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This entry is bumped to the top of the blog every time new interview links are added. Click to the extended entry for the latest links, including one to a good interview with former House Speaker Tom Foley.

Jonathan Singer of MyDD has published his latest candidate interview, this one with Rep. Ben Cardin, one of the Democratic Senate challengers in Maryland.

Singer has conducted a handful of similar interviews in recent months. His past subjects have included:

-- California gubernatorial candidate Steve Westly;
-- Ohio Senate candidate Sherrod Brown;
-- Ohio gubernatorial candidate Ted Strickland;
-- And Rhode Island Senate candidates Matt Brown and Sheldon Whitehouse.

Other bloggers also are gaining fairly regular access to candidates and lawmakers, and posting text and audio transcripts. Ed Morrissey of Captain's Quarters, for instance, posted a podcast of his interview with Rep. J.D. Hayworth, R-Ariz., a few weeks ago. And Larry Handlin of ArchPundit posted a series of entries that summarized his interview with Tammy Duckworth, one of the Democratic candidates in Illinois' 6th District.

The trend is one worth tracking. I will try to keep a running list of links here for political junkies who want to keep tabs on what candidates and government officials are saying in the blogosphere.

UPDATE, 4/29: MyDD has posted an interview with Kweisi Mfume, a Democratic Senate candidate in Maryland.

UPDATE, 4/12: Ankle Biting Pundits posted a series of video clips of Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., from his recent trip to New Hampshire. The clips cover budgetary "pork," immigration and McCain's "laugh lines" in the interview.

Instapundit also has a podcast with Rep. Harold Ford, R-Tenn.

UPDATE, 4/6: Instapundit has another podcast with Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, this one on immigration and the PorkBusters movement. (The first installment with Frist is linked in the 3/17 update.)

MyDD, meanwhile, recently interviewed U.S. Senate candidates Harris Miller of Virginia and Jack Carter (son of former President Jimmy Carter) of Nevada, as well as state Senate candidate Jesse Cornett of Oregon. All are Democrats.

UPDATE, 3/27: Lincoln Logs, a blog in Ohio, has posted the transcript of an interview with Rep. Bob Ney, R-Ohio. The latest MyDD candidate interview also is online. The subject: James Webb, a Democratic Senate candidate in Virginia.

UPDATE, 3/17: I failed to include a link in my original to the Feb. 15 podcast that Instapundit Glenn Reynolds and his wife, Helen Smith, conducted with Frist.

UPDATE, 3/16: MyDD interview with Democratic Senate candidate Pete Ashdown in Utah.

UPDATE, 3/10: MyDD interview with Democratic Senate candidate Ford Bell in Minnesota.

UPDATE, 3/1: MyDD interview with Democratic Senate candidate Jon Tester in Montana. MyDD also recently posted an interview with former House Speaker Tom Foley, D-Wash. That's a good "get" for a blog. Among other topics, Foley talks about how the 2006 campaign dynamics compare with the 1994 election that toppled him and the Democratic Party from congressional power.

UPDATE, 2/23: MyDD interview with Democratic Senate candidate Amy Klobuchar in Minnesota.

Posted by at 10:37 AM | Comments (0)

Blogads released its annual survey of blog readership this week, and the results reaffirmed the conclusion of previous surveys in 2005 and 2004: Blog readers are among the most politically active Americans.

The survey is by no means scientific, as company founder Henry Copeland acknowledged in his recap of the results. This year's results also are somewhat politically skewed toward the Democratic Party, Copeland said, because some of the most influential Republican bloggers did not invite their readers to participate. "But, even without our white labcoats on," he said, "the results are important and fascinating. The blogs that participated ... are leaders in their fields."

Some highlights: Far more blog readers are male than female; the largest segment of the population is in the 41-50 age range, and they earn $60,000-$90,000 a year; 39 percent are college graduate, and an almost identical amount have advanced degrees; 30 percent contributed to a campaign in the last six months; 75 percent have contacted politicians in the last year; and 76 percent have signed a petition.

Chris Bowers at MyDD examined the survey results in detail. The Blogometer has a list of other blog entries about the survey.

The rest of this week's blog bits:

-- Rep. Mike Conaway, R-Texas, blogged about his recent trip to Iraq.

-- The U.S. Public Interest Research Group used its blog to draw attention to a couple of pet legislative interests: a House telecom bill and a measure to implement free, electronic tax filings.

-- The Club For Growth noted that President Bush issued a veto threat over excess spending in an emergency appropriations bill now before Congress. But based on past experience, club blogger Andy Roth has his doubts that Bush will follow through with the threat. Roth also conducted another blog marathon yesterday, this time on pork-barrel spending.

-- Both MyDD and RedState tried to direct money and/or attention to two political candidates: Marcy Winograd, a Democrat who is challenging "pro-war incumbent Jane Harman" in California's Democratic primary; and Iraq war veteran Van Taylor, a Republican candidate in Texas. RedState raised $10,000 from 183 donors for Taylor in three days.

-- Swing State Project urged readers to tell the political action committee of Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., which two House candidates -- one incumbent and one challenger -- that she should support financially. The online poll closes May 12. The effort is reminiscent of a similar poll taken by Sen. Russell Feingold, D-Wis., in December.

-- Speaking of Feingold, Ed Morrