May 22, 2006
5/22: Core Competencies?
Both left and right blogosphere's are very young, but already each side appears to be specializing in different skills. The left showed their strength in internal Dem. power struggles (see DNC Chair Howard Dean) with cable co. exec. Ned Lamont strong showing at CT's Dem convention 5/19. On the right, bloggers think they may have a Rathergate repeat in USA Today's NSA coverage. Both sides ought to become a little more self-aware of how the Beltway may try to use them as Sen. John McCain's (R-AZ) appearance at the New School and his staff's subsequent appearance at lefty blogger sites smell a bit too much like a set-up ... but a set-up that worked judging by rare righty praise for McCain.
LIEBERMAN: Nedmentum
Lefty bloggers were ecstatic over cable co. exec. Ned Lamont 33% showing at CT's Dem convention 5/19 earning him a spot on the 08/06 primary ballot to challenge Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-CT).
- Matt Stoller at MyDD: "Ned Lamont is CRUSHING Joe Lieberman. ... His side is incredibly dejected."
- Crooks and Liars: "This vote had to play with Joe's head. It's amazing that even after Joe called many party delegates and pressured them to vote for his eminence, they resisted."
- LamontBlog: "Joe Lieberman was severely rebuked tonight by the grassroots and the insiders of his own party. ... Lieberman supporters are walking away completely dejected. Anyone who thought this campaign wasn't for real... now it's for real.
- Middle Earth Journal: "This has to be a wake up call for Lieberman. Since Lieberman gets much of his support from Republicans in general elections he may have some real problems in a one on one primary. This is a good opportunity to show Marshall Wittmann and the DLC how powerful the netroots are.
- The News Blog: "Schumer and Reid need to lock down a pledge on Lieberman's part to not run an independent campaign. ...This is the last thing the party wanted, a Connecticut primary, but for two years, Lieberman has backstabbed and undercut other Dems with no sanction.
- firedoglake: "Do they know how monumental this is? Do they understand how Chuck Schumer is going to be sh***ing sideways from now until November, worried about what Lieberman will do next, what he's going to do next, and what we will do as a result? And what would the blogosphere do if the DSCC were to support an independent over a Democratic candidate? Again, I have no crystal ball but the words "unleash unholy hell" do suggest themselves.
Observer Taegan Goddard noted that the race now has natl implications: "Though the incumbent won the official backing of his party, it was a stunning rebuke by a virtually unknown candidate. ...Worse for Lieberman, he now faces what will be the first national campaign of the election season, turning what should be a state primary into a nationwide referendum on Iraq and President Bush's foreign policy. Both men will look far outside Connecticut for resources to fuel their campaigns.
WH'08 I: The Enemy Of My Enemy ...
If Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) was looking for ways to boost his conservative street creds, provoking lefty wrath at the New School's 5/20 commencement sure did the trick. Where student booing and heckling left off, lefty blogger derision began. The Left Coaster: "I applaud the students at the university who didn't give McCain a free pass like the media continues to do. Mr. "Straight Talk" has become Mr. Lap Dog for the evangelical right since he decided to throw away his principles to do anything necessary to become president. Everywhere McCain goes to be worshipped, and partake in what he anticipates are more "we love you John" sessions, he should be greeted with disdain and disappointment." Ari Melber at The Huffington Post: "The New School met the New McCain -- a self-proclaimed maverick who panders to bigots and supports President Bush's every failure -- and it looks like people don't like the New McCain."
Fellow commencement speaker Jean Rohe took to The Huffington Post to explain her decision to address McCain directly instead of completing her original speech. Sensing an opportunity to further antagonize the lefty blogosphere McCain aide Mark Salter took to The Huffington Post's comment boards and wrote: "Ms. Rohe and those of her fellow graduates ... proved ... that they could learn a thing or two about tolerance and respect from the students of Liberty University. ... It took no courage to do what you did, Ms. Rohe. It was an act of vanity and nothing more."
In addition to hundreds of supportive Huffington Post readers, BlondSense chimed in: "I am thankful that these students at New School University ARE NOT TOLERANT of politicians like John McCain." Matt Stoller at MyDD went after Salter: "So Mark Salter ... flipped out. ... Salter is also heavily tied into McCain's cover-up of the Abramoff-Norquist matter, which McCain never bothered to fully investigate for fear of upsetting the Republican establishment."
