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October 28, 2005Daschle's Dash Into The Blogosphere
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)
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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)
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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)
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The 'Blogfather' Blogs No More
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)
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Walking The TNR Plank
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)
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The 'Bridge To Everywhere'
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)
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A Back Seat For Bloggers
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)
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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)
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RedState Rantin' By Blanton And Fidelis
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)
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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)
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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)
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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)
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BillBlast: Round II On The 'Gulf Coast Wage Cut'
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)
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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)
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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)
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PorkBusters Fight Goes To Senate Floor
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)
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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)
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Blogging For Freedom Of Information
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)
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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)
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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)
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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)
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No More Rants About Panties And Condoms
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)
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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)
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Although his Democratic counterpart Harry Reid of Nevada beat him to the blogospheric punch, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist has now made his entrance into the wild, wonderful world of blogging.
The Tennessee Republican now has a blog at VOLPAC, his political action committee. The "VOLPAC Web team" is writing some of the posts, but Frist, already fond of sending messages via his BlackBerry handheld device, is a mainstay on the blog so far.
The heart surgeon signs his entries "Bill Frist, M.D.," and yesterday he invited readers to voice their opinions on the top priorities for government in a VOLPAC poll. One of the options: preparation for a feared pandemic of avian flu.
His topic of choice so far has been border security, which Frist mentioned four different times in a matter of days. The reason: his visit to the U.S.-Mexico border at McAllen, Texas, earlier this month.
Frist also responded to one reader, who Frist said had urged him to curtail "wasteful spending as we work to rebuild communities in the wake of Katrina and Rita." That topic has gained new momentum in the blogosphere thanks to the ongoing PorkBusters campaign to get lawmakers to stop earmarking federal money for projects in their states and districts.
Posted by at 07:14 AM | Comments (0)
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The Blogging Professor, Without Tenure
Was blogger and political science professor Daniel Drezner denied tenure at the University of Chicago because of his blog?
That's the question Chicago Tribune Internet critic Steve Johnson asks in his latest column. He doesn't give a firm answer, but the piece is worth a read for all bloggers and especially those in academia.
The piece also notes that Sean Carroll, a physicist and blogger at Preposterous Universe and the new group journal Cosmic Variance, was denied tenure at the same school earlier this year. His answer to the question: "It's Not The Blog."
UPDATE: ArchPundit Larry Handlin offered his views on Drezner's tenure over the weekend. "Whether Dan should have gotten tenure is a question for his colleagues in one sense," Handlin wrote. "His publication record is quite impressive, but again, the standard at U Chicago isn't just to be a productive working scientist who will make contributions to the field but a social scientist who will dramatically contribute to the field. Where that line is, is hard to define."
Posted by at 04:15 PM | Comments (1)
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The Buzz About Defining Blogs
When I was the ripe young age of 25, a newsroom colleague called me a curmudgeon. Not long after I met my wife, she started telling me repeatedly, "You have a tone." That was her way of saying I was a grumpy, old man by age 29.
Maybe that's why I get a kick out of reading the rants of Jeff Jarvis at BuzzMachine. He is the king of curmudgeons, the role model of grumpy men everywhere, young or old.
His cantankerous response to an Online Journalism Review query about defining blogs is a perfect example. It is the kind of answer that makes me think Jarvis should rename his blog BearMachine, as in bearish. Here is what he told OJR:
"There is no need to define 'blog.' I doubt there ever was such a call to define 'newspaper' or 'television' or 'radio' or 'book' -- or, for that matter, 'telephone' or 'instant messenger.' A blog is merely a tool that lets you do anything from change the world to share your shopping list. People will use it however they wish. And it is way too soon in the invention of uses for this tool to limit it with a set definition. That's why I resist even calling it a medium; it is a means of sharing information and also of interacting: It's more about conversation than content ... so far."I think it is equally tiresome and useless to argue about whether blogs are journalism, for journalism is not limited by the tool or medium or person used in the act. Blogs are whatever they want to be. Blogs are whatever we make them. Defining 'blog' is a fool's errand."
I disagree with much of what Jarvis said. Defining "blog" is not a fool's errand; it is a legitimate, informational pursuit -- the kind that motivates journalists every day. Every time I tell someone back home in West Virginia that I blog and they ask what a blog is, I appreciate the value of being able to explain the concept -- to define it -- in a succinct, clear manner.
Jarvis also is wrong to suggest that there was never an effort to define other media terms like newspaper, television, radio and book. Save "instant messenger," old Mr. Webster long ago defined every single term in Jarvis' list. And I obviously don't think it is either tiresome or useless to debate whether blogs are journalism or I would not have done just that at a Heritage Foundation roundtable in July.
Ironically, Jarvis even provides two meaty definitions of "blog" in his anti-dictionary tirade: 1) "A blog is merely a tool that lets you do anything from change the world to share your shopping list;" and 2) "it is a means of sharing information and also of interacting: It's more about conversation than content."
All that said, I love the passion that Jarvis brings to any subject that moves him to speak. That passion, dear readers, is the essence of the blog.
Which brings me back to the Jarvis quote I used to close my Heritage speech, a thought I wholeheartedly endorse: "Journalism is institutional, impersonal, and dispassionate; blogs are human, personal, and passionate. ... At the end of the day, I don't want to see blogs turn into an institution, or try to, for then they wouldn't be blogs anymore."
