from a letter by a Marine Cpl. killed in Iraq -- a letter Malkin had previously reported was "butchered by the New York Times."
• Not all were pleased, including Pundit Guy: "The publication of this plan is nothing more than a public relations ploy to quell discontent, and although it's hard to say it, this maneuver seems awkward at best. I'm embarrassed by it and I hate that."
• PoliPundit selects this line from the speech as "quote of the day": "These decisions about troop levels will be driven by the conditions on the ground in Iraq and the good judgment of our commanders, not by artificial timetables set by politicians in Washington."

From the left:

• Think tank-backed Think Progress went up quickly with a "rapid response" post criticizing the strategy document: "The problem is, it's not a new strategy for success in Iraq; it's a public relations document. The strategy describes what has transpired in Iraq to date as a resounding success and stubbornly refuses to establish any standards for accountability."
• Header at The Left Coaster: "No Measurable Benchmarks In Bush Iraq Strategy."
• Steve Clemons: "George Bush's speech this morning is almost entirely a counter-point response to James Fallows' important cover story in the Atlantic Monthly this month. Bush seems to be asserting that Fallows' assessment and math are wrong. ... The President's assertions about the great successes training Iraqi forces do not stand up to scrutiny."
• Media Matters' Oliver Willis, at his own site: "There's really no concrete definition of victory here, still. But it seems that they're saying we don't leave until Iraq is a full western style democracy ... So when do we leave Iraq? According to this document, apparently when candy canes and unicorns take command."
• Left I on the News objects to the term "rejectionists," but "accepting Bush's words on their face, what is he saying? That the Sunnis are fighting to be the dominant group in Iraq. Perhaps they are. Who the hell is the U.S. to stick not only their nose, but the barrel of their guns, into that fight on the side of the other side, i.e., the Shiites?" Arianna Huffington feels the same about "rejectionists": "It's Victory Through Vocabulary!"
• Nitpicker: "Meet the new plan. Same as the old 'plan.'"

More on the speech:

• Kris Alexander at center-left milblog Intel Dump: "I think it was one of the better speeches of his administration. He did a good job of explaining some of what is happening in Iraq. ... The middle part of the speech was the real meat of what he had to say, and he told me some things that I did not know about what the Iraqi security forces have accomplished. And that's a problem. I'm a fairly well informed person. I should know these things."
• Some conservatives were unhappy with the media coverage. Bill Hobbs criticized the Los Angeles Times' summary as "filled with omissions and spin," particularly its mention of how "many Iraqi units simply melted away" during the Fallujah fight: "But the LAT fails to mention that" since then "there has been very good progress." Gateway Pundit picked apart some news stories that report the good news as "hearsay": "This could be a historic time for the Western media. After reporting that the war has been a complete failure for months and two years, they now have to change their whole storyline while trying to save face at the same time. What a quagmire they've dug for themselves!"
• Gay Patriot derided John Kerry's after-speech rebuttal, calling him a "perennial weathervane."
• Wonkette posted a brief series of images of Bush and his slogans at Iraq-related speeches between "Mission Accomplished" and the 11/30 address.

IRAQ: Pay For Play

As noted here yesterday, Los Angeles Times reports that the U.S. military has been "secretly paying Iraqi newspapers to publish stories written by American troops in an effort to burnish the image of the U.S. mission in Iraq." It took a few hours to be widely discussed, but so it was.

Justin Gardner, for The Moderate Voice: "Reports like this make my toes curl. Do they not realize that actions like these simply create an atmosphere where it's easier to compare us to Saddam? Couple stuff like this with our torture policy, and you have a recipe for credibility damage."

At Informed Comment, lefty Juan Cole observes that some of these articles "may then get translated by the Foreign Broadcast Information Service of the CIA, the articles from which in turn are often picked up by BBC World Monitoring; or Iraqi bloggers may put out the information and perspective so that it gets into English. The Pentagon is forbidden from planting articles in the US press, but this method gets around the prohibition."

Right-leaning Vodkapundit: "Smart move, given that the Iraq Campaign is one small part of the Terror War -- in which the media is the arm of decision. If you don't manage information, you lose. ... What we ought to be told -- and what the story doesn't make clear -- is whether the Pentagon intentionally admitted to this (legal) program, or if it was 'outed' by an overzealous press."

• MoveOn has pulled their ad featuring British troops meant to represent U.S. troops (see 11/30 Blogometer). Bloggers including Michelle Malkin and In The Bullpen give credit to WSJ's James Taranto, who led with the item in his 11/29 column.