Rich Lowry live-blogged the speech and observed: "Well, that was a pretty ... shameful performance by The New School student body, but I suppose it could have been worse." Lowry later offered some conclusions: "1) The solipsism of the student Left is incredible. That a war hero would come to talk to you about what he's learned in life, and your reaction would be to shout-"it's about me!" Amazing. 2) The forfeit of foreign-policy idealism on the left at the moment is near total. McCain got some applause when he said we should be doing more in Darfur-maybe because that's a cause that has an anti-Bush tinge. But his defense of American values and spreading them to the world was met with indifference or hostility. 3) McCain gets credit for going to such a hostile forum. He's one of the best on the right in pulling off such things, of course. In sheer political terms, one of his challenges is to get hated by the right people and shake his reputation as the media's and liberals' favorite Republican. Getting heckled by left-wingers helps." The Blogometer can't remember the last time such kind words were spoken about McCain at The Corner. Non-McCain lovers Riehl World View and Flopping Aces were also moved to offer rare words of McCain support.
Not all right-leaners were impressed. Ann Althouse detected some laziness: "And isn't he, really, just asking for it by going about giving speeches at politically liberal colleges? He's taking advantage of an opportunity, a shot at a captive audience that's under tremendous social pressure to sit still and listen. How hard can you be on the audience that also sees fit to take advantage? ...At the very least, he should have prepared a graduation speech and not a political speech. A genuinely with-it politician would also have come prepared to talk directly and spontaneously to the situation unfolding in front of him. ... The fact is he sleepwalked through what could have been his moment."
WH'08 II: Mirror Images?
The Atlanta-Journal Constitution'sPolitical Insider saved from tidbits from their print piece on Ex-NYC mayor Rudy Giuliani's (R) 5/18 fund raiser for ex-Christian Coalition chair Ralph Reed's (R) LG campaign: "Giuliani spoke of Reed's "helping to elect several presidents." Left unsaid was the fact that all of them were named Bush. "The president worked very, very hard for the tax cuts," Giuliani said. His lips formed around the name "Bush" once, in passing. ...The Reed-Giuliani luncheon was preceded by a $1,000-per-ticket VIP reception. Reed supporter Dot Burns, a longtime GOP activist and confidante of the late Paul Coverdell, was one of the insiders. "We talked about the war, mainly immigration, which seems to be on everyone's mind these days," Burns said. "I believe in making it easier for people to become citizens. Too many people depend on them in their businesses." That, we should point out, is probably not the official position of the Reed campaign. On the key issues where Giuliani and Reed disagree - abortion, gun control, and gay rights - Burns said: "That didn't come up. I think our issues now are above that. I think our issues now are with world peace, and those [other] issues need to be put on the back burners."
Righty leaner Ryan Sager at RCP Blog noted: "McCain agrees with the Religious Right on most things, but they hate him. Giuliani disagrees with the Religious Right on most things, but they (at least for now) love him. This is borne out by polling. To take just one example, a November 2004 Gallup poll found that, in a field of Rudy Giuliani, John McCain and Jeb Bush, Giuliani came out on top with 47 percent of the vote from all Republicans. He got 47 percent from the subset of conservative Republicans. Meanwhile, McCain got only 23 percent of the subset of conservative Republicans (26 percent from all Republicans)."
Lefty bloggers also picked up on the McCain comparison. The Horse's Mouth: "Rudy's strategic dilemma is very similar to McCain's. Both have a reputation for independence, but the problem for both of them is that when they do what it takes to be competitive in a GOP primary -- that is, cozy up to folks they disagree with on all sorts of things -- that sense of each one's independence simply vanishes, and each suddenly morphs into just another pandering politician, into the wizard behind the curtain." The Politicker: "Giuliani's support for gay rights, gun control, and abortion, to say nothing of his three marriages, could give him trouble with the GOP's evangelical base should he choose to make a run for the White House in 2008, so his decision to hoof it to Georgia to endorse Reed is a potentially shrewd, if transparent, move. ...So it's a perfect political marriage -- almost as cozy as John McCain's newfound romance with evangelical powerhouse Jerry Falwell.
