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February 09, 2006BELTWAY BLOGROLL
Bloggers In The Corridors Of Power
Bloggers have made their presence known in various corridors of Washington power over the past several days -- from Capitol Hill to the Pentagon and the White House. One conservative blogger's name was even floated (in a friendly and unofficial forum, mind you) as a potential judicial nominee.
The most noteworthy episode, or at least the one that generated the biggest response among his fellow bloggers, pitted Paul Mirengoff of Power Line against a couple of senators.
Mirengoff attended a Capitol Hill press conference where Democratic Sens. Dick Durbin of Illinois and Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts addressed a domestic wiretapping program by the National Security Agency. The Senate Judiciary Committee, of which Durbin and Kennedy are members, held a critical hearing on the program this week, and Mirengoff attended along with filmmaker Andrew Marcus of Pajamas Media, an online service that includes blogs.
Mirengoff, a lawyer, was not impressed by either Kennedy, who "was rehearsing his current talking point that the administration has impaired our security by operating behind the back of Congress," or by Durbin, who "presented the usual Democratic line, which assumes that the the intercept program violates [Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act] and proceeds from there."
As Mirengoff has written about the NSA wiretaps regularly since late last year, he was well-prepared to grill the senators about their views.
Tapscott's Copy Desk has the scoop on what happened, as well as commentary about what the "Mirengoff Miracle" could mean for the future. "It is exactly the kind of aggressive, don't-let'em-off-the-hook questioning by Mirengoff that I have long lamented as being a thing of the past among establishment media journalists," Mark Tapscott wrote. "They are either afraid to ask the tough questions, or they don't know the tough questions. So come on up to Capitol Hill, bloggers!"
A few days earlier, a horde of bloggers swarmed against the U.S. Army in defense of one of their own, milblogger Michael Yon, to help him fight a copyright battle.
The technical firepower of the U.S. military may be enough to "shock and awe" countries like Iraq. But when it came to the war of words over Yon's photograph of a U.S. soldier cradling a wounded Iraqi girl, the rhetorical firepower of angry bloggers proved to be too much for Pentagon brass.
Yon prevailed, and bloggers claimed victory. Pundit Review Radio has the details, including a list of the blogs that took up arms.
At Talking Points Memo, meanwhile, Joshua Micah Marshall unearthed evidence that identifies White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan as a TPM reader.
In the daily press briefing, McClellan cited "some story" about the mysterious disappearance of photographs of President Bush with disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff. The story was published at TPM, though McClellan apparently got his facts wrong when citing it.
And finally, Instapundit reader Glenn Bass, noting the number of vacancies on the federal bench, suggested Eugene Volokh of The Volokh Conspiracy for an appeals court slot.
Instapundit Glenn Reynolds isn't so sure Volokh could "give up blogging for the bench." I'm even less convinced that Volokh, or any blogger with a volatile paper trail, will ever be nominated as a judge, let alone confirmed.
Posted by | 07:13 AM
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