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In his last couple of years in the Senate, then-Minority Leader Tom Daschle was ahead of the blogging curve in Washington. The Democrats' leader was known to blog from the roads of South Dakota during the August congressional recess.

Daschle has not been seen in the blogosphere since the electoral upset that tossed him out of office about a year ago -- arguably in large part because of South Dakota bloggers who hounded him throughout the campaign. One of those bloggers landed a job with Daschle's nemesis, Republican Sen. John Thune, soon after the election.

But earlier this week, Daschle stopped by the headquarters of the liberal Think Progress to do a little blogging. His topic of choice: a recent federal law that requires voters to use standardized driver's licenses as identification at the polls.

"The documents required ... to secure a driver's license include a birth certificate, passport or naturalization papers, a photo-identity document, and proof of Social Security number," Daschle wrote. "Obtaining such documents can be difficult, even for those not displaced by the devastation of a hurricane. For all these reasons, I have come to the conclusion that for some, a requirement for photo identification constitutes nothing short of a modern-day poll tax."

Posted by at 04:26 PM | Comments (0)

The Christian Science Monitor published a story yesterday that said Washington's elite are wooing bloggers. That's old news for Beltway Blogroll readers, but the newspaper opened with a great quote from Sen. Trent Lott.

The Mississippi Republican is infamous in the blogosphere, with bloggers claiming him as their first victim in the new era of citizen journalism. He lost his post as majority leader when bloggers publicized his praise for 1948 segregationist presidential candidate Strom Thurmond.

If the quote in the Monitor is any indication, Lott is still bitter about the episode. Here's what he had to say: "Bloggers claim I was their first pelt, and I believe that. I'll never read a blog."

The comment earned "quote of the day" status on a few blogs. Here are some of the other reactions in the blogosphere:

BuzzMachine: "See No Blog. Hear No Blog."

The Club for Growth: "His loss."

Amy Ridenour at the National Center for Public Policy Research: "The blogging world will survive this snub, but if Trent Lott had been the sort of fellow to read blogs, he might have had more of an inkling of how the public would react to his comments about Strom Thurmond's justifiably ill-fated 1948 presidential run, and saved himself the heartache of losing the title and prestige that clearly meant a lot to him."

Personal Brilliance: "Can you believe it? Why not, 'I'll never read a newspaper'? Painting an entire medium with one brush stroke and ignoring any potential value is the antithesis of Personal Brilliance."

Political Forecast: "Seems like a mistake to eliminate the very media source which might still defend his policies, but you know, whatever."

Wonky Muse: "Savvier policymakers recognize the growing power and influence of blogs. It's the best way to get instant feedback, as well the best way to send their message out without being diluted by the media. Meanwhile, Lott insists on living in the Dark Ages."

Posted by at 03:02 PM | Comments (0)

On any other day, the fact that House Speaker Dennis Hastert had decided to try his hand at blogging might have generated quite a bit of attention in the blogosphere.

But the Illinois Republican just happened to make that move yesterday -- when many conservative bloggers were celebrating the decision of Harriet Miers to withdraw her nomination to the Supreme Court and when liberal bloggers continued champing at the bit for indictments against White House staffers. (They got their wish today, with the indictment and resignation of I. Lewis (Scooter) Libby, the vice president's chief of staff.)

The substance of Hastert's first post at the Speaker's Journal isn't exactly the stuff of front-page news. He bills it as a forum where people can gain "inside access to the Republican playbook," but that appears to be a bit of false advertising, what with his superficial talk about hurricane recovery and oil refineries.

Hastert also doesn't appear ready to fully seize the conversational spirit of the blogosphere. He doesn't offer comments on his blog, and he starts his first post by describing the new online venue as "a new way for us to get our message out." That kind of talk doesn't exactly inspire much confidence that readers can expect the "unfiltered updates on Capitol Hill" that Hastert promises a few sentences later.

Hastert ends the post like this: "Well, there you have it folks. I've outlined some of our priorities: fiscal responsibility and energy. I'm going to keep updating this from time to time. It's not that bad. Looks like this old guy can still learn a thing or two."

Let's hope so.

