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Columnist Kathleen Parker triggered another round of MSM animosity in the blogosphere this week with a blog-bashing piece titled "Lord Of The Blogs."

While the article offered some pointed criticisms that no honest blogger could fairly refute, its over-the-top comparison of bloggers to the tribal, "murderous barbarians" of the classic movie "Lord Of The Flies" understandably riled the blogosphere. Parker's elitist praise for "professors, lawyers, doctors, philosophers, scientists and other journalists who also happen to blog," and her rash dismissal of those who don't fit her ivory-tower mold of acceptable bloggers also sparked a backlash.

LaShawn Barber posted an excellent and thorough response to Parker's column, including a reaction from Parker herself. You also can get your fill of outrage, sarcasm and reactionary rhetoric at blogs like Ace of Spades HQ, Daily Kos, Mark in Mexico, Outside the Beltway, PoliPundit, Right Wing News and Think Progress.

I found it more interesting, however, to compare what Parker has written about blogs in the past with her latest screed. As Parker acknowledged in the new column, she has praised blogs. More to the point, she defended bloggers against a journalistic colleague who ridiculed them as a bunch of undisciplined folks in pajamas -- a charge very similar to the one she is now making.

In one column, Parker spoke positively of bloggers being the "big bang of the information age." But in "Lord of the Blogs," she ridiculed blogs as "the big-bang 'electroniverse' where recently wired squatters set up new camps each day." While Parker proclaimed herself a "fan" of blogging back in the summer of 2003, you would never know it from the column she just wrote.

Curiously, other than an explosion in the number of blogs, nothing significant has changed in the blogosphere from the time Parker first lauded them until now. The justifiable criticisms that she leveled in the latest column -- "untempered by restraint and accountability," "undisciplined," and sometimes lacking "maturity and humility" -- have been true since bloggers jumped defiantly onto the political stage.

As The Anchoress said in a 2005 roundup, "The point can be made that some blogs are better than others, and some bloggers more temperate and serious than others, but so what? That's just life." It's also quite true of journalists, as Parker herself knows and has shown time and again in her columns.

So why did she turn on bloggers now? I don't really know -- and the explanation she offered LaShawn Barber doesn't really answer the question for me. But turn she did, as the quotes from "Bloggers Knew!" (Sept. 15, 2004) and "Blogs Breaking Logjam Of Journalism" (July 13, 2003) clearly show.

See the excerpts for yourself in the extended entry.

Lord Of The Blogs
-- Blogs are "the less visible, insidious enemies of decency, humanity and civility -- the angry offspring of narcissism's quickie marriage to instant gratification."
-- "There's something frankly creepy about the explosion we now call the blogosphere -- the big-bang 'electroniverse' where recently wired squatters set up new camps each day."
-- "Bloggers persist no matter their contributions or quality. ... [M]ost babble, buzz and blurt like caffeinated adolescents competing for the Ritalin generation's inevitable senior superlative: Most Obsessive-Compulsive."
-- "These effete and often clever baby 'bloggies' are rich in time and toys, but bereft of adult supervision. Spoiled and undisciplined, they have grabbed the mike and seized the stage."
-- "Plenty smart but lacking in wisdom, they possess the power of a forum, but neither the maturity nor humility that years of experience impose."
-- "Each time I wander into blogdom, I'm reminded of the savage children stranded on an island in William Golding's 'Lord of the Flies.' Without adult supervision, they organize themselves into rival tribes, learn to hunt and kill, and eventually become murderous barbarians in the absence of a civilizing structure."
-- "When someone trips ... bloggers are the bloodthirsty masses slavering for a public flogging. Incivility is their weapon and humanity their victim."
-- "[W]e should beware and resist the rest of the ego-gratifying rabble who contribute only snark, sass and destruction."

Bloggers Knew!
-- "Bloggers love fact-checking television and newspaper reporters and commentators ... and have proved themselves both energetic and competent on both fronts."
-- "All these discussions [about phony National Guard memos] took place after the blogosphere had worked its magic. ... Such was the spark that began the flame that grew into the wildfire that became the conflagration that threatens to consign journalistic credibility to history's ash heap."
-- "Make that yet another victory for the nerds, but not nerds in pajamas , as former CBS executive Jonathan Klein said in an attempt to impugn bloggers."
-- "The beauty of the blogosphere is that it is self-igniting, self-propelling and self-selecting, a sort of intellectual ecosystem wherein the best specimens from various disciplines descend from the ethers, converge on an issue and apply their unique talents."
-- "Though virtually newborn, the blogosphere has blossomed exponentially in a matter of earth-time seconds, from a few random voices to a mighty and diverse chorus of sometimes spectacular talent. Bloggers are the big bang of the information age."