UPDATE: Jon Garfunkel of Civilities may be on BuzzMachine's hit list because he has dared to write not one but three definitions for "bloggers."
Which one applies to you, the loose definition, the strict one or the tight take? What other definitions do you have?
Posted by at 10:06 AM | Comments (7)
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GOP's Direct Appeal To Bloggers Falls Flat
The conservative outcry against Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers has become so great in the blogosphere that the Republican National Committee is taking its case directly to the bloggers. But the results are not very encouraging so far.
The RNC held its first-ever conference call just for bloggers yesterday, and the mounting skepticism was apparent even before the call ended, as University of California law professor Stephen Bainbridge live-blogged the call at ProfessorBainbridge.
"My mind is unchanged," he wrote immediately after the call, which was arranged by former blogger and new RNC e-campaign director Patrick Ruffini. "It was a lot of assurances but not a lot of facts. And facts are what we need."
Erick-Woods Erickson of RedState praised the RNC for finally starting blog conference calls but decried the spin. "I really, really want to believe that we have not been Soutered," he wrote, "but so far we've been given nothing very substantive from the White House."
Ed Morrissey of Captain's Quarters blasted the White House for its performance so far in justifying the Miers nomination. He said that whoever has been responsible for the PR campaign until now should be fired and that Mehlman and Ruffini should take control.
"Despite the idiotic response from the White House prior to this telecon," Morrissey added, "I'm inclined to support Miers. I don't believe she'll be a disaster, and I think she'll at least improve on [Sandra Day] O'Connor," whom Miers would replace on the court.
Ankle Biting Pundits, Lorie Byrd at PoliPundit, and Decision '08 also posted entries about the conference call.
The bloggers who participated weren't the only ones to react. Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit shared these two thoughts: "1) They should have done this the day of the announcement, not the following week; and 2) it doesn't seem to have been enough to win people over."
And the Radical Centrist had this to say about Mehlman's suggestion that Miers is the right nominee because of the fight against terrorism: "Apparently Miers is some sort of commando justice nominee who single-handedly tracks down terrorists while preventing the president from getting paper cuts from his daily briefings."
Mainstream media outlets, including National Journal's own Hotline on Call and The Fix at The Washington Post, also reported on the call.
Posted by at 05:04 PM | Comments (0)
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Yahoo's news search page is now returning results from blogs.
It's a noteworthy development in citizen journalism, the kind that should move men like Dan Gillmor of Bayosphere and Jeff Jarvis of BuzzMachine to give Yahoo an unqualified, virtual pat on the back. Instead, they are voicing concern that the search engine is foolishly trying to "separate" the blog results from those generated by mainstream media outlets.
I'm sorry guys, but I don't get the griping. And I don't say that as an MSMer/wannabe blogger; I say it as a news consumer. I personally don't want to search on a term like "Harriet Miers" and have to sort through hundreds of irrelevant blog entries to find the needle in the haystack you seem to want Yahoo to build.
What you see as a patronizing slap against bloggers, treating them as "secondary news sources," strikes me instead as Yahoo's attempt to serve a diverse audience. Those of us who love blogs too often forget that not everybody does. Many people find blogs annoying, unreliable, biased and sensational -- the same kinds of complaints bloggers lodge against the MSM. Many more like to get their news from traditional news outlets simply because they favor that format. Others, like me, prefer a news diet that features both blogs and MSM, but we appreciate technology that helps us organize our media plates.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with that. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with Yahoo trying to cater to the needs of as many news consumers as possible. In this information age, that is just good business sense.
"Separate but equal" was rightly discredited long ago as an acceptable approach to dividing men by race, but it is possible to have separate yet equal news searches at Yahoo.
UPDATE: Bloggers Relations Blog, which is published by the Internet consulting and public affairs firm Issue Dynamics, also has commented on this issue.
"If online searches turn up blogs and mainstream media sources together, there are going to be many people who confuse the two. This is not the end of the world if you are just the average reader looking for information about a topic. But what [about] policymakers? What about academic researchers? There are many important documents/reports/speeches, etc., that rely on information found online. The source of that information matters a great deal. Blogs and mainstream media are both very useful, but the two should not be confused."
Posted by at 01:03 PM | Comments (0)
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BillBlast: An Oily Proposition
Last week's House vote on a bill designed to expand oil-refining capacity in the United States spurred plenty of reaction in the blogosphere, and the commentary broke down along the same partisan lines as the vote itself.
Democrats characterized the measure as another sop to the oil industry by a president who once made his living in that sector. Republicans countered that it is about time someone broke an oil-refining logjam spearheaded by environmentalists who do not appreciate the national security threat posed by U.S. dependence on foreign oil.
Two lawmakers were among those who blogged about the bill. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., made another appearance at RedState to decry the "self-imposed anti-refinery, anti-domestic-oil-exploration regime. We've got high gas prices, and we're going to have high home heating costs this winter because we've let certain groups put their interests above something so critical to our everyday life like access to fuel."
But at her new blog, Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill., blasted the "deceptively named 'Gasoline for America's Future Act.'" She said it "pretended to actually increase refinery capacity but in fact repealed environmental regulations and pre-empted local land-use laws that have annoyed the Big Oil boys for years."