Posted by at 02:15 PM | Comments (0)

MyDD blogger and political consultant Jerome Armstrong -- considered the "blogfather" by many online activists, including the more popular Markos Moulitsas Zuniga of Daily Kos -- has ceased his independent blogging for the time being because of his ties to Democratic campaigns and political committees.

As Beltway Blogroll reported last month, Armstrong currently is the Internet director at Forward Together PAC, whose honorary chairman, Virginia Gov. Mark Warner, is a potential Democratic presidential candidate in 2008. Perhaps more importantly, Armstrong is in charge of blog advertising for Rep. Sherrod Brown, an all-but-announced Democratic Senate candidate in Ohio.

That gig has caused quite a stir because many "netroots" activists support just-announced candidate Paul Hackett instead of Brown. Armstrong's role as a consultant has sparked questions about his blogging activities. (The Blogometer has covered the controversy from the start, with news today, yesterday and Monday.)

"There's no upside, and the downside of posting personal opinions, where it's easy to mark it as a political ploy by the opposition, is plenty," Armstrong wrote in his MyDD farewell. "If you do see me blogging, it will be with the campaigns or committees sites or blogs I'm working. ... Though I thought I could personally blog my opinions while openly disclosing my work-related interests, that seems unrealistic given the competitive situation."

Bob Brigham of Swing State Project lamented Armstrong's departure even though Brigham is supporting Hackett in the Ohio Senate race. "This is a sad day for the blogosphere," Brigham wrote. "I consider myself one of the many people who have looked to Jerome as a friend and mentor. For those who would see this as a cause for celebration, I would suggest that the champagne remain corked. I keep thinking about one line: 'If you strike me down, I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine.'"

The editor of Ohio 2nd, a blog that boosted Hackett's meteoric political rise, also weighed in with comments at both MyDD and Daily Kos. He wrote: "Right now we have a problem in that the people driving the liberal blogosphere bus are also trying to dictate which way the bus goes. People are going to react that, and often it isn't going to be pretty. ... Our pundit/bus driver/consultants need to decide if they want to drive the bus or plan its route. You can't do both at the same time and expect to avoid some serious problems from your passengers."

Posted by at 12:10 PM | Comments (0)

The New Republic is now in the blogosphere. That mainstream media staple of liberalism launched The Plank yesterday.

The primary cast of writers includes Michael Crowley, Franklin Foer, and Jason Zengerle, but other TNR staffers also are expected to contribute.

I've added a link to The Plank on the blogroll to your left. Other recent additions there include the blogs of:

-- Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn.;
-- Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.;
-- PoliticalSherpa Gary Andres, the vice chairman of research and policy at Dutko Group Worldwide;
-- Former National Writers Union President Jonathan Tasini, who successfully sued The New York Times on behalf of freelance writers;
-- And the U.S. Public Interest Research Group.

At National Review Online, meanwhile, The Buzz is no more. Eric Pfeiffer posted his last entry there yesterday. And George Washington University scholar Amitai Etzioni, who warned readers of his blog in July that he would not be posting entries as often, said last week in a post dubbed "Moving On" that the site mostly will be used now for event listings and occasional links to publications.

Posted by at 11:47 AM | Comments (0)

Leave it to satirist extraordinaire Scott Ott of ScrappleFace to find the humor in the setback that budget-minded bloggers and their few friends in the Senate suffered last week.

The "bridge to everywhere" -- an elevated highway from Alaska to New Orleans, with stops in all 50 states -- is an idea that every senator can get behind.

(Hat tip to Club For Growth blogger Andy Roth.)

Posted by at 12:16 PM | Comments (0)

Every two years, a new crop of lawmakers storms Capitol Hill with a determination to change the way Washington works. With few exceptions, it doesn't take long for Congress to put the underclassmen in their place. The newcomers get the least influential committee assignments, the most remote and least ornate office space, and little time in the spotlight.

This year, bloggers are the figurative freshmen of larger Washington. They have won enough respect in certain pockets of America to claim occasional seats at the policymaking table -- but they are definitely back seats.

That reality has been abundantly evident the past couple of weeks, as conservative bloggers have been showered with ever more attention from the Republican powers that be -- yet have nothing substantive to show for it.

The battle over Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers illustrates the point well. Many bloggers oppose her nomination -- a poll at The Truth Laid Bear puts the opposition-to-support ratio at more than 4-to-1 -- but President Bush seems determined to stand loyally by his lawyer.

Although the opposition from bloggers spurred the Republican National Committee to hold its first-ever exclusive conference call with bloggers, the event was more about wooing bloggers than inviting them into a conversation, which is what bloggers want. The same was true of a second call about a week later.

Bulldog Pundit at Ankle Biting Pundits praised the outreach by the RNC but said the general message -- wait until Miers' confirmation hearings, and you will become more comfortable with her selection -- has been unconvincing. "[M]y thought goes to the Seinfeld episode where they kept saying 'Yada, yada, yada.' ... The best she can do (and likely will) is offer general bromides about the court 'not legislating from the bench,' which sounds good but tells us nothing."

It is also plausible that without mainstream conservatives like David Frum -- a blogger for National Review but, more importantly, a former Bush speechwriter -- leading the charge against Miers, the RNC would be less determined to influence bloggers.

Mark Tapscott, a blogger and media expert at the Heritage Foundation, said columnists like George Will crystallized the opposition and hold more sway in Washington than bloggers.

The outcome of last week's Senate debate on pork-barrel spending is even more telling of bloggers' limited leverage in the capital.

The debate marked a significant milestone in that it seems to have been inspired at least in part by the conservative blogosphere's ongoing PorkBusters campaign. It also was endorsed by popular blogs on both the left and right, a rare occurrence.

But in the end, no more than 15 senators sided with the bloggers in a series of floor votes. One blogger dramatically called the issue "A Hill To Die On," and that is exactly what happened.

Ironically, the debate occurred on the same day that a few mostly GOP backbenchers in the House hosted a carefully orchestrated "bloggers row." Bloggers understandably appreciated that unprecedented access, and they asked some tough questions of the lawmakers. But the failure to get results on the other side of the Capitol, despite a full-blogosphere press, speaks volumes about the current power of blogs in Washington.

The bottom line is that on the big issues, bloggers are batting zero. Their only significant policy claim to fame this year occurred at the Federal Election Commission. The blog swarm against that agency arguably forced it to draft a less sweeping plan for applying campaign finance law to bloggers -- but even that war is not over yet because the FEC has not finalized the rules.

Bloggers are not powerless in policy circles and actually are gaining influence. Otherwise, official Washington would pay them no mind whatsoever -- no conference calls with political chieftains, no question-and-answer sessions with lawmakers, and no other forms of outreach. But bloggers today are not as persuasive or as intimidating as they might like to believe.

For now, they are a lot like an unruly, reform-minded pack of zealots who won election to the House a decade-and-a-half ago and became known as the Gang of Seven. As Republicans in a Democratic-dominated Congress, that rabble-rousing minority within a minority, including one lawmaker who once wore a bag of shame over his head on the floor, had little impact on policy. But they did make enough noise to expose scandals and force change at the House bank, restaurant and post office, and they prepared the way for a GOP takeover four years later.

The as-yet-unanswered question about bloggers is whether they also are sowing seeds of change today that will yield fruit tomorrow.

Posted by at 10:20 PM | Comments (1)

The Truth Laid Bear, a blog that is quickly making a name for itself as a forum for getting blogs to coalesce around specific causes, has a new task at hand: categorizing bloggers into those who support, oppose or are neutral on the Supreme Court nomination of Harriet Miers.

So far, the tally is running heavily against Miers, with conservative blogger Michelle Malkin being the most prominent of the foes. As of this afternoon, the ratio was 4-to-1 in opposition to Miers, with 10 more blogs taking a neutral stance.

Posted by at 01:48 PM | Comments (0)

The conservative group blog RedState welcomed two new editors yesterday. One is a Washington-based political consultant who will blog anonymously, and the other heads a Catholic advocacy organization.

The anonymous blogger will post under the pseudonym Blanton and will write about politics at the federal and state levels. "Uniquely, Blanton has worked on both Republican and Democrat campaigns around the nation, but we'll refrain from comparing him to Dick Morris," RedState's directors wrote.