Blogs Breaking Logjam Of Journalism
-- "I'm not an expert on blogging, but I am a fan. As a regular visitor to a dozen or so news and opinion blogs, I'm riveted by the implications for my profession."
-- "[W]hat I once loved about journalism went missing some time ago and seems to have resurfaced as the driving force of the blogosphere: a high-spirited, irreverent, swashbuckling, lances-to-the-ready assault on the status quo."
-- "[B]loggers are building bonfires and handing out virtual leaflets along America's Information Highway."
-- "The best bloggers ... are like smart, hip gunslingers come to make trouble for the local good ol' boys. The heat they pack includes an arsenal of intellectual artillery, crisp prose, sharp insights and a gimlet eye for mainstream media's flaws."
-- "[T]he blogosphere may help more than hurt. The view from my bunker suggests that blogs can't be anything but good for journalism. Just as a new restaurant is good for established ones, competition is good."

Posted by at 11:34 AM | Comments (0)

The Drum Major Institute for Public Policy, a progressive think tank based in New York, looks at blogging milestones in the policy arena for 2005.

The list is available at DMI Blog, but the introduction to the list is worth repeating in full here:

Read by ordinary people, journalists, politicians and their staff, blogs are shaping the public dialogue around breaking news and providing a forum for people to air opinions on the issues they care about. Blogs can be a megaphone enabling regular people -- citizen journalists -- to sound off among the "experts." But blogs can also transform the one-way message machine by enabling grassroots activists to leverage their collective power to pressure the traditional media to cover developments relevant to the public interest.

UPDATE (via Instapundit, including a new headline): Michael Silence, a blogger at the Knoxville News Sentinel in Tennessee, shared his year-end thoughts on blogging. While he concluded that blogging is "here to stay," he also said the number and readership of blogs is leveling, and niches are developing.

All of those points seem to be on the mark. But Silence had another observation that I question: "I think the fad of politicians blogging has come and gone. It's time-consuming, a lot of work, and there's no way they can respond to all the comments."

Maybe that is true in Tennessee -- he's in a better position to say than me -- but based on what I've seen in Congress in the past year, I wholeheartedly disagree. Lawmakers are just starting to realize how they can use blogs to energize their political bases and bypass the media to take their messages straight to the public. As more lawmakers succeed at those goals, more lawmakers will blog. And even the ones who do not blog will start trying to woo bloggers.

Posted by at 05:52 PM | Comments (0)

Markos Moulitsas Zuniga of Daily Kos is in the news again, this time courtesy of Newsweek. The magazine has an exclusive interview with Moutlitsas, who offers his analysis of 2006 congressional races in Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and elsewhere.

Washington Monthly recently profiled Moulitsas, and the article spurred plenty of conversation and criticism. All of the attention for the top liberal blogger has some of his critics wondering why the mainstream media are making such a fuss.

Iowa Voice said Moulitsas certainly doesn't deserve the coverage based on his record as a political prognosticator. "Seriously, what's the MSM's fascination with this guy? He's like 0-13 in selecting candidates, and virtually every political prediction he's ever made has been wrong."

Environmental Republican put Moultisas' record at 0-16 but made much the same underlying point: "If I were any of the Democratic candidates just named by Kos, I would drop out of the race tomorrow because the dude is the kiss of death."

Posted by at 02:40 PM | Comments (1)

Blogs have earned an "honorable mention" from journalist J.D. Lasica in his Top 10 Tech Transformations of 2005.

Here's his explanation of why: "Yes, blogging already made its impact with the 2004 election, if not before, but blogging achieved mainstream status in 2005 by dint of sheer numbers (over 24 million blogs today) and by its rising up alongside mainstream media as an influential part of the public's media diet."

Posted by at 02:29 PM | Comments (0)

Late last week, a Washington Monthly article about blogs caused a stir among bloggers. Now a Washington Post article on military bloggers has the blogosphere buzzing again.

The article focuses on two bloggers who were embedded with U.S. troops in Iraq -- Bill Roggio of The Fourth Rail and ThreatsWatch, and Michael Yon -- and it implies that such independent writers are becoming pawns of the military in "an increasingly aggressive battle for control over information about the conflict." The story also notes that Roggio received media credentials by affiliating himself with the American Enterprise Institute.