WHITE HOUSE '08: Reverse Psychology

Conservative Tom Maguire is grudgingly impressed with Sen. Hillary Clinton's (D-NY) letter to constituents about Iraq, quoting from it: "I take responsibility for my vote, and I, along with a majority of Americans, expect the president and his administration to take responsibility for the false assurances, faulty evidence and mismanagement of the war." Maguire: "Hmmph. If she would just kow-tow to the party line, al la John Kerry, and admit that she was duped and deceived, we would be delighted to mock her. Instead, we have to move to Stop Hillary, Plan B -- get behind her! Yeah, that's it! If righties start saying nice things about her, she will be alienated from the left forever."

MIDTERMS '06: Netwar

Kennedy Vs. The Machine, which backs Rep. Mark Kennedy (R) for MN SEN, noted on 11/30 that the Blogger account for their former site, Dayton V. Kennedy [defunct] was overtaken by a blogger at MN Publius, which backs Hennepin Co. Atty Amy Klobuchar (D) for the same office. MNP posted a letter mocking the old site, which KVM reposts, noting that the hijacking deleted all their archives: "As you might imagine, it was not pleasant having months of work destroyed. ... Kennedy vs. The Machine has always understood that politics is a full-contact sport. Where we erred was in thinking it was a battle over contending ideas -- not cyber sabotage."

In a later post, MN Publius explains back at their own site: "Today I discovered that the old Dayton v. Kennedy blogger account had gone unused for such a period that it was up for grabs by anyone with a blogger account. In what I thought would amount to little more than a practical joke, I claimed the up-for-grabs site and put up a post ridiculing the Dayton v. Kennedy blog. What I did not realize is that in doing so the archives would be removed from the site. For this I am truly sorry. I have removed myself from the blog's administrator role and left it alone."

IN THE STATES: Unfrozen Caveman Executive Director?

CO GOP exec. dir. Hans Gullickson sent an e-mail wide on 11/30 warning that the party "has recently obtained information giving us reason to believe that the website ColoradoPols.com is surreptitiously collecting information about individuals who post on its website. It's important to note that ColoradoPols.com apparently does not have a privacy agreement and has refused to address the issue of a privacy agreement when asked to do so. Therefore individuals who post on this site should have no expectation of privacy or anonymity. We strongly suspect that the individuals running this site will use all kinds of reasoning and rationale to discredit this memo; in fact we will be disappointed if they don't try."

Colorado Pols doesn't disappoint, explaining the information collection: "Like every damned website that has ever existed, our server keeps a log of IP addresses that visit the site as well as a record of the top pages visited. We have never been interested in analyzing the IP addresses of visitors with regard to comments, frequency of visits, or anything else except for filtering spam content. We are pleased to note steady growth in readership over the last year and a half, and we are obligated to report to advertisers how many people visit our site in a given week."

At Thought Market, tech entrepreneur Michael Gracie comments: "Political parties have proven they can't get technology use right, and I doubt they are going to get any decent advice anytime soon. It is therefore wishful thinking to expect these types of claims will end before our sun runs out of juice."

9/11 MEMORIAL: Forty Four? Forty, Or Fight!

Owing in part to the protests of conservative bloggers, the Flight 93 memorial in Shanksville, PA was recently redesigned to remove a crescent-shape that many felt came too close to the Islamic Crescent symbol (see our previous coverage). But the controversy may not be over yet. Error Theory: "There are still 44 translucent blocks on the flight path to the crash site, matching the total number of dead, instead of just the forty translucent blocks that are dedicated to the forty murdered Americans." Widely-read Little Green Footballs linked, giving the post wide exposure.

BLOGS VS. THE MSM: But If Norm Ornstein Licensed A "Norm Ornamentstein," That Would Be A "Holiday" Item, Right?

Considering that FNC's Bill O'Reilly and John Gibson have recently made an issue of businesses using the word "Holidays" where they once used the word "Christmas," on 11/30 a Daily Kos contributor pointed out that the FNC store sells "Holiday Ornaments." The fact was picked up by lefty media watchdog Media Matters, giving it a wider airing. Before long even conservative blogs were picking up the story, and at some point in the day, FNC changed the item description to call them "Christmas Ornaments". Dave at conservative Say Anything doesn't care what companies say: "To me, it's just capitalism in action: companies want to maximize their profits, so they avoid any statements that could detract people from going to their stores. However, regardless of how you feel, you have to love this irony." In a tongue-in-cheek post, Stop the ACLU points out that FNC's description of the item still refers to a "holiday tree": "I am hereby announcing my intent to launch a massive e-mail campaign against FOX News. The only reason I'm not calling for a boycott of their network immediately is because I already don't watch the other networks, and I do need some news to watch on TV." Liberal Moxie Grrrl, on FNC: "Apparently they believe 'Happy Holidays' doesn't include Christmas. See? I told you they were f---ing morons."

• Rep. Dennis Kucinich has posted to the Huffington Post a letter to Los Angeles Times publisher Jeffrey Johnson, signed by 2 dozen Dem House members, including 9 from CA, plus Sherrod Brown (OH), Patrick Kennedy (RI), and others. Explaining its raison d'etre, the letter begins: "We, as Members of Congress, object to the dismissal of Robert Scheer, a 32-year veteran of the LA Times with a long history of excellence in reporting and op ed pieces."