The other newcomer is Joseph Cella, the executive director of Fidelis.

Posted by at 06:48 PM | Comments (0)

This just in from Jeff Jarvis, the buzz master at BuzzMachine:

Judy Miller should blog.

Consider that so much of what big media accuse blogs of doing, she did. She went off on her own, without supervision and proper editing, and published speculation and innaccuracy. ... She operated in an echo chamber. She was a self-promoter. Yup, she should blog. She'll need something to keep her busy and I suspect it's not going to be The Times.

So, Judy, a gift for you: MissRunAmok.com is available.

I hope that's a tongue-in-cheek suggestion. Maybe Miller, Jayson Blair and Rick Bragg can start a group blog for disgraced New York Times reporters.

Posted by at 03:05 PM | Comments (0)

Tim Tagaris, a blogger at Swing State Project and the Grow Ohio blog community created by Democratic Rep. Sherrod Brown, is about to jump ship from the independent, free-thinking blog world into the stay-on-message campaign kingdom of the Democratic Party.

He has accepted a job with the Democratic National Committee and will start work after the Reform Ohio Now election focused on ballot initiatives Nov. 8. Tagaris made the announcement at Grow Ohio, where he also noted that Brown will be looking to replace Tagaris at Grow Ohio.

"Over the next year, I look forward to helping create a smooth conduit for communication between the national party and the netroots," Tagaris wrote. "At the same time, I will be working directly with state parties across the country to tap into local blogospheres and implement 'best practices' while developing strategies for increased participation and teamwork between the two."

Brown is looking for an Internet communications director and an Internet outreach organizer, two positions that involve blogging, so two more bloggers soon may be leaving the netroots for campaign jobs as well.

Posted by at 08:51 AM | Comments (0)

Rep. Sherrod Brown is seeking the Democratic nomination to challenge Ohio Sen. Mike DeWine, and with "netroots" hero Paul Hackett as his intra-party competitor, Brown already is working hard to win the allegiance of bloggers.

The best evidence to date: He is running an ad that features "an open letter to the blogosphere" on various blogs.

Although Hackett lost the summer special election to serve Ohio's 2nd District, he won the hearts of both Ohio bloggers and top national bloggers like Bob Brigham of Swing State Project. But Brown also has a loyal following in the blogosphere, thanks in large part to the Grow Ohio blog community he created even before Hackett gained prominence.

As The Blogometer noted earlier this month, political activists at popular Democratic blogs like MyDD and Swing State Project are evenly divided between the Brown and Hackett camps. Brown's direct appeal is designed to win converts to his side.

The letter claims at least a temporary victory in the Social Security debate, a near victory in the fight against the Central America Free Trade Agreement, and influence in debates over Iraq and prescription drugs, among other things. The appeal also touts Grow Ohio -- and notes that Hackett wouldn't be where he is without the help of its bloggers.

"Before the end of November," Brown wrote, "I will officially kick off my campaign for the United States Senate. We will immediately showcase the depth and breadth of support that my candidacy has already attracted. Together, we are going to challenge and defeat an incumbent Republican United States senator next year in Ohio."

The Blogometer reported the details of the ad buy yesterday.

UPDATE: Steve Gilliard of The News Blog is not too impressed with Brown's ad -- or with Brown. "[H]ere's something Brown better realize," Gillard wrote. "Paul Hackett earned his support. Just because you hire a few bloggers doesn't mean you have the thing sown up. Paul Hackett has a nationwide, 15,000 list of contributors who like what he says and how he says it. We are not a piggy bank. You can't just throw up a few ads and say "support me". We need reasons to do so.

UPDATE: Democracy Guy answered Gilliard with this retort: "If you think Hackett was some spontaneuous outgrowth of grassroots purity, you're dreaming. You never would have heard of Paul Hackett had the Kos/MyDD/Atrios/SSP mafia not forced him down everyone's throats. Hackett fit the orthodoxy so perfectly, the blogdaddies put their fingers up into the wind, sniffed just how much money could be squeezed out of it, and put their considerable online muscle unanimously behind it, while positioning their bank accounts and consulting firms to perfectly take advantage of it."