Michelle Malkin defended Roggio and "milbloggers" in general. The Post's "take on bloggers as tools easily exploited by one major political party or the other is typical -- and typically misinformed," she wrote. "Again, I ask: Is it too much to expect reporters who write about blogs to actually read them?"

James Joyner of Outside the Beltway reacted a bit differently. He said the use of blogs for spin, whether from the military or other official sources, is to be expected. "Given the rise of the blogosphere as an information medium, it was only a matter of time before those seeking to get their messages out would turn there," he said. "Indeed, I've been getting e-mailed press releases from congressional offices, party officials, interest groups and others for months now."

UPDATE: Roggio has responded to the Post article by both highlighting "factual errors" and criticizing the portrayal of his work as being "a tool of the military."

He also chastised the newspaper for equating U.S. military "information operations" with propaganda from the al Qaeda terrorist network. "The U.S. military is conducting an influence campaign to draw attention to the news, which is missed by the media on a daily basis," Roggio wrote. "Their belief (and one that I share) is the portrayal of events in Iraq do not reflect the actual situation on the ground. While the articles may be viewed as 'favorable' to the coalition, the question is, are they accurate and factual? The Washington Post does not address this issue, nor does it provide evidence that the military is running a disinformation campaign."

Instapundit has a roundup of other reactions to the article. And Mark Tapscott says of the Post, "Simple Corrections Won't Do It."

Posted by at 11:56 AM | Comments (0)

The White House is soon set to begin renovating the decaying press room that opened in 1970, according to The Washington Post, and blogger Hugh Hewitt has a suggestion: Reserve some space for bloggers -- and make it prominent.

"Whoever is doing the redesign, let's hope they put in a bloggers' row, right at the front, and lose the reserved seating for the dinosaurs from MSM," Hewitt wrote today.

Hewitt surely knows that his fantasy of a White House press room that favors bloggers over the mainstream media is not going to become reality. But the new briefing room should include space for bloggers because it won't be long before the best of those citizen journalists start earning credentials to cover official Washington. It's better to plan for their arrival now than to have to scramble to make room for them later.

Posted by at 01:41 PM | Comments (0)

The new bankruptcy law is now the subject of a new blog, courtesy of the American Bankruptcy Institute. BAPCPA Blog focuses on court interpretations of the statute.

The act was the focus of mini-blog swarms both just before it was enacted in the spring and then again just after Hurricane Katrina, when the law was set to take effect. Bloggers who opposed the law, like Elizabeth Warren of TPMCafe, argued that its implementation should be delayed so as not to unduly impact victims of the hurricane.

Bankruptcy lawyer and ABI member David Rosendorf started BAPCA Blog, which gets its name from the new law, the Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act. Lisa Keyfetz and David Samole are the other contributors.

Posted by at 12:49 PM | Comments (0)

To hear Benjamin Wallace-Wells tell it in the latest issue of Washington Monthly, Daily Kos mastermind Markos Moulitsas Zuniga has become "a kind of part-time sage, an affiliate member" of the Democratic establishment in Washington. He has regular phone calls with party leaders, and some Democrats long to see him as their "master tactician."

But Moulitsas, who regularly and vigorously defends his self-proclaimed reputation as just "a guy with a blog," said in a rebuttal to the article that he has absolutely no desire to become part of the Democratic establishment in Washington, which he hates. "I don't want to make a big deal out of this," he wrote, "since the piece is generally fine and the intentions were good. ... But the mistakes in those first four paragraphs build me up as someone ingrained in the party structure when things couldn't be further from the truth."

The article also has sparked a side debate about the potential role of blogs, and especially leading liberal journals like Daily Kos, to push public policies. Moulitsas admittedly has no interest in policy issues, and he challenged the contention of the article -- and of bloggers like Garance Franke-Ruta of The American Prospect's Tapped -- that he should care about more than tactics and Democratic victory.

"I see Daily Kos as part of our noise machine, with tangents into organizing, fundraising, and even think tank wonkery. ... But at the end of the day," he wrote, "this site won't replace the need for a network of think tanks to challenge Cato, Heritage and the like. ... We can't single-handedly rescue the progressive movement. We are but a small part of a much broader whole."

Political Animal Kevin Drum noted that "all political movements have both tacticians and theoreticians," and that Moulitsas certainly can "leave the ideology to others." But Drum said the problem is that too many bloggers think like Moulitsas.

"To a large extent," Drum wrote, "I think Kos is symbolic of nearly the entire political blogosphere, which tends to be far more a partisan wrecking crew than a genuine force for either progressive or conservative thought."

Duncan Black, who writes at Eschaton under the pseudonym Atrios, took a contrary view. He argued that as long as Republicans control everything in Washington, there really is not much point in a bunch of "blogospheric wonkery."

"If our team actually had some power," he wrote, "we could be debating the merits of various universal healthcare proposals, or considering just how large a minimum-wage increase might be appropriate, or various other wonky things. It would be good fun. But we live in an unserious age where the people running the government have no interest in policy, and the people not running government have no ability to get anything passed without having anything good about it destroyed by the Republicans."

UPDATE: Moulitsas later posted a blow-by-blow response to factual errors and other misinformation in the Washington Monthly piece.

And Atrios noted that lefty bloggers actually can claim one huge, wonky success on the policy front: changing minds on Social Security reform.

He added, however, that "even the Social Security debate was basically a defensive one. Such wonkery is necessary when those moments arise, but there's little point in having public debates about detailed policies [that] can't possibly pass."

UPDATE II: Mark Coffey of Decision '08 also has a detailed response to the article, from a Republican perspective. Other GOP blogs offering their take include: Ace of Spades HQ, Gateway Pundit, Outside the Beltway, PoliPundit and RedState )here and here).

The conservative bloggers are focusing mostly on two things: Moulitsas' claim that he has been vindicated for the "screw them" comment he made about contractors in Iraq after one of them was killed; and the article's suggestion that some people want Moulitsas to play a greater role in the Democratic Party.

Coffey of Decision '08 and Lorie Byrd of PoliPundit are squarely behind the latter idea. "[O]h, please, please, PLEASE give Markos more of a role in the Democratic Party!" Coffey said.

UPDATE III: Three more bloggers -- Digby at Hullabaloo, Henry Farrell of Out of the Crooked Timber and Ezra Klein -- weigh in on the merits of blog wonkery.

Farrell added his voice to those noting the impact of blogs in the debate over Social Security. "Not only is a certain amount of wonkishness on the left a good thing in itself, but it can be an important political weapon," he wrote. "Looking back to the Social Security debate, left-of-center blogs played a real role in helping to torpedo Republican proposals."

Digby challenged the notion that lefty blogs are not engaged in the policy arena by providing a list of several that are. "So I say hooray for the wonkosphere and the crankosphere," he wrote. "I know that each side sometimes offends the sensibilities of the other, but we should warmly embrace our bretheren no matter what our temperaments incline us to. Robust progressive politics requires both."

Posted by at 07:40 PM | Comments (0)

Brad Smith endeared himself to bloggers in his last months on the Federal Election Commission by fighting to keep bloggers free of campaign finance regulation. Smith left the post for a teaching job in Ohio in August, but his interest in campaign finance prompted a virtual return to Washington this week via RedState.

The impetus for Smith's return: a press release issued by campaign finance activist Trevor Potter, one of Smith's arch enemies during his time at the FEC.

The release from Potter, a former FEC chairman and now head of the Campaign Legal Center, focused on the recent selection of three FEC nominees by President Bush, as well as Bush's re-nomination of Republican Commissioner David Mason.

Potter is not impressed by the new nominees -- Robert Lenhard, Hans von Spakovsky and Steven Walther -- and he is downright angry that Bush made the picks as Congress is about to adjourn for the year. Potter suspects that Bush will use his power to make "recess appointments" for all of them, which means the nominees would not have to endure the scrutiny of Senate confirmation.

"The apparent intention to push these nominees through as recess appointments, without debate or an up-or-down vote, would deny the public the right to give these nominees serious scrutiny," Potter said.

Smith sent his response to that argument to Mike Krempasky of RedState, who last week celebrated the new slate of nominees. In essence, Smith accused Potter of hypocrisy because Potter supported the recess appointment of Democratic Commissioner Ellen Weintraub three years ago and even chastised the White House for not pushing her appointment through quickly enough to suit campaign finance advocates.

"Here is a group [Campaign Legal Center] with no members, whose alleged expertise seems to blow with the wind and its own immediate political needs, taking one approach one day, and another the next, and it can't (or won't) even get basic facts right in its release," Smith wrote.

Former FEC aide Allison Hayward, who now blogs at Skeptic's Eye, also has been following the latest FEC developments. You can read her insights here, here and here.

Posted by at 12:27 PM | Comments (2)

The race for the open House seat in Illinois' 6th District now has three Democrats in it, and ArchPundit Larry Handlin intends to interview all three. Yesterday, he had his first interview with the newest candidate in the field, Tammy Duckworth.

Republican Henry Hyde is retiring from Congress, thus giving Democrats a better shot at the 6th. Besides Duckworth, the other two Democrats are Christine Cegelis and Lindy Scott. Cegelis and Scott have blogs on their Web sites, but Duckworth does not.

Handlin divided his interview with Duckworth into separate topical entries. So far, he has covered her: background; reasons for running; and her views on health care, assault weapons, airport expansion in Chicago, and abortion. More entries are planned.

Duckworth's entry into the race has stirred some controversy in the Democratic Party. Markos Moulitsas Zuniga of Daily Kos dubbed the battle between Cegelis and Duckworth "a classic insider-outsider race," pitting the grassroots against the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

"The DCCC has been undermining Cegelis for months, making sure donors knew that they were working hard to find someone to replace/take on Cegelis," Moulitsas wrote.

Not all Democrats consider the competition bad, though. Cegelis welcomed Duckworth to the race in a post at Daily Kos, and Moulitsas said "Democrats win regardless of who emerges from the primary."

UPDATE: Jonathan Singer at MyDD also is interviewing congressional candidates. His latest interview is with former Rhode Island Attorney General Sheldon Whitehouse, a Democratic candidate for the Senate.

Posted by at 09:50 PM | Comments (0)

Blogger Matt Stoller caused a stir at last year's Democratic Party convention in Boston when he dared to speak something other than a positive word about party darling Barack Obama.

"To be honest, I don't get the big deal," Stoller wrote of Obama at The Blogging of the President. "I've seen him speak a few times. He seems very charismatic, but I have yet to cross that bridge with him where I feel like he's saying anything really interesting or useful. He's a lot like [John] Edwards -- charismatic and demographically useful for the Democrats. But is there there there?"

The party was so taken aback by Stoller's posting that he was asked to cease his volunteer work as the "blog community coordinator" for the rest of convention week.

Fast forward to the present: Obama, D-Ill., is now a senator and still a party darling. Some people want him to run for president in 2008.

Stoller just completed a blogging gig for the Senate campaign of New Jersey Democrat Jon Corzine and earned kudos in the summer for a report on "The Emergence of the Progressive Blogosphere". He also testified before the Federal Election Commission about applying campaign finance law to bloggers.

Now blogging at MyDD, Stoller is on Obama's e-mail list. But apparently Stoller is still not enamored with the freshman senator. He just posted an entry that includes an image of the Obama family's holiday e-mail card under the headline, "Merry Christmas, Barack. Now How About Doing Something?"

Stoller's current gripe about Obama is in reaction to the ongoing controversy over secret wiretapping of Americans by the Bush administration. "[T]he president just claimed the executive branch has absolute power," Stoller wrote to Obama. "Might I suggest you use some of your political capital and quit the 'Aw, shucks, I'm new here' shtick? You did teach constitutional law."

Any wagers on whether Stoller will be on the Obamas' mailing list this time next year?

UPDATE: Not surpringly, Stoller caught some heat for his post, including a call from Obama's office. So Stoller posted a more detailed explanation of why he is so upset with Obama.

The gist of Stoller's argument: President Bush is "a liar and a fraud," but Obama has been undermining that argument by saying the president is not a bad man and loves his country. "You cannot do business with George W. Bush and his ilk," Stoller wrote, "and talking him up undercuts the goal that all of us, including Senator Obama, seek."

Posted by at 09:33 PM | Comments (0)

Jeff Pulver is a pioneer in Internet telephony and as such is closely monitoring congressional action, or lack thereof, aimed at helping companies like his offer 911 emergency-calling service. Last week, the founder of Pulver.com used his blog to lobby for the measure.

The bill, S. 1063, would help Internet phone firms offer "enhanced 911" service, or E911, which enables people to connect to emergency operators even if they are not using traditional phone service. But it has become enmeshed in partisan and FCC politics involving a Nov. 28 deadline for enhanced 911 and the potential for waivers from that mandate.

Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., reportedly is using a procedural tool to block Senate action on the E911 legislation. Pulver's blog entry urged readers to contact staffers for Rockefeller and Nebraska Democrat Ben Nelson, the chief sponsor of the bill. Pulver provided contact details.