Schakowsky also complained that Republicans kept the five-minute vote open for nearly an hour to twist enough arms for passage. The Stakeholder, the blog of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, also keyed on that aspect of the debate.
Think Progress added, "The antics of right-wingers on the House floor today mirrored their previous strong-arm tactics in passing [the Central America Free Trade Agreement] and prescription-drug legislation -- bills that, like today's, favored large corporations." And TalkLeft said Republicans moved the measure now because of "the political cover provided by Hurricane Katrina," which hit oil refineries in the Gulf Coast and forced gas prices to soar.
AMERICAblog laced its response to the vote with sarcasm: "Yippee! It's a good thing that the GOP is so independent and has such firm control of spending, unlike those pesky special-interest freaks from the Democratic Party who just spend, spend, spend and are out of touch with the American heartland. What a victory for freedom and democracy. What a great day for America."
The bill did not receive a single Democratic vote, a fact noted by Pat Cleary at the Manufacturers' Blog. The National Association of Manufacturers considers the House action a key vote for calculating lawmakers' support of the manufacturing industry this year. "You might want to see how your member of Congress voted and remember the 'no' votes next time you pay more for fuel," Cleary wrote.
GOP Bloggers offered similar commentary, arguing that Democrats actually oppose reductions in gas prices. "The Congress is debating a bill to ease the construction of new refinery capacity, but Democrats are opposing it. So, while berating Republicans for high gas prices, Democrats stand in the way of the one way to remedy the situation: to increase supply."
Posted by at 04:47 PM | Comments (0)
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The conservative angst over the Supreme Court nomination of Harriet Miers has manifested itself in a couple of off-the-wall appeals to put a blogger on the court instead.
Newbie blogger and editorial cartoonist Zach Brissett of In Toon With The World picked Steve (Feddie) Dillard, a contributor at Southern Appeal, for the post because of his view that "stare decisis is fo' suckas." A Knight's Blog seconded the nomination, and Brissett is now selling "Feddie for SCOTUS" t-shirts.
Dillard thanked Brissett for the plug and said in a comment at In Toon With The World that he is getting requests for t-shirts. The plug worked out well for Brissett, too. His cartoons are now being published at Southern Appeal.
Over at CrimLaw, Ken Lammers promoted himself as a good candidate because conservatives "should try to get someone on the court who spends all his time in court actually trying cases." His campaign theme: "Because the Supreme Court's not for intellectual giants anymore."
"All we have to do is convince 51 senators that the only consent they will give is if the president takes their advice and nominates me," he wrote.
Posted by at 11:43 AM | Comments (0)
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Patrick Ruffini Is Now Chillin' For The RNC
Conservative blogger Patrick Ruffini is returning to his Republican National Committee roots.
The deputy director of online communications at the RNC until he became the webmaster for President Bush in the 2004 campaign, Ruffini is now the RNC's new e-campaign director. He announced the move at his blog Monday and strongly hinted that he will continue blogging at GOP.com. The RNC also issued a press release about the hiring.
The news of Ruffini's return to the RNC came just a week after he challenged "The Herd" of conservative bloggers who have been ranting against the Supreme Court nomination of Harriet Miers. Ruffini also started the Coalition of the Chillin' to rally support in the blogosphere for Miers' confirmation.
Sounds like the kind of work he might be doing for the RNC in the future.
Katie Harbath, meanwhile, has left her job as associate director for e-communications at the RNC. She is the new deputy press secretary for the House Administration Committee.
The move means that someone else at the RNC will be feeding the bloggers. One of Harbath's outreach duties was sending the "Blog Food" e-mail newsletter, with links to RNC materials and articles that piqued the interest of the Republican campaign machine.
House Administration isn't known for leading the technology pack. Despite calls for more open government, for instance, the panel chose not to continue a test program for making Congressional Research Service reports publicly available online.
But Harbath will not be totally removed from the technology scene in her new post. The panel held a hearing last month on legislation to exempt bloggers from campaign-finance rules.
UPDATE: Hotline On Call praised the RNC's hiring of Ruffini. "The RNC has been criticized by conservative bloggers for engaging in half-hearted outreach. Ruffini knows these guys and gals and they know (and like, and respect) him, and his mere presence along gives bloggers a conduit to the RNC -- and it gives the RNC a credible conduit to bloggers."
Posted by at 04:41 PM | Comments (0)
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I didn't have much spare time to peruse the blogs last week, so I missed a few posts by lawmakers. Here are some links for your reading pleasure this week:
-- Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., lauded the House for passing a bill designed to increase U.S. oil-refining capacity. "The bill -- H.R. 3893 -- is supposed to combat the decades-long effort by liberal special-interest groups to obstruct construction of oil refineries and development of domestic fuel sources. ... We didn't outlaw construction of new refineries, but we may as well have, given the regulatory maze that now exists."
-- Rep. Jim McDermott, D-Wash., criticized hurricane relief efforts. "Hurricane Katrina left hundreds of thousands low and wet, and the federal response is leaving tens of thousands high and dry. We have not provided adequate housing for the homeless, health coverage for the sick, protection for vulnerable children or unemployment benefits for the jobless."
-- Rep. Diane Watson, D-Calif., addressed the flap over comments that former Education Secretary Bill Bennett made about blacks, abortion and the nation's crime rate. "Mr. Bennett, a crusader for the importance of morality and character in public life and the author of The Book of Virtues, should be most aware that thoughts become words, words become actions, actions become habits, and habits become character."