The New Donkey thinks Guiianni has other motives: "Personally, I've never taken Rudy's presidential prospects that seriously. And until he starts spending less time raking in cash on the motivational speaker circuit, and more time hanging out at pot-luck dinners in Iowa, I won't be convinced that events like his appearance for Reed represent anything other than fluffing pillows with the Right."
ROVE: Growing Pains
As the blogosphere tries to become a source for news, and not just a place to discuss it, there will inevitably be setbacks. All sides can agree that 5/19's non-indictment of WH dep. CoS Karl Rove was such a set back for truthout.org. Truthout Executive Director Mark Ash issued a statement 5/19, including: "The time has now come, however, to issue a partial apology to our readership for this story. While we paid very careful attention to the sourcing on this story, we erred in getting too far out in front of the news-cycle. In moving as quickly as we did, we caused more confusion than clarity. And that was a disservice to our readership and we regret it."
TalkLeft also highlights an Ash interview at Salon: "Ash said that Truthout needs to "cool down the reactor a little bit" as it tries to learn more about the "cycle" on which Fitzgerald's legal team is working. "We're not in a position to continue on without an official confirmation," he said. "Unless we get some official confirmation, we're going to look stupider and stupider."
Righties were not about to let this one slip by. Joe's Dartblog: "A new paradigm in yellow journalism: Make a wild assertion on any day, and if ever it come to be true, your reporting is fully affirmed. Anything more egregious than a parking fine on Rove's part, now, will validate the original Truthout story." Chickenhawk Express: "Basically that means that if Rove is indicted any time in this millenium, TruthOut can claim they were the first on the story. ...Couldn't have happened to a nicer bunch of liars." Also piling on: Riehl World View, Dean's World, Rathergate, Jonah Goldberg at The Corner, and Protein Wisdom.
Few lefty defenders could be found. The Democratic Daily: "Now if I could just figure out what this really means." Iowa Liberal: "Everybody hates a liberal that gets it wrong. While conservative pundits and new sources are allowed to be wrong 99 times as long as they're right once, the reverse logic applies to liberals (see: Dan Rather)." The Political Animal: "I, of course, have no way to judge the truth of either side, although it continues to be strange that Leopold claims to have multiple sources on this story and no other media outlet has even one. In any case, there's damn little wiggle room left here."
Truthout was not about to fade into the night...they issued a lengthy explanation 5/21, including: "Further, we know - and we want our readers to know - that we are dependent on confidential sources. We know that a report based solely on information obtained from confidential sources bears some inherent risks. We know that this is - by far - the biggest story we have ever covered, and that we are learning some things as we go along. Finally, we know that we have the support of those who have always supported us, and that must now earn the support of those who have joined us as of late."
TalkLeft followed up on truthout's new assertions wit Rove spokesman Mark Corallo and got a response including: "Karl Rove has not been indicted. He has not been told he has been indicted. He has not been told he is a target. His status remains unchanged. ...Those reporting to the contrary are "bald-faced liars or completely delusional or both."
Byron York at The Corner notes the truthout wasn't the only lefty blog source pushing the Rove-indictment story: "In addition to Jason Leopold, the Karl Rove "indictment" story is also being driven by a writer named Wayne Madsen. A quick look at Nexis and Google shows that Madsen has written quite a bit over the years. In one article, from Counterpoint in 2003, Madsen cited "people close to the Pope" to report that Pope John Paul II worried that George W. Bush was the Antichrist."
DNC: The Not So Invisible Hand Of Dean?
The Drudge Report posted 5/21: "The Democratic National Committee (DNC) secretly placed political operatives in the city of New Orleans to work against the re-election efforts of incumbent Democrat Mayor Ray Nagin."
Righty Wizbang was not surprised: "My reply? Duh! Of course they did. In case you still don't get it: It is basically a given that the Dems lost a seat in the Senate last night." RedState was a bit more cautious: "This being Drudge, one can never be 100% certain, and of course Howard Dean is hardly going to publicly admit that he not only tried to run a Democratic incumbent out of office, but failed miserably in the attempt. ...Why did Dean try to unseat Nagin? If you buy Paul's logic that this is bad news for the national Democrats because Landrieu wanted to rebuild New Orleans' slums and a Nagin-led New Orleans may not be as friendly turf for statewide and national Democrats who need it to have a chance in Louisiana, then the partisan logic is clear. Moreover, Nagin is a former Republican who endorsed Bush in 2000, and DNC loyalists may have felt he was an unreliable party man."