"If you care about this bill, about direct access to the 911 network, about equivalent liability relief, about no technology mandates, about accelerating an [Internet-based] 911 network," Pulver wrote, "then you should call. ... If the hold is lifted, we believe unanimous consent on the bill could happen before they recess early next week."

Posted by at 12:30 PM | Comments (0)

Cory Maye of Mississippi and Stanley "Tookie" Williams of California had two very different pasts before they landed on death row -- Williams in 1981 and Maye in 2004.

Maye had no criminal record before killing a policeman who had burst into his home without a warrant. Williams, on the other hand, was a founder of the infamous Crips street gang, convicted of killing four people in two crimes.

But now the two have one more thing besides their criminal sentences in common: Each has become a focal point of renewed debate about capital punishment -- a debate being driven in large part by bloggers.

Blogging about the death penalty, and particularly against it, is not a new idea. The National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty has been at it for 18 months, and Amnesty International launched Death Penalty Blog in July. Some state affiliates of NCADP, including those in Alabama, Missouri and Tennessee, also publish blogs.

After the national branch in October discussed Internet activism at its annual conference, NCADP blogger David Elliot posted three entries on blogging about the death penalty. "To me, it's about encouraging each other, building community, exchanging ideas, sharing what works and what doesn't," he wrote. "Taking new messages and trying them out for a spin. Doing new things."

Blogs with broader content also cover the death penalty periodically, especially when it is in the mainstream media mix. But until last month, as the nation neared its 1,000th execution since capital punishment was reinstated in 1976, the topic had not reached critical mass in the blogosphere.

Then came Tookie Williams and Cory Maye.

Williams rose to celebrity status first. "While in jail, he became an anti-gang activist, wrote children's books and was nominated by a member of the Swiss Parliament for the Nobel Prize," TalkLeft noted last month in encouraging its readers to sign a petition urging clemency for Williams.

His story spurred numerous sympathetic appeals from bloggers, as well as outrage at Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, R-Calif., for refusing clemency.

But the facts of Williams' life before prison, plus his repeated denials of committing the murders for which he was convicted, only served to heighten the longstanding divide over the death penalty. Abolitionists and the law-and-order crowd highlighted each other's excesses.

Firmly in the law-and-order group, Michelle Malkin posted several entries under "The Tookie Files." Both she and Patterico of Patterico's Pontifications emphasized the fate of Williams' victims: Albert Owens, Tsai-Shai Yang, Yen-I Yang and Ye-Chen Lin.

"Tonight should be about honoring their memory and bringing justice for their deaths," Patterico wrote before Williams was executed Tuesday.

Even bloggers who oppose the death penalty, including both conservative Ed Morrissey of Captain's Quarters and liberal Duncan Black of Eschaton, had qualms about rallying around Williams.

Quite the opposite is true with Maye. His case is the subject of a blog swarm encompassing both the left and the right.

While Black said he "can't quite see how Stanley Williams is really the poster child for the cause" against capital punishment, he endorsed the conservative-led fight for Maye. "Every now and then," he said, "the wingnutosphere finds a cause which actually has merit. ... The case of Cory Maye is indeed a travesty."

Radley Balko of The Agitator first told Maye's story to the blogosphere Dec. 7, as the debate over Williams' death sentence was reaching its climax. Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit gave the story a larger audience the next day, and Balko later created a Cory Maye page.

Balko even provided a roundup of views from people who believe the Maye verdict is just -- including one whom Balko said "casts some rather nasty aspersions on me."

"Radley's done a good deal of follow-up on this case," Kieran Healy wrote at Out of the Crooked Timber, "and so far nothing he's turned up suggests that Maye is anything other than the victim of an appalling travesty of justice."

On the left, Angelica of Battlepanda is leading the call to arms, as well as taking the roll of the libertarian, Republican and Democratic blogs engaged on Maye's behalf. "When the Instapundit and I both agree that something is wack," she said, "you can be sure that it is indeed very, very wack."

The mainstream media still have ignored Maye's plight -- perhaps a case of death-penalty burnout from covering Williams. Yet the case has captured the interest of bloggers as far away as South Africa, where Laurence Caromba of Commentary noted, "If Maye manages to get off death row, Balko will share a great deal of the responsibility."

Mark Kleiman concluded much the same at The Huffington Post, albeit with a more pessimistic spin: "This case is an interesting test of the power of the blogosphere. ... Unless bloggers can somehow attract the attention of mainstream media outlets, or of the politicians whose statements the mainstream media will treat as news ... then the story is going to die, and so, probably, is Cory Maye."