REID: Radio Daze

Following up on the recent item about Senate Min. Leader Harry Reid's comments to the effect that bin Laden might be dead, WSJ's John Fund wrote, in Reid's comments "there is a line in there of pure speculation ... but Reid used the word 'seriously" on air.' More: "The point in my piece stands. Reid is the Minority Leader and clearly left the impression he had been briefed on this matter." In posting the Fund piece, Power Line's Scott Johnson asks, "who's to check" NV analyst Jon Ralston, who 1st reported that Reid's source was NPR, not intel agencies.

We dealt with the matter yesterday in this space and as well as at Hotline On Call. That item was picked up by Daily Kos. A few of the top lefty blogs picked it up, and centrist Joe Gandelman wrote: "It sounds like some corrections might be in order here." Others may have corrected it, but one we saw was from ND conservative was Rob Port.

BLOGGER SPOTLIGHT: Kuffs

Today the Blogometer talks to lefty TX blogger Charles Kuffner, who writes Off The Kuff.

What is your full name?

Charles Kuffner

What is your age?

On the verge of 40.

Where did you grow up?

Staten Island, NY

Where do you live now?

Houston, TX

What is your occupation? Have you ever worked on a political campaign or for the mainstream media?

I do IT work for a big company. I've done a small amount of volunteer work for campaigns, but have never done any paid work for one. Unless my college newspaper counts, I have not worked for the mainstream media.

When did you start blogging and why?

January 1, 2002. I had come across a friend's blog, now known as Perverse Access Memory (though at the time it was called What She Really Thinks) and said to myself, "that looks like fun."

What has been your favorite post, or favorite story to write about, in that time?

I enjoyed writing about the Texas redistricting battle of 2003, and I enjoy doing analyses of Congressional and State Rep. districts, but I think as much as anything I got more out or writing about my experiences as a Little League coach than any of the political stuff.

Describe your typical blogging schedule. And what is your average output?

Average output is 4 to 6 posts a day. Schedule is whenever I can fit it in. I try to squeeze in as much as I can before I leave for work and before I go to bed.

Who is your favorite political blogger? Favorite non-political blogger?

Hard to pick one favorite political blogger, but I'll go with Josh Marshall. For non-political blogging, I'll pick Jay Jaffe.

Who is your favorite mainstream media columnist?

Judith Martin, a/k/a Miss Manners.

What is your favorite television news program, either network or cable?

I'm not much of a TV news watcher.

What MSM-produced websites (i.e. newspapers, magazines) do you visit on a daily basis?

Houston Chronicle, Salon, American Prospect. Other Texas newspapers (Austin American-Statesman, Dallas Morning News, San Antonio Express News, Fort Worth Star-Telegram) on a less-than-daily but more-than-weekly basis.

What non-MSM websites (i.e. blogs) do you visit on a daily basis?

Too many to list. Look at my Bloglines subscriptions and you'll see what I mean.

How often, or do you ever, read a newspaper in its dead-tree (i.e. print) form?

I subscribe to the Houston Chronicle, so every day.

How do you see the new media and old media affecting and influencing each other in the next five years?

I believe you will see more new media sites and personalities being hired by old media (see Andrew Sullivan and Time Magazine, for example). I believe old media will adapt some of features of blogging (more direct feedback on stories, for example), and will be more likely to have their own blogs, which they will come to see as adding value to their sites.

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: The Wicked Wiki

At academic history blog Cliopatra, Oscar Chamberlain notes an 11/30 USA Today op-ed by veteran journalist John Seigenthaler Sr., whose Wikipedia entry insinuated -- for 1/3 of a year -- that he might have been involved with the JFK assassination.

Chamberlain comments: "I've always had mixed feelings about Wikipedia. I do use it, particularly when I want a quick summary of how some technology works. I like the way that thousands of people post and correct posts on thousands of topics simply for the love of it. I guess my 1960s roots are showing there. However, I don't allow my students to use it as a source. There's just too much room for falsehood, particularly on the controversial topics that many of them are researching. ... He's a good man who deserves much better. And Wikipedia is going to have to evolve some more creative anti-libel procedures if it wants to continue to grow and to remain both open and trustworthy."

It's worth noting that as of the present, there appears to be no Wikipedia entry for Siegenthaler, nor for the NBC corr. John Siegenthaler, his son. See also: Wikipedia entry for John Seigenthaler Sr.

LEST WE FORGET: When Contractual Obligations Prove Arduous, New Media Workers Resort To Filler

What would happen if, as the rumors say, a media company such as the New York Times bought NYC gossip blog Gawker? See Panopticist for one artist's rendering.