Lefty Chris Bowers at MyDD quotes Donna Brazille: "The Democratic National Committee did not endorse any candidate for Mayor of New Orleans. The Party's role was simply to help educate, inform and assist displaced voters." And goes on to complain: "It is completely unsourced. ... The article is clearly an attempt to try and draw a wedge in the Democratic Party between whites and African-Americans. ...The article is also an attempt to discredit Dean, the fifty-state strategy, and the netroots which have supported that strategy." Bowers could have left it there but chose to make a larger point and demonstrate that he's never heard of truthout.org: "There is something else that this story demonstrates: a difference in the willingness of many major left-wing sites online and major right-wing sites online to run with unsubstantiated stories. The progressive political blogosphere is quite capable of self-policing, if for no other reason then we know the right-wing and the established news media are extremely eager to pounce on our mistakes to try and discredit us."
GOP: I'm Gonna Take My Ball And Go Home
Righty bloggers extended their critique of Pres. Bush through the weekend with GOP operative Richard Viguerie's 5/21 Washington Post piece: "Bush's Base Betrayal" Many righties agreed:
- Tom Bevan at RCP Blog: "Viguerie's piece is yet another sign of the conservative exodus taking place from the Bush administration."
- Daily Pundit: "This is Richard Viguerie, who has personally been responsible for electing more conservatives to office than any other man alive. I take people like Viguerie seriously. The RINO Party should as well."
- Tapscott's Copy Desk: "But the lesson here isn't simply that the GOP has for long taken its conservative base for granted. ...We conservatives keep wondering when the GOP Establishment will learn. I ask when we will learn.
- Professor Bainbridge: "The GOP likely will take a big beating in 2006 and they're going to blame what Hugh Hewitt is calling "the Tapscottian Caucus and their even more radical Bainbridgist revos."
Not everyone on the right was ready to give up. California Yankee: "Numerous pundits take Viguerie's outburst and his suggestion that conservatives could sit out the next election as another ominous sign that the Democrats will regain control of Congress. I think Viguerie overstates the case when he argues millions of conservatives will again stay home this November." Andrew Sullivan: "It should be remembered, however, that Viguerie once said similar things about Ronald Reagan (prompting a very rare Reagan personal smack-down.) But he's on firmer ground this time." Roger Ailes notes that not every GOP defeat was due to conservative betrayal: "You're losing your touch, Dick. You forgot how Barry Goldwater sold out true Republican principles."
Some lefties hoped conservative discontent might lead to common cause. Democrats.com: "Isn't it interesting that grassroots conservatives share the hostility of grassroots progressives to Big Business? ...Maybe we could put the perennially divisive social issues aside for a few years and work together to get powerful corporations out of politics altogether." Booman Tribune: "The fact of the matter is that both parties are ignoring their grass-roots supporters in favor of big business. The code word for corporatism is 'centrism'. Viguerie favors a similar approach to the one I am pushing. I am calling for a party within a party, funded by small donations from grass-roots and independent of the DSCC, the DCCC, and the DNC. Viguerie is calling for something even more independent."
IMMIGRATION: Why Now?
Righty bloggers were predictably apoplectic over the Senate's 5/18 vote to allow illegal aliens to collect Social Security benefits based on past illegal employment (see Texas Rainmaker, Smoke on the Water, Ankle Biting Pundits, Riehl World View, and The Lone Wacko) so the Blogometer will highlight a decent exchange between bloggers on why the immigration issue is blooming now.
Jon Henke at TCSDaily:
The idea that we need to "control the border" simply because it's important to enforce the law by exerting control of the border is both a tautology and an invitation to tyranny. So why this, why now? Apparently, we've reached a tipping point of sorts; a perfect storm of post-9/11 security concern, cultural angst, and labor protectionism. Unfortunately, the restrictionists appear to be far more interested in simply doing something than in effectively resolving those concerns. There are, in the end, solutions far more consistent with US values, national security and the free-market wariness of govt.Henke emailed John Hawkins at Right Wing News for a response. John obliged:
To begin with, this issue didn't spring to life spontaneously, like Athena from the head of Zeus. It has been building for a long time. ... Initially, I think the illegal immigration issue was driven by the fact that Americans place a very high value on assimilation and, unfortunately, the illegals who are coming here very noticeably aren't assimilating. ...When you drive down one of the busiest roads in a city like Charlotte, which is far from the borders, and you see multiple businesses that have up signage that is entirely in Spanish, that's an indication of a problem. When you hear about hospitals going out of business because so many illegals are pouring over the borders and not paying their bills, that's an indication of a problem. It's an indication that instead of our changing the people that are coming here, they're changing us, and that's a bad thing.