The blog swarm has the potential to reach beyond Maye himself, though. It might shape public opinion about the death penalty in general, which as James Joyner noted at Outside the Beltway, already has shown signs of changing.

"Capital punishment is rather obviously allowed by the Constitution," he said. "It still has overwhelming public support, as seen in poll after poll and election after election. Those same polls, though, show a growing concern about the way the system works. It may well be that, 20 years or so from now, a majority will oppose state-sanctioned executions."

However American views of the death penalty evolve, blogs are sure to be a factor in that intellectual shift. And bloggers' musings over the execution of Tookie Williams and the death sentence of Cory Maye could prove to be the catalyst for that shift.

Posted by at 10:02 AM | Comments (11)

Democratic bloggers have scored some noteworthy successes in rallying financial support for their favored candidates. Now Sen. Russell Feingold is giving them the chance to pick a congressional candidate worthy of his support.

As honorary chairman of the Progressive Patriots Fund, Feingold, D-Wis., has run blog ads to invite the "netroots" to pick their favorite from among 11 candidates. The candidate who gets the most votes will receive a $5,000 donation from the fund.

The candidates are: Francine Busby of California; Chris Carney and Lois Murphy of Pennsylvania; John Courage and Nick Lampson of Texas; Brad Ellsworth of Indiana; Patricia Madrid of New Mexico; Coleen Rowley and Tim Walz of Minnesota; Heath Shuler of North Carolina; and Peter Welch of Vermont.

"These candidates were selected by you and your fellow bloggers through the candidate suggestion form," the fund said at the page to which the blog ads directed readers, "and we hope to do more of these events in the future." The winner will be announced Thursday.

Welch's campaign site features the contest prominently at the top and encourages supporters to go vote for him. If netroots voters pick their favorite candidate based on which ones have blogs, though, Welch has one strike against him.

Busby, Carney, Courage, Murphy and Rowley are the only candidates of the 11 with active blogs. Lampson's campaign is upgrading the software for its blog.

UPDATE: Courage, a candidate in Texas' 21st District, won the contest, but the Progressive Patriots Fund plans to run more such contests.

Posted by at 09:29 AM | Comments (0)

House leaders last month pulled from a budget bill language that would authorize oil exploration in the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge, but the prospects for such drilling just improved.

Rep. Jack Kingston, R-Ga., reports in a Sunday blog entry at RedState that House and Senate negotiators on a fiscal 2006 Defense Department bill agreed to add ANWR language to that measure. All Republicans and two Democrats, one each from the House and Senate, supported the move.

Kingston's view: "Opening ANWR is a strong drive to the hoop to help reduce our dependence on foreign oil. ... When it comes to energy and national security, we don't need to do just one thing -- we need to do everything. We need to explore our own resources in Alaska and in the deep ocean, we need to conserve, and we need to expand our fuel options and fuel choices to get us beyond oil."

UPDATE: Rep. Mike Conaway, R-Texas, noted the House's passage of the bill, ANWR language included.

Posted by at 09:05 AM | Comments (0)

The commentators at The Huffington Post are arguably the most diverse in the blogosphere, and the mix just became more diverse with the addition of one of Israel's leaders.

Vice Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who is also the nation's minister of industry, trade and labor, and the finance minister, posted an entry today on "moving Israel forward."

"We believe that we must continue our ongoing dialogue with our Palestinian neighbors," Olmert wrote. "The disengagement [from Gaza] was a first, bold step that dramatically changed the reality here, and we need to continue to move forward. The Israeli government ... will continue in the future to seek ways to further dialogue and negotiations with the Palestinians, and to increase interaction and cooperation in order to further change the reality for the benefit of both our peoples."

Posted by at 04:08 PM | Comments (0)

Blogger Jason Mazzone at Concurring Opinions thinks a blog at the Supreme Court just might improve the quality of court opinions.

His proposal: "The Supreme Court should operate a blog to generate input on the court's opinions before they are published. The postings could range from limited issues ... to entire drafts of opinions and requests for comments."

He compared the concept with friend-of-the-court briefs from people who are not direct parties to pending cases. "A blog would expand on that principle and allow input from a wider audience," Mazzone wrote.

He also offered some thoughts on how to structure the blog. "An unmoderated Supreme Court blog would attract a lot of comments, many of which would be less insightful and helpful than others. ... So perhaps comments should be limited to registered users. Perhaps registration should require some kind of screening process. Law professors might qualify more easily than, say, astrologers. Anonymous posts probably should not be allowed."