Posted by at 08:35 AM | Comments (0)

Rep. George Miller has a new bill designed to overturn the Bush administration's hurricane-related waiver of a mandate that people working on federal reconstruction projects be paid the "prevailing wage" for the area where the work is being done.

President Bush waived that rule for the Gulf Coast region after Hurricane Katrina hit. Joshua Micah Marshall of Talking Points Memo dubbed the move the "Gulf Coast wage cut" and started a grassroots blogging movement to try to get Congress to overturn it.

Miller, D-Calif., is doing his best within official circles to make that happen -- and he is also blogging about it at Marshall's group blog, TPMCafe. In his latest post, Miller outlined a procedural move that he said will force a vote on his legislation, which has the support of every House Democrat, 37 Republicans and one independent.

"I was able to determine that, under the 1976 National Emergencies Act, I am able to force a vote within 15 calendar days of introducing a joint resolution -- which I did at noon today," Miller wrote yesterday. "In this case, that means that if Congress doesn't act by Friday, November 4, I can go to the House floor and demand a vote on my resolution. Congress then has three days to schedule that vote.

"So the bottom line is this: By the first or second week of November, there will be a vote on whether or not construction workers who are rebuilding the Gulf Coast will get a fair wage for their labor."

Posted by at 05:30 PM | Comments (0)

While much of the blogosphere focused its attention on the Senate's fight against pork yesterday, blawgmaker John Conyers ranted instead about the pro-gun bill his House colleagues passed.

The legislation would shield gun manufacturers and dealers from liability when their products are used to commit crimes. "At a time when more than 30,000 gun deaths occur each year," the Michigan Democrat wrote at ConyersBlog, "this bill represents nothing more than an unwarranted and unjust special-interest giveaway to the powerful gun lobby."

Jayson at PoliPundit saw the issue differently. "[I]t takes away the "deep pockets" component of John Edwards-style lawsuit mania against the gun industry," he wrote.

Posted by at 05:07 PM | Comments (0)

To hear Sen. Tom Coburn tell it, there is a distant rumble of grassroots outrage against runaway federal spending, and the federal money that lawmakers funnel to pet projects back home is Exhibit A.

But the rumble apparently is so distant that only a handful of the Oklahoma Republican's colleagues can hear it. When presented with the opportunity yesterday to eliminate the spending for some of those projects, the Senate answered with a resounding "no."

None of Coburn's amendments to a federal spending bill mustered more than 15 votes, and Coburn was the only senator who dared to speak on the floor against the home-state projects backed by his colleagues.

Mark Tapscott of the Heritage Foundation explains why Coburn's quest failed. But the debate still was a significant one for the blogosphere because it was inspired at least in part by the PorkBusters campaign that began about a month ago.

In fact, it's a safe bet to say that the blogosphere is where Coburn first heard that distant rumble. Remember, he is the senator whose staff sent an unsolicited e-mail to a blogger ... from Wisconsin.

All bloggers interested in the PorkBusters campaign should take the time to read the entire Senate debate. But for those who just want the soundbites, you can find the highlights in the extended entry of this post.

For starters, here is a key quote from Coburn:

Why should we be troubled? Because all change starts with a distant rumble, a rumble at the grassroots level, and if you stop and listen today, you will hear such a rumble right now. That rumble is the sound of hard-working Americans who are getting increasingly angry with out-of-control government spending, waste, fraud, and abuse.

... That is a rumble of frustration that is getting louder. In fact, I hear it right now. That is because I am listening for it. We should all listen for it. If we don't, the voters will decide the changes that will come. And I can't say that I blame them.

-- Christopher Bond, R-Mo.: "[T]his amendment and the others like it makes excellent headlines, and they will be welcomed by some newspaper editorials, some talk-radio-show hosts, but it would be a better headline if the senator were actually attacking a project in his state. If he thinks that appropriations for museums is so bad, what about the money in there for the Ponca City Indian Museum? Does he feel that is an appropriate priority for the state of Oklahoma?"

-- Coburn: "I had no idea the Ponca City Indian Museum was in there. You will get an amendment quickly to get that out. I had no knowledge it was there. My senior senator [Republican James Inhofe] must have put that in there. I have no problems with the same standard being applied to Oklahoma as it is to everyone else."