Posted by at 04:37 PM | Comments (0)
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Law professor and Concurring Opinions blogger Daniel Solove just got a new toy in the mail: an airline screening playset made by Playmobil. It's the perfect gift for tots of the 21st century. But parents, please don't let your children try Solove's game at home.
Solove didn't find the playset very realistic because it offered no long lines of passengers, no strip-searching, no shoe removals, no "silly warning signs" and no terrorist watch lists. Even more annoying was the "cheery smile" on the lone passenger's face. So Solove did what any blogger with a twisted sense of humor would do: He staged a worst-case airline-screening re-enactment.
First, he forced the lone female passenger in the playset to show an ID. She didn't have one, so she was denied access to the airplane. Then he had her searched from head to toe with a magnetic wand. Next came the luggage search -- and destroy. And finally, he had the woman endure a check against the no-fly list. She didn't have a name, so obviously she had no recourse and the threat of bureaucratic hassles to come.
"But she was still smiling," Solove wrote. "What was wrong with this woman? ... She just wouldn't stop smiling. So finally, I had the cop shoot her dead."
Go see the re-enactment for the full effect. Very clever. George Washington University might want to remove any sharp instruments from Solove's office, though. The protest against Playmobil's airline security force could get ugly.
Posted by at 07:09 AM | Comments (0)
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The 11th Commandment: Thou Shalt Blog
Former Alabama Supreme Court Justice Roy Moore, he of Ten Commandments fame, is running for governor of Alabama. Not surprisingly, the man whose monument divided a nation already is the target of a Stop Roy Moore blog.
For now, the operation is a two-man shop, but they are looking for more contributors. The job description isn't exactly inviting, though. The work pays nothing, and the duties include "removing abusive or inappropriate comments." Sounds like a forum that could get ugly real quick.
For the scoop on Moore, read the great article in this month's Atlantic Monthly by Joshua Green.
Posted by at 10:13 PM | Comments (0)
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Rep. Jan Schakowsky jumped on the blogging bandwagon last week by starting an online journal at her campaign site. She said the goal of SchaBLOGsky is to offer "an inside look at what it's like to be a progressive Democrat in Tom DeLay's House of Representatives."
In her introduction to the blog, the Illinois Democrat said she also plans to tell readers about candidates in "tough districts" who deserve support. "This is a great time to start this blog because change is in the air; the pendulum is swinging our way, opening many opportunities," Schakowsky wrote. "We have a chance to change the direction of our country, a chance to do in 2006 what the Republicans did in 1994, but we need to start mobilizing today."
Posted by at 10:03 PM | Comments (0)
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The City of Manassas, Va., last week finished its deployment of high-speed Internet service over power lines. It is now the first such citywide service in the nation.
The Progress and Freedom Foundation took note of the milestone at its blog, and it's worth a mention at Beltway Blogroll, too, because many of the posts here find their way online through my broadband-over-power-line connection in the city. When this blog started, I was still living in the dial-up age; now I can blog at a much faster rate.
For once in my life, I am an "early adopter" of a new technology. I tend to blog from the same spot (at my desk), but in theory I can plug into any outlet in the house to get online. That's cool.
Posted by at 09:49 PM | Comments (2)
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The sponsor of Senate legislation to create a federal shield law for journalists said the measure probably would not cover bloggers. Editor & Publisher has the full story, and John Aravosis of the liberal AMERICAblog has the knee-jerk, partisan reaction.
According to Aravosis, who now works full time on his blog, the comment by Richard Lugar, R-Ind., that the bill probably would not apply to bloggers is proof that the Republican Party "hates blogs and they hate the Internet." What he didn't say is that a majority of the measure's co-sponsors, including 2004 presidential candidate John Kerry of Massachusetts and potential 2008 candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, are Democrats. Or that Lugar clearly qualified his comment by saying, "As to who is a reporter, this will be a subject of debate as this bill goes farther along."
Duncan Black of Eschaton, who spoke Saturday at a blogging conference for journalists that I attended in Greensboro, N.C., offered a more reasoned response. "If a source tells me something newsworthy and I put it on the blog, then I'm practicing journalism and I should get the [same] protections as anyone else practicing journalism," he wrote. "It isn't about creating a special class of people who are above the law; it's about understanding that certain types of activities deserve certain protections because it's in the public interest to preserve the ability of people -- all people -- to engage in those activities if they so choose."
New York Times executive editor Bill Keller, meanwhile, is catching plenty of heat in the blogosphere for his argument that bloggers merely "recycle and chew on the news." Kind of ironic coming from the man who got his current job because of a reporter (Jayson Blair) who made up the news, don't you think?
Posted by at 07:44 PM | Comments (0)
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The popular Instapundit has taken a few shots in the past for not letting readers post comments. But when Glenn Reynolds addressed the apparent meltdown over Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers today, he decided it was one of those rare occasions that merits a free-wheeling conversation in Instapundit's piece of the blogosphere.
He is right. If anything deserves an exception to the no-comment rule at Instapundit, it is a nomination that has fractured the majority Republican Party. Unfortunately, opening a blog to comments is not always like riding a bike. "Comments don't seem to be working," Reynolds wrote in his last update. "I'm not sure what's wrong."
Let's hope the fix is in soon. I'm certainly eager to see which direction Instapundit readers take the conversation.
UPDATE: The comments feature is working now, with Instapundit's admonition for readers to "be nice!" Visit the link above for your reading enjoyment.
Posted by at 03:36 PM | Comments (0)
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The red-and-blue divide that separates America politically is as obvious online as on electoral maps, and these days the split is readily apparent in the different responses to Hurricane Katrina.
| "I'm just beginning to learn how effective the blog can be for reaching people who care about these issues and for expanding the debate." -- TPMCafe's Elizabeth Warren | ||
While many conservative bloggers have dedicated themselves to reawakening fiscal discipline within the Republican Party, the mini-blogging empire of liberal Joshua Micah Marshall has focused its energy on reversing two GOP-engineered policies that could impact the storm's victims most directly: construction wages and bankruptcy reform.
Marshall is taking the lead on the first issue at his original blog, Talking Points Memo. Soon after President Bush used his emergency powers to waive the Davis-Bacon Act, which requires contractors on federal projects to pay workers the local "prevailing wage," Marshall cried foul and rallied his grassroots readership to do the same with their lawmakers.
"I'm just curious to find out where everyone stands. ... Ring up your representative or senator and ask," he wrote. "Or if you see their position on their Web site or in the paper, send us the link. We'll make a list and see where everyone stands on the president's Gulf Coast Wage Cut."
Over the next several days, Marshall posted about 20 entries on the topic. He linked to the press releases of lawmakers, whether for or against Bush on the issue, and he characterized as "wigglers" those who waffled when called by their constituents. Talking Points Memo even followed up one reader's report with a call to the office of Rep. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., to confirm its belief that she was "a finger in the wind" on the issue.
"One of the favorite answers from swing-district Republicans has them saying they're 'concerned' about it and want to make sure it's temporary," Marshall wrote in a separate entry. "That's some Grade A, government-issue bamboozlement. Of course the suspension is temporary. It has to be temporary. ... [Bush] has no power to permanently overturn the law in the area. So the whole, 'we're going to try to make sure it's only temporary' line is just mumbo-jumbo."
Marshall also touted a bill by Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., to overturn Bush's decision on Davis-Bacon, and Miller posted an entry at TPMCafe, the group blog Marshall launched in May. Miller criticized Bush for waiving the Davis-Bacon Act before actually declaring a national emergency. The Congressional Research Service called that move "an anomaly" and concluded, "The propriety of the president's action in this case may be ultimately determined in the courts."
A battle over bankruptcy reform also is being waged at TPMCafe, and Elizabeth Warren is heading that effort. A law professor at Harvard University, she has been involved in the bankruptcy debate since serving as a senior adviser to the National Bankruptcy Review Commission in 1995. She and some of her students started blogging earlier this year, as Congress debated new legislation on the topic.
Soon after Bush signed the bankruptcy bill, TPMCafe launched Warren Reports, which covers taxes, health care, education, home ownership and other issues affecting the middle class. With the bankruptcy law set to be implemented Oct. 17 and hurricane victims facing tougher conditions for bankruptcy protection, the blog again has focused on that issue.
"Hurricane Katrina has prompted a whole new round of debates about the bankruptcy laws, serving as a reminder that bankruptcy is a social safety net, there to help hard-working, play-by-the-rules, middle-class families who have been hit by hard economic blows," Warren said in an e-mail interview. "Most of the misfortunes are personal -- a job loss, a medical diagnosis, a disappearing spouse -- but some are very public."
Warren Reports has used its space in the blogosphere to advocate policy changes aimed at giving hurricane victims relief from the new bankruptcy law, to criticize the bankruptcy relief proposed by Louisiana GOP Sen. David Vitter, and to chastise specific lawmakers for their stances on the issue.
The targeted campaigns of Marshall and Warren are a continuation of an approach that Marshall has used consistently, and it is being noticed. PressThink blogger Jay Rosen, a New York University journalism professor, praised Marshall's push to engage blog readers. He specifically noted the fight Marshall led against an aborted Republican change to House ethics rules that was designed to let Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, keep his leadership post if indicted.
Marshall counts that battle and his months-long fight against privatizing Social Security among his greatest grassroots blogging successes. He said in a telephone interview that such efforts are "very effective at shining a bright light on politicians" when they would rather keep their views murky. "It's really a matter of focusing attention on one issue ... and making it harder for lawmakers to have wiggle room," Marshall said.
Both he and Warren said they hear directly from lawmakers' office as a result of their posts. When Talking Points Memo was dedicating much of its space to Social Security, Marshall said he heard from most of the offices of lawmakers listed in his "Fainthearted Faction," those Democrats considered potential swing votes in the debate.
"[T]here are a lot of people in both D.C. and various statehouses who let me know right away if they think I didn't get something right," Warren added.
"I'm just beginning to learn how effective the blog can be for reaching people who care about these issues and for expanding the debate. The people who post on TPMCafe show me new ideas and new ways to frame the issues. I take those elsewhere, and they seem to do the same. We're on the front edge of changing everything."
Posted by at 09:16 AM | Comments (1)
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New Law Blog: Concurring Opinions
George Washington University law professor Daniel Solove, an expert on privacy issues, has recruited two of his colleagues for a new group law blog called Concurring Opinions. The other two contributors are Kaimipono Wenger of the Thomas Jefferson School of Law in San Diego and Nathan Oman, a lawyer here in Washington.