That kind of thinking isn't exactly in the democratic spirit of blogging. But then again, the Supreme Court isn't exactly democratic.

Mazzone's post has sparked only one comment so far, from Concurring Opinions founder Daniel Solove who asks a series of questions: "What kinds of issues do you have in mind where you believe the blog will be of assistance? Ones involving precedent and case law? Or ones involving factual and empirical matters? Or both? Can you provide an example of a specific case or issue where tapping into the wisdom of the blogosphere would have potentially assisted the court?"

Posted by at 03:41 PM | Comments (0)

The Senate voted 52-47 today not to limit debate on the USA PATRIOT Act, and Sen. Russ Feingold, the mastermind behind the opposition, quickly claimed victory in a post at TPMCafe.

Feingold, D-Wis., has been guest blogging at the site all week, as the Senate pondered its next move on a bill to extend the life of the 2001 anti-terrorism law. He has been fairly prolific, too, posting 10 entries. That's two a day -- not bad for a senator also trying to rally support against a once overwhelmingly popular law.

Feingold gave some of the credit for his success to the TPMCafe community. "There is no doubt that the reaction from citizens like you on this issue helped convince a number of members to vote with us," he wrote.

The PATRIOT Act currently ranks as the fifth most-searched topic at the blog search engine Technorati.com. Americablog and Instapundit are among those that have posted on the issue today.

The debate over the PATRIOT Act had generated plenty of commentary on its own. But this morning's New York Times piece about the Bush administration spying on Americans triggered a whole new blog swarm. Michelle Malkin critiqued that story at length in a post dubbed "Red Alert: Chicken Littles On The Loose."

(I guess she hasn't seen the new "Chicken Little" movie, or she'd know that maverick fowl wasn't just suffering from a bout of avian flu. He was right: The sky is falling!)

UPDATE: Read more commentary on the PATRIOT Act and Times story at Captain's Quarter's, Concurring Opinions, The Huffington Post and Hugh Hewitt, MyDD, New Donkey, Power Line and TalkLeft.

Posted by at 05:56 PM | Comments (0)

Abortion has been one of the most divisive issues in America for decades, and blogs are now one of the hottest formats for advocacy on divisive causes. Which begs the question: Why isn't there more organized advocacy on abortion, be it pro or con, in the blogosphere?

Someone must have asked that question in the anti-abortion community recently because in about a month, bloggers who oppose abortion will be hosting the "first annual" Blogs4Life. The event will be held Jan. 23, just before the annual March for Life that marks the anniversary of the 1973 Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion.

Blogger Charmaine Yoest of the Family Research Council, which will co-host the conference, announced Blogs4Life yesterday. National Review columnist Kathryn Jean Lopez will be the featured speaker. She blogs at The Corner.

Yoest billed the meeting as an "opportunity for pro-life bloggers to get together and talk about how to maximize the impact of their blogging." And yes, you read that right, the event is exclusive. Bloggers who favor abortion rights are not invited, as the Blogs4Life site also makes clear: "The conference is open to all who support the sanctity of human life." The abortion rights crowd will just have to orgazine its own strategic blogging confab.

I won't be surprised if I hear about that one soon.

UPDATE: Although more than 40 blogs participated, the Blogs4Life event yesterday didn't generate much copy online. As of this afternoon, even the Blogs4Life site had only one post-event entry.

La Shawn Barber authored the meatiest post on the gathering. It includes links to other commentary by participating blogs. Her views on whether abortion should be allowed in the cases of rape and incest were the most powerful.

"Since the day I realized I was a Christian," Barber wrote, "I was never torn about this issue. The life of the unborn is precious and worthy of protection no matter how that life is conceived. It really isn't more clear than that. What's unclear is whether Christians are willing to live as the world does or as God requires."

Posted by at 05:27 PM | Comments (0)

The debate over U.S. policy on torturing suspected terrorists and other prisoners of war has been raging in Congress and in the blogosphere for weeks. Now a member of Congress has added his two cents in the blogosphere.

In an entry at The Huffington Post, Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., advocated U.S. policy that would prevent the United States not only from torturing its prisoners but also from shipping them to other countries with looser rules on torture. He criticized what he sees as an attempt by the Bush administration to grant itself an "EZ pass around the law."

"Under pressure from the public," Markey wrote, "it looks like the Bush administration might just change the words it uses regarding torture. But if its deeds remain unchanged -- if the Bush administration