-- Patty Murray, D-Wash.: "If the senator from Oklahoma wants to look for a culprit for the fiscal situation in this country, he should look into the billions and billions of dollars in tax cuts that have been granted to multimillionaires in this country, and he should look at additional tax cuts his party wants to implement in future years if he wants to find incredible savings. ... We are not going to watch the senator pick out one project and make it into a whipping boy."

-- Sen. Ben Nelson, D-Neb.: "There are many priorities, and it is up to us to balance those priorities. But in balancing the priorities, we must keep in mind that the community development funds are designed so that members of the Senate can go home and listen to the communities as to what they need and what will work best for their development, for their particular needs. It is an opportunity to get away from what happens in Washington so very often: nameless, faceless, hired bureaucrats who make a decision about what a community needs rather than the elected officials who, in consultation with the communities, are then able to help establish those priorities."

-- Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska: "This amendment is an offense to me. It is not only an offense to me; it is a threat to every person in my state. ... The amendment may pass, but if it does, the bill will never be passed. If it does, I will be taken out of here on a stretcher."

-- Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska: "Let us speak first to the bridge in Ketchikan. It has been referred to on this floor as a 'bridge to nowhere.' ... [T]he reference to the bridge in Ketchikan as being a bridge to nowhere is offensive. It is a bridge to the future for the people of Ketchikan, Alaska."

-- Stevens: "I will put the Senate on notice -- and I don't kid people: If the Senate decides to discriminate against our state and take money only from our state, I will resign from this body. This is not the Senate I came to. This is not the Senate I devoted 37 years to. If one senator can decide he will take all the money from one state to solve a problem of another, that is not a union. That is not equality and is not treating my state the way I have seen it treated for 37 years."

-- Coburn: "[T]he purpose of my amendment does not have that much to do with Alaska as it does with priorities in our country. ... My hope is the American public will see how we are spending money and encourage us to spend it in a way that is more frugal and consistent with the heritage we have in the country, and that is making sacrifices today for the future of our country and for the next generation."

-- Inhofe: "I happen to be the person with the No. 1 most-conservative rating in the Senate, and yet I am not about to put myself in a position where I am going to take authority away from someone who has to stand for election in a particular state and give it to someone who does not have to stand for election, period."

Posted by at 12:13 PM | Comments (1)

No piece of "pork" serves as a better symbol for the blogosphere's PorkBusters campaign against earmarked spending in lawmakers' districts than the "Bridge to Nowhere" in Alaska. Now that one project has become the focus of a blog-inspired fight in the Senate.

Conservative Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., is leading the charge against the bridge, which would connect the 8,9000 people in Ketchikan to Gravina Island, which has a population of 50. The bridge would be higher than the Brooklyn Bridge in New York and about as high as the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, even though it would serve relatively few people. A ferry currently connects the island with Ketchikan.

As the Senate debates a spending bill to fund the Transportation Department in fiscal 2006, Coburn is touting an amendment that would redirect the $223 million for the bridge approved as part of the recent highway authorization law toward bridge work in Louisiana made necessary by the destruction of Hurricane Katrina. Debate on the amendment is expected today, and bloggers have rallied in support of it. The blog of the conservative Club For Growth has a roundup of bloggers supporting the amendment -- and they include the liberal Daily Kos.

"Okay, this is one of those once-in-a-decade moments where we can forge a left-right alliance on a policy issue, no matter how unholy such alliance might be," wrote Daily Kos founder Markos Moulitsas Zuniga. "That the hateful Tom Coburn is leading the charge is, well ... strange bedfellows and all.

"Folks, this is a big deal," added Andrew Roth of the Club for Growth. "The entire PorkBusters blog initiative has helped bring this moment to a head. Now is the time to be even more resilient. Everything we've worked for is now within reach."

UPDATE: The debate began earlier this morning, and Roth is live-blogging it.

UPDATE: The Senate just voted 86-13 to kill Coburn's first pork-related amendment. The vote shows just how high of a hill the PorkBusters have to climb.

Posted by at 12:52 PM | Comments (2)

If mainstream Americans want to "save the republic," they should follow the "enlightened leadership" of the 98 percent of blacks who do not approve of President Bush rather than the 2 percent who do. So said Rep. Major Owens, D-N.Y., in his latest entry at The Huffington Post.

"The smoke and mirrors, Disney World fantasy of Bush policies is hypnotizing only 2 percent of the black voters," he wrote. "This emperor has no clothes on and we'll all catch pneumonia if we follow him."

Owens focused his ire on the Bush administration's response to the devastation Hurricane Katrina wrought in New Orleans. He argued that the impact on the black community there was particularly harsh, that the administration's actions since then have only exacerbated the woes, and that blacks are wiser than most to the ways of Bush.

"Why does the average American still want a president that they can feel comfortable with schmoozing over a beer in a bar?" Owens said. "African Americans want a president who through his policies will guarantee that they can afford to purchase that bottle of beer."

UPDATE: Rep. Diane Watson, D-Calif., also addressed Bush's poor standing in the black community in her latest appearance at The Huffington Post.

Posted by at 12:48 PM | Comments (0)

POGO Blog, an online tool of the Project on Government Oversight, is claiming a victory of sorts for the Freedom of Information Act, at the expense of the Justice Department.

Justice historically has not been a fan of FOIA, but when the department yanked from its redesigned home page a link to information on the act, POGO Blog cried foul. The reason: Justice's internal FOIA policy calls for just such links on the Web sites of agencies within the department.

"Web users need to be able to access your FOIA home page quickly and simply from your agency's home page," the policy says. "This point cannot be made too emphatically. Therefore, on your agency's home page there should be a link that is unquestionably the link to your FOIA site."

On Monday, POGO Blog noted that Justice had remedied the oversight and posted a FOIA link on the home page. The change came a day after the group complained about the missing link.

Posted by at 05:52 PM | Comments (1)

Rep. John Conyers asked and answered that question earlier this week, both at ConyersBlog and Blackprof, where he is currently guest blogging.

Like many other bloggers, the Michigan Democrat said he was inspired to start his own online journal after seeing the success of 2004 Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean. Joe Trippi, the Dean campaign chief largely credited with helping his candidate capitalize on the benefits of the Internet, counseled Conyers about congressional blogging.

"So many politicians who were intrigued by the Dean campaign saw the Internet as a cash machine and little else," he wrote. "Not only is such a view short-sighted, it is ineffective, as many politicians have seen the Internet activists tune them out after the third fundraising appeal in one week. I decided to follow a different model and became the first member of Congress to start his own blog with reader comments."

While Conyers acknowledged concerns about a "digital divide" that denies some people access to or knowledge of technology, and about blog readership being skewed by race and class, he is now a regular contributor at various blogs.

So to get back to that question in the headline, why is Conyers blogging? Here is the short answer: "The [mainstream media] simply will not report on the actions of a party that lacks the White House or majority control of either house of Congress. ... Blogging lets me bypass that filter and take my message directly to many voters."

Posted by at 05:31 PM | Comments (1)

Perhaps taking a cue from folks at the Republican National Committee, House Republicans have invited bloggers to Capitol Hill tomorrow for an "exclusive interview opportunity." Matt Margolis at Blogs for Bush has the details, including links to other bloggers who have been invited.

So far, it sounds like the outreach is limited to GOP-friendly blogs. "It certainly makes sense for House Republicans to make the offer," Blogs for Bush reader Rick Ellis noted. "If any group of politicians need to reach out to their base right now, it's them.

"But I can't help wondering if this effort might be a bit more effective if they invited a few folks who aren't like-minded bloggers. How about a few moderate or even liberal bloggers? Yes, they might blog some things that aren't always complimentary, but otherwise you're just preaching to the choir."

Liberty Lover added this warning: "It's flattering to be invited by such important people to such an important place. Bloggers have become a force in society, now pols are trying to make you a constituency. Be wary of being wooed, bought, and quid-pro-quo-ed."

Posted by at 12:38 PM | Comments (0)

The conventional wisdom on New York Times investigative reporter Judy Miller has undergone some abrupt reversals of late. First she was a villain for her reporting from Iraq, then she was a hero for refusing to name an anonymous source, and now she is a hero to some and a villain to others because of her time in jail on behalf of that source.