"I used to blog primarily at PrawfsBlawg and occasionally at Balkinization," Solove wrote in the opening post. "I'm now shifting my PrawfsBlawg blogging to this new blog. Why? Because I want to grab land in the blogosphere while they're still handing out 40 acres and a mule. PrawfsBlawg is a great place, and I'll still be stopping by a lot, but I think it's time to cultivate a new plot of land."
The early entries have touched on policy issues like keystroke surveillance on computers, the recent departure of the privacy officer at the Homeland Security Department, a California law aimed at paparazzi, and the anti-terrorism law known as the USA PATRIOT Act.
Pundit Review Radio, which did a segment on Beltway Blogroll last month, also has a redesigned blog, courtesy of LaShawn Barber.
Posted by at 08:19 AM | Comments (1)
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In The Blog's-Eye: Blunt Talk For Gov. Blunt
Missouri Gov. Matt Blunt, the son of U.S. House Majority Whip Roy Blunt, has become the subject of some blunt criticism from a blog called FiredUpMissouri, and the Republican governor is not happy about it.
He is so unhappy, in fact, that he even issued a press release of condemnation aimed at "the left-wing blog site created at the behest of former U.S. Senator Jean Carnahan." The release from last month characterized as "another lie" the blog's allegation that Blunt is seeking to purchase a new state airplane, and it blasted the anonymous bloggers behind the charge as "two of Carnahan's Internet hit men."
ArchPundit Larry Handlin responded in kind at Blog Saint Louis, a liberal site in the state. He said the author of the press release, Blunt spokesman Spence Jackson, is losing control. "I know people who say Spence is a nice guy, but the pressure is getting to him."
All of the nastiness recently merited the attention of The Kansas City Star, which reported that FiredUpMissouri now has a conservative counterpart called RightMissouri.
E-democracy blogger Steven Clift has the scoop at DoWire. His take on the brouhaha in the Show-Me State:
"This, of course, is natural political competition among partisans for power. It again raises the need for civic-minded investments that counter often negative aspects of the new media when 'politics as usual' figures out how to use these tools like in Missouri. When the model of diatribe and sarcasm works its way down into local communities, the lack of alternatives will be clear and politics will become even more acidic to regular citizens."
CORRECTION: I goofed. As reader Tom in South J noted in the comments, Larry Handlin is ArchPundit. Chicago Tribune columnist Eric Zorn only wishes he were.
I've made the fix in the entry above. My apologies to both men.
Posted by at 04:53 PM | Comments (1)
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Who Matters More, RedState Or James Dobson?
The directors at the conservative RedState blog waited less than a day after President Bush picked Harriet Miers for the Supreme Court to proclaim her "a profound disappointment."
Whether conservatives like it or not, the directors said, "the court has become our legislator," so no "American patriot" can be indifferent to any nomination. And they made it perfectly clear that they are not indifferent about Miers.
"From what we know, Harriet Miers is unqualified for the position. She had an impressive career of 'firsts' as a female attorney in Texas, but those are not enough. Miers did not graduate from a top-tier law school. She has no string of impressive legal writings. She has never served as a judge (let alone clerked for a Supreme Court justice or circuit court judge).
"She has never had a practice focusing on issues relevant to the United States Supreme Court. She has had nothing in her career that indicates she is something other than just a great lawyer -- and being more than just a great lawyer should be a key qualification for one of the final arbiters of American jurisprudence."
RedState is just one of many conservative blogs aggravated by Bush's choice. Michelle Malkin has a host of links to other reactions.
Ed Kilgore, the vice president of policy at the moderate Democratic Leadership Council and a blogger at both NewDonkey and TPMCafe, also was surprised that Bush chose Miers and even wondered aloud whether the cultural right will "foreclose the mortgage" on Bush as a result.
But a reader quickly snapped Kilgore backed to reality with an insight that should humble RedState and other conservative blogs. "[A] comment from Glenn in NYC basically said: 'Don't tell me what a bunch of conservative bloggers are saying; where's Dobson?'"
The reference was to James Dobson, the chairman of Focus on the Family. Kilgore linked to a statement from Dobson that welcomed Miers' nomination. Though Dobson qualified that support somewhat by noting the right's after-confirmation disappointment with Justices Anthony Kennedy and David Souter, he praised Bush for so far being "remarkably consistent" in picking judges "who will interpret the law rather than create it."
Focus on the Family is not the lone conservative voice in backing Miers, either. Some noteworthy bloggers like Hugh Hewitt are, too.
Patrick Ruffini challenged the thinking of "The Herd." "The navel gazers are nabobing about another Souter," he wrote. "That's silly. The court will almost certainly move to the right as a result of the nomination and confirmation of Harriet Miers."
Lorie Byrd at PoliPundit added this: "I simply do not know enough about her to decide whether or not I think the president made a horrible or a brilliant pick. I suspect that the final judgment on it will fall somewhere in between, though. I am just surprised that so many are being so quick to declare this pick a disaster when so little is known about Harriet Miers."
When several of Byrd's readers rebuffed her appeal for them to take a deep breath, she posted another entry that asked a powerful question: "How can those of us on the right ask the Democrats to give President Bush's nominees a chance before passing judgment when some of our own are not willing to do so?"
