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Blogging The Midnight Oil

Thanks to a snide sound bite from an uppity mainstream journalist, many people no doubt imagine bloggers doing their best work in pajamas. That perception may not have been far from reality at the tail end of last week, as Congress finished its pre-Thanksgiving legislative dash in the wee hours, and citizen journalists followed the action as dutifully as any credentialed reporters.

Bloggers touched on an array of issues. They vented about budget decisions, reported on a last-minute congressional pay raise, covered the latest campaign finance news, called attention to new legislation, and even highlighted obscure provisions tucked into larger bills.

But they reserved most of their commentary for Friday evening's impromptu and vitriolic debate about the Iraqi war, a debate spurred by the sudden call for a U.S. troop withdrawal from defense hawk John Murtha, D-Pa.

The debate came on a nonbinding resolution urging the troop withdrawal. Republicans oppose that idea but forced the issue to the floor in an attempt to get Democrats on the record for the move. Democrats did not oblige. The vote was 403-3, with six other lawmakers voting "present."

Several blogs opined on the House antics as the battle unfolded on C-SPAN. The live-blogging included the likes of Captain's Quarters, Michelle Malkin and PoliPundit on the right, and AMERICAblog, Daily Kos and Seeing the Forest on the left. Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., also shared her views in a post at RedState.

When Murtha took to the floor, John Aravosis of AMERICAblog encouraged other bloggers to join the fun. "He's on C-SPAN now," Aravosis wrote. "Blog it!"

At PoliPundit, the topic was so hot that when one entry spurred more than 300 comments, Lorie Byrd reignited the discussion with a new post. It promptly generated more than 400 additional comments.

Blogs are not the place for objective analysis, though, so accounts of the winners and losers in the debate largely depended on the political leanings of the blogs themselves.

To hear Armando tell it at Daily Kos, "now Murtha is a 'giant' of the House. And now, an honorable debate seems to have ensued." But PoliPundit dubbed the whole debate "Murtha Madness" -- madness that he predicted will cost the Democratic Party the 2006 election.

From a political perspective, the debate rallied both the Republican and Democratic bases in the blogosphere, much as recent speeches on the war by President Bush have done. "Good move, elephants!" Malkin cheered in a post that linked to bloggers who saw the debate as evidence of long-sought GOP backbone. "It's go time," GOP Bloggers added.

On the left, Aravosis compared House Democrats' reaction to the debate with Senate Democrats' recent decision to force that chamber into a closed session on pre-war intelligence in Iraq. "What happened tonight was impressive," he wrote. " ... For those that watched it, Republicans looked scared. They were in disarray."

Daily Kos and other Democratic blogs were quick to note the differences between what Murtha had proposed and what Republicans offered. "They've completely gutted and rewritten it," Scott Shields wrote at MyDD.

On that score, John Hinderaker of the conservative Power Line offered a rare nonpartisan insight into the debate. "The House leadership had a golden opportunity to make the Democrats put up or shut up tonight," he wrote, "and I'm afraid they blew it" by offering a resolution for immediate withdrawal rather than one using the language Murtha offered. "So nothing was accomplished. And the debate, needless to say, was less than edifying."

Hinderaker noted that the reporting about the seemingly superficial but arguably substantive differences between the two resolutions "has been abysmal" -- but people who get their news from left-leaning blogs would have reason to disagree.

The debate over the resolution, meanwhile, served as a painful learning opportunity for freshman GOP Rep. Jean Schmidt, a frequent target of the Democratic "netroots" earlier this year during her special election in Ohio.

Lawmakers sometimes cross the oratorical line during heated debates, and when they do, they can have their words removed from the official Congressional Record. It doesn't work that way in the unvarnished public record of the blogosphere.

Schmidt crossed the line when she appeared to suggest, via the recitation of a call from a Marine in Ohio, that Murtha was a "coward" for urging troop withdrawal. Although PoliPundit called her speech a "magnificent performance," Schmidt eventually sought and received permission to withdraw those remarks.

Bloggers weren't as forgiving. Her comments were featured prominently at Democratic sites like The Stakeholder, the blog of House Democrats' campaign arm. Some blogs also posted video. At Political Wire, Taegan Goddard characterized Schmidt's speech as "potentially career-ending" and added, "Expect [the video] in campaign ads next year."

Schmidt's speech stirred such anger that one blogger, Max Blumenthal at The Huffington Post, went so far as to report details on the Marine she quoted, Col. Danny Bubp. And readers at AMERICAblog posted contact information for Schmidt's congressional offices -- including the ZIP codes necessary for non-Ohio residents to bypass e-mail filters.

Alas, Congress has adjourned until mid-December, and the policy adrenalin no longer is coursing through the blogosphere as strongly as it was.

At 1:52 a.m. Saturday, AMERICAblog's Aravosis signed off with this thought: "I'm off to bed. I can't believe I stayed up to watch C-SPAN."

About 21 hours later, AMERICAblog's Rob in Baltimore told his readers: "Step away from the C-SPAN, and turn off that TV. Three nights in a row will make you an addict! Go out and be merry; it's been a fun week!"

Posted by | 09:58 PM

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Comments

Shame on all who voted yourselves pay raises.

Seamus | 11.27.05 09:42 AM

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