Liberal blogger Markos Moulitsas Zuniga of Daily Kos falls into the she's-a-villain camp. But in his eyes, "the journalism profession" is just as bad for backing Miller.

His gripes: The Society of Professional Journalists yesterday gave Miller, the subject of an investigative report by her own newspaper on Sunday, its First Amendment Award. And today Miller testified for her profession at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on legislation to enact a federal "shield law" to protect the sources of journalists.

"Could these people come up with a more unsympathetic person and facts on which to pin their lobbying efforts?" Moulitsas wrote.

The scolding is a bit surprising when you realize how many bloggers are upset that the proposed shield law might not cover them. Apparently, Moulitsas doesn't buy into the strange-bedfellows concept of politics so popular inside the Beltway, or he would be lauding Miller's advocacy of the proposal. Then again, Miller probably isn't going to be one to defend the rights of bloggers, considering the contempt they have voiced for her.

Armando, another contributor at Daily Kos, was equally harsh in criticizing both Miller and the media establishment after the Times published its stories on her work. "Judith Miller is clearly a disgrace to journalism. ... It is an embarrassment to the N.Y. Times and all of us who bothered to defend Miller's refusal to reveal her source on journalistic grounds," he wrote. "We are covered with egg today.

"But the rest of the media has also disgraced itself on this story. The D.C. media establishment is covered in hypocrisy and disgrace."

UPDATE: Roxanne Cooper of Rox Populi reports that journalists at a "freedom of speech" yesterday at the National Press Club were reluctant to put online journalists and bloggers into the same category as mainstream media when it comes to issues like a federal shield law. "If it were up to these folks, the Federalist Papers might never have been published and distributed," she wrote.

Posted by at 12:21 PM | Comments (0)

Bloggers who fancy themselves journalists might get a different idea if they take a close look at the types of jobs their comrades are taking these days. When bloggers decide to trade in their pajamas for more traditional business attire, it isn't typically to work in the newsroom. More often than not, they are headed to some elected official's office or political arm.

Add Pandagon founder Jesse Taylor to that list. In a post last week, he announced his new job as the online communications director to the Ohio gubernatorial campaign of Democratic Rep. Ted Strickland.

"I'm not going to the Strickland campaign to do Pandagon for them," Taylor wrote. "I've enjoyed the past three-plus years here, but it's time for a new challenge, and it's also time for me to take on a more serious challenge than daily ranting."

So what exactly is a serious challenge in the heartland of the Buckeye State? Try outreach to "the Knox/Licking County Farmers Union." Strickland has a blog on his campaign site, and Taylor's first byline there on Monday hit the high points of Strickland's talk to that group.

Somehow the subject matter just doesn't seem as engaging as the scandal surrounding House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, the outing of a CIA agent, or "Red State Panties, Blue State Condoms" -- the last three topics Taylor covered at Pandagon. And something tells me that Strickland is going to be a bit more strict about the issues Taylor broaches in the land that the wannabe governor has staked in the blogosphere.

(Hat tip to The Blogometer.)

Posted by at 09:21 PM | Comments (1)

Marc Ambinder at Hotline On Call reported yesterday that the conservative group Progress for America is spending a nice chunk of change ($10,000) on blog ads designed to win conservative support for Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers.

People who click on the ad can take a quiz that compares and contrasts what little is known about Miers with the records of current and past Supreme Court justices, including John Marshall, Lewis Powell, William Rehnquist, Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Byron White.

Ambinder said the group is "placing banner ads on at least 20 of the high-trafficked conservative Web sites, and on National Review Online, the Weekly Standard Online and the Washington Times Online."

Planned Parenthood of America also is running blog ads related to the Miers nomination via its Save Roe Web site. The ad doesn't purport to know any more about how Miers would behave on the Supreme Court than anyone else at this point, but it invites readers to "join our Save Roe campaign now to make sure Harriet Miers lets women know if she will defend their cherished rights."

The Save Roe site also includes a Now What?! Blog.

Posted by at 09:14 AM | Comments (0)