Posted by at 12:41 PM | Comments (0)
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The Hotline here at National Journal joined the blogging revolution earlier this year with the launch of The Blogometer, where William Beutler gauges the temperature of the political blogosphere.
Now The Hotline has another new blog, one written by its entire staff, including Editor-in-Chief Chuck Todd. Hotline On Call went online yesterday, and like The Blogometer, it is free to the public.
"Since it's clear this 'Internet' thing is no longer a fad," the opening entry said, "we thought we'd become the umpteenth member of the so-called MSM to debut a blog. The purpose of Hotline On Call is to give our readers a place to go for breaking news and analysis at all hours of the day. You've come to rely on Hotline for updates four times a day, so why not 40 times a day?"
The comments feature is enabled at Hotline On Call, and readers already are using it. The blog recorded 17 comments yesterday in its first 24 posts -- nowhere close to what the major blogs get but still a good start. With The Hotline's stellar reputation, the blog is sure to become an important online stop for bipartisan political interactivity. The blogosphere has enough echo chambers on the left and the right, so that will be a good development.
The Washington Post, meanwhile, launched a political blog of its own yesterday. It is called The Fix and is being written by Chris Cillizza, who once penned a column on politics for National Journal's CongressDaily. The Fix also will feature occasional entries from Post political writers.
Hotline On Call and The Fix are now on the blogroll at this site.
Posted by at 12:32 PM | Comments (0)
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The recent elevation of Cheryl Halpern to the chairmanship of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting is a serious cause for concern to Rep. Diane Watson. The California Democrat criticized the move yesterday in an entry for The Huffington Post.
Watson called Halpern the "ideological clone" of former CPB Chairman Kenneth Tomlinson, whose leadership she condemned. Her complaints against Tomlinson included "his stealth study of [Public Broadcasting System] content, his hidden polls, his attempts to hire political operatives as fake ombudsmen, and his personal crusade for conservative programming." Now Watson fears more of the same from Halpern.
"Will Halpern refrain from carrying out Tomlinson's crusade to steer PBS content even more rightward?" Watson wrote. "Will Halpern forswear the backstage machinations and secretive attacks on CPB governance? Or will she continue the partisan takeover begun by Tomlinson? The answers to these questions are probably not the answers that long-time supporters of public broadcasting want to hear."
Posted by at 12:25 PM | Comments (0)
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In The Blog's-Eye: All The Presidents Cronies
If President Bush thought he would hear a chorus of amens from the right side of the blogosphere when he picked Harriet Miers for the Supreme Court, he was sorely mistaken. Instead, he has heard a steady stream of catcalls about cronyism -- an increasingly common complaint from Bush's conservative allies.
Bitter charges of cronyism by Bush first surfaced when word spread that former Federal Emergency Management Agency Director Michael Brown had last headed the International Arabian Horse Association -- and was forced to resign the post. That strange career path went unnoticed until Hurricane Katrina hit, but then Brown's qualifications to be the top emergency manager suddenly seemed relevant.
Conservative bloggers were among those leading the charge against Brown, whom Bush praised in the early days after Katrina. "This is not the time to give a weak performer the benefit of the doubt," Michelle Malkin wrote. "The FEMA director's role in the ongoing recovery effort is too important to be entrusted to a clueless political hack with such poor judgment. Rather than praise Michael Brown, Bush should fire him."
The president ultimately did just that, although Brown technically is still working for FEMA.
Bush apparently did not take the bloggers' complaints about Brown as a broader condemnation of cronyism, though. Soon after Brown was booted from FEMA's top job, Bush picked Julie Myers to head immigration and customs enforcement at the Homeland Security Department. She has little immigration or customs experience but has held various administration posts and most recently served as an assistant to Bush on personnel issues.
In a post headlined "No More Cronyism," Malkin called Myers' selection "a monumental political and policy blunder" and later urged Bush to withdraw the nomination.
The "outrageous Bush cronyism" convinced Rod Dreher of The Corner that neither the administration nor congressional Republicans are serious about enforcing immigration laws. "And I find it impossible to believe that this doesn't matter. A lot," he wrote.
TalkLeft and other liberal blogs also decried Bush's hiring decisions, noting more instances of alleged cronyism, but their protests were to be expected. The real news was the increasing frustration voiced from the right.
Then came Miers' nomination to the Supreme Court today. The current White House counsel has never served as a judge; she apparently has no substantial paper trail that would enable conservatives to vet her record; and perhaps worst of all, she contributed money to Bush's 2000 nemesis, Democrat Al Gore, when Gore sought the presidency in 1988.
The rhetorical dam burst wide open after Bush announced her nomination, and the flood of criticism is thick with conservative voices.
Once again, Malkin is at the forefront. Numerous blogs are quoting her refrain: "What Julie Myers is to the Department of Homeland Security, Harriet Miers is to the Supreme Court." And Mike Krempasky of RedState said bluntly: "Mr. President, you've got some explaining to do. And please remember -- we've been defending you these five years because of this moment."
Right Thinking from the Left Coast eloquently connected the cronyism dots from Brown to Miers. "I'd like to take a moment to coin a new phrase: Brownie moment. A Brownie moment can be defined simply as the moment when a supporter of President Bush is smacked in the head by reality and loses any and all faith in the president from that moment forward. ... This was my Brownie moment," Lee wrote of the Miers nomination.