Ryan Preston at Hot Air chimed in with an unsolicited response:
I'd love to hear someone from that side make a cogent argument that having open borders in the middle of a war is a good idea. And I'd love for anyone on the open borders side to acknowledge the recent history of the issue. Or to acknowledge that the previous seven amnesties since 1986 have not curbed illegal immigration, and have made it worse. And I'd love to hear the argument that rewarding illegal behavior won't beget more illegal behavior. Many on the libertarian right are usually quick to note correctly that when government encourages a behavior by rewarding it, you usually get more of that behavior. Except when it comes to immigration.
So why is illegal immigration such a hot button now? It's actually very simple. First, it's an election year and that always stokes the passions, and it's worse this year because the tone deaf administration actually decided to tout its stance on immigration as a way to fire up the base. Well, it did fire up the base-against the administration. Slick move.
Henke then responded at his personal blog QandO:
"Well, the point was not to lay out a comprehensive plan so much as point out the incoherence of the "border control" faction. However, I did conclude with the suggestion that a policy of welcoming peaceful migrants rather than erecting barriers to their entry would help solve a lot of the cultural and security problems about which the restrictionists worry."
Through the beauty of the web Preston shot back:
And I think he's confused on terminology-"peaceful migrants" and illegal aliens aren't the same thing. "Peaceful migrants" do not overrun the property of law-abiding citizens by the thousands every day. Illegal aliens from south of the border do that every single day.
In short, what we have coming in through Mexico to the tune of about 6,000 "peaceful migrants" a day would be called a refugee crisis if were going on anywhere else in the world. We need to get our heads around that. And we need to find ways to encourage resource-rich Mexico to join the first world, which is where it belongs.
Elsewhere in the blogosphere, Hawkins interview Rep. Jack Kingston (R-GA) at Right Wing News. Highlights: "John Hawkins: So you don't think amnesty will get through? Jack Kingston: No, and I can tell you that there are about 180 House members (who've) drawn a pretty strong line in the sand on that." Hyscience took note of the exchange: "If what Congressman Kingston is saying about the House blocking amnesty holds true, then at least there's a chance that the Senate reforms can be diluted. But I can't help but wonder if all this hoopla about immigration reform on the part of our politicians in Washington is nothing more than a big act and all show, and after all is said and done, the ONLY result of all the talk and all the new legislation is to legalize the current illegal immigrant status quo, and in effect, the only thing that gets changed is the definitions."
BLOGGERS VS. MSM: Here We Go Again?
Righty bloggers are going to war against the Los Angeles Times and the USA Today over their recent coverage of immigration and the NSA. Words like "Rathergate" are floating around.
On the immigration front, righties are up in arms over a 5/18 Times story quoting landscaper Cyndi Smallwood and identifying her as "ambivalent" on immigration issues. Beyond Borders googled her name and found out "she is a member of the California Landscape Contractor's Association's Immigration Task Force" that has been qouted in a number of press accounts coming out against the House's immigration plan. Beyond Borders concludes: "Wow! If traveling to Washington DC to lobby for a trade association, planting pro-guest worker program quotes in multiple press outlets and backing a specific faction in the immigration reform debate is considered ambivalence on immigration reform I'd like to see the Times version of an activist!"
Michelle Malkin demands: "I would like the LA Times to explain its failure to disclose these relevant details. Was this laziness and incompetence on the part of the reporter? Or something else? Will they go back and let readers know the full picture of who this woman is? What else aren't they telling us?" Also piling on: Sister Toldjah, littlegreenfootballs, and Texas Rainmaker.