Democratic blogs like Swing State Project are relishing the conservative outcry, seeing it as proof of their longstanding complaint about Bush. "The storyline of Bush giving key jobs to completely unqualified political hacks is connecting with the American people," Bob Brigham wrote. "By picking people on the basis of loyalty, rather than effectiveness, Bush has set the stage for the Culture of Corruption that engulfs the entire Republican Party."
Posted by at 05:07 PM | Comments (0)
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TPMCafe added Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack to its list of guest bloggers at "Table for One" last week. He did his duty in the blogosphere while also "walking" across Iowa to talk to constitutents.
Vilsack's topics included government innovation, alternative fuels, the federal government's lack of leadership after Hurricane Katrina, and government's role in the community.
Posted by at 12:54 PM | Comments (0)
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The indictment of House Majority Leader Tom DeLay has forced to the surface some tension that apparently has been simmering in the RedState corner of the blogosphere for a while.
It all started when RedState founder Mike Krempasky posted an entry titled "The Conservative Movement Salutes Tom DeLay" after attending an American Conservative Union celebration by the same title. "Going into this evening, I was in the 'defend DeLay' camp," he wrote. "Not all of my RedState colleagues agree, and I understand their beliefs and reasoning behind them. However, watching every single conservative leader that I personally respect and admire stand shoulder to shoulder with Tom DeLay has moved me into the 'enthusiastically defend DeLay' faction."
Soon after Krempasky's post, former RedState board member Josh Trevino, who quit his leadership role at the blog last month for as-yet-unexplained reasons, offered his take on the scandal surrounding DeLay, R-Texas. "The fall of Tom DeLay is not merely a parable of hubris in one man; it is the tale of ego begetting ill-judgment in the conservative movement at large," he wrote in a RedState diary and at his own blog, Tacitus.
Trevino has taken contrarian views before -- he was one of the first conservatives to criticize President Bush over his response to Hurricane Katrina, for instance -- but this time he linked to Krempasky's post just before lambasting "the conservative movement at large." Krempasky responded immediately with a comment slugged "Sorry Josh," and the squabbling between the two then began in earnest.
The tone deteriorated as Krempasky and Trevino revisited "the last go round" at RedState over whether DeLay's leadership role in the Republican Party should have changed when the scandal over his campaign-finance activities first surfaced. Some of that debate apparently was internal, but Trevino's post about DeLay last week pushed the dispute into the open for RedState readers to see.
"Well, sorry you didn't take it seriously considering how many e-mails went back and forth," Krempasky said. "Since you consistently prove yourself immune from anyone's opinion but your own, I'm not seeing this as fruitful." To which Trevino answered: "Well, that didn't take long."
Reader Leon H then entered the fray with a rebuke of Trevino: "I have to ask, what the heck are you doing, here? Was it really necessary of you to come over here and poke Krempasky in the eye with your pointy stick there? As far as I can tell, you've wrapped 'neener, neener, neener' into your remarkable command of the English language and dressed up in a nice, pretty post. ... It's pretty clear to everybody who's paying attention by now (before the comments even started) that you and Krempasky have some personal issues. Fine. Work them out personally."
Krempasky's final comment ended with an admonition. "Josh, you're a bright guy. One of the brightest I've ever met," he said. "You're certainly talented and believe all the right things. I just think you're too quick to believe the other side -- and to believe the worst about our side."
"You're right that I'm among the least inclined to cheerlead amongst the current and former [RedState] editors," Trevino responded. But he added that he has toed the GOP line many times in the past. "In light of this, that I would not be given the benefit of the doubt, and that there is clearly a belief that I posted this diary merely to gloat, is, to me, baffling."
Trevino's post also merited him a mention at the liberal AMERICAblog, where John Aravosis noted that "it's interesting to see some conservatives suggesting that DeLay should be dumped." And considering the reaction Trevino received at RedState, The Stakeholder blog of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee ironically argued that "Trevino's sipped a little Kool-Aid despite his above-average rationality."
Posted by at 07:23 AM | Comments (0)
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BillBlast: Bashing The 'Broadcast Flag'
Boing Boing wants the "broadcast flag" to go bye-bye, and Cory Doctorow, the European outreach coordinator for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, hopes his readers at the blog will do their part to help kill it.
The broadcast flag is a tool designed to prevent piracy via digital televisions. The entertainment industry sought the technology and convinced the FCC to approve it, but the Supreme Court overturned the move, concluding that the FCC had overstepped its authority. Now lawmakers who favor the broadcast flag are pushing legislation to give the FCC the right to act on the issue.
Doctorow listed the 20 "congressjerks" behind the move and urged Boing Boing readers to call them "and let it be known that elected lawmakers who break their constituents' televisions don't get re-elected." Glenn Reynolds mentioned Doctorow's appeal at Instapundit, so those lawmakers may get a steady stream of calls about what Reynolds dubbed "bipartisan idiocy."
"I know, I know," Doctorow wrote. "We keep killing this thing, and it keeps on coming back. But the important thing is that we keep killing it. Us. They put tens of millions of bucks into this bid to make technology subservient to the superstitious fantasies of venal film execs, and we killed it by sending thousands and thousands and thousands of letters, calls, and faxes to D.C. We made it happen. We'll make it happen again. They're not going to win this one, EVER."
Posted by at 09:55 PM | Comments (0)
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