On the NSA front righty NewsBusters touts the following finding: "Leslie Cauley, the USA Today reporter who last week "broke" the news that three major U.S. telecommunications companies were assisting the National Security Agency in building a database to more easily track any communications by potential terrorists, is listed as a donor to former House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt, according to a search of The Center for Responsive Politics Web site, www.opensecrets.org. ...With the phone companies demanding a retraction and her own Democratic connections now revealed, the "value" of her unnamed sources seems increasingly dubious. Could Leslie Cauley may be on her way to becoming a print version of CBS's disgraced Mary Mapes?
Righty Wizbang also sees Rathergate angles: "And finally, the USAToday is pushing the "they didn't object" angle as a confirmation of their story. We all remember how well that worked out for CBS's John Roberts. Here's how the editors at USAToday phrased it, "On the night before the story was published, the newspaper described the story in detail to BellSouth, and the company did not challenge the newspaper's account. We'll that settles it; it must be true." Powerline, Atlas Shrugs, and The American Mind have similar takes.
ELECTION '06 ROUNDUP: Role Reversal
Lefty Chris Bowers at MyDD looks at Rep. Ed Case (D) primary challenge to Sen. Daniel Akaka (D-HI) and issues a challenge to rival Dems: "I also think that this election has a useful purpose. If anyone has the gall to claim that progressives are wasting Democratic resources in 2006 by challenging incumbents like Lieberman, just point to Hawaii where conservatives are doing the same thing. How dare the DLC waste Democratic resources like this! Don't they know the real target should be Republicans? It might be fun to compare the final results in Hawaii to the final results in Connecticut. Let's see who can run the better primary challenge."
Moving east righty Sean Hackbarth at The American Mind reports on WI Gov. hopeful Rep. Mark Green's recent blogger sit down. Highlights include: "He wants to make Republicans comfortable to know "they are running with a guy who supports lowering the tax burden" and limiting government. ...Green doesn't "believe that any research should be pursued without some idea of there being ethics and morality to it." ...My questions allowed Green to go off on how disaffected he was with the UW System. He called it "burearucratically out of control. ...As a product of the UW System he remains loyal to it. He just wants reforms. "They're great. I just don't think they've been led very well."
Completing the trip to the east coast righty Riehl World View asks fellow righties to pay more attention to the NJ Sen. race: "However, a look at the New Jersey Senate race between challenger Tom Kean (R), who recently launched a website, and Senator Bob Menendez (D), suggests the DNC may need to be looking over its shoulder, too. Despite documented ties to the corrupt New Jersey political machine which insiders believe contributed more to the downfall of former NJ Gov. James McGreevey than his sexual preference, appointed U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez was given a leg up when appointed by increasingly unpopular NJ Gov. Jon Corzine to take his place in the Senate."
THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Is Google The Fox Of The Blogosphere?
Righties Noel and Mark Sheppard at The American Thinker see something "frighteningly ominous" over at Google: "Google, without any prior explanation or notice, has been terminating its News relationship with conservative e-zines and web journals. ...At first blush, one can easily ignore such business decisions by the most powerful company on the Internet as being routine. However, on closer examination, such behavior could give one relatively small (when measured by the size of its workforce) technology corporation a degree of political might that frankly dwarfs even its current financial prowess. ...
"To better understand the hypocrisy here, a little background concerning Google technology is required. When Google News launched its Beta Release Site in April 2002, it introduced to the world a new paradigm in information delivery. Its mission: To construct a totally unbiased news engine, based on a principle of human nonintervention, fully automated both in its gathering and editing of news. ...
"In the case of the aforementioned conservative e-zines...as well as the inaccessibility of the May 19 NewsBusters article on this subject at Google News...it appears that a human element is involved in making such decisions that is overruling an intentionally and necessarily impartial algorithm. ...
"As comforting as the mission statement of unbiased reporting driven by algorithm rather than opinion may sound on paper, the truth is that, with all "approved" news sources contained in a single table, team Google retains complete editorial authority over the parents of the information to which they give birth.
LEST WE FORGET: The Candidate Maker
Now that kos can revel in cable co. exec. Ned Lamont's good showing 5/19, it's only fair he take some gentle ribbing. Allah at Hot Airremixes Lamont's latest television ad with smile inducing results.
Posted by Conn Carroll at May 22, 2006 12:42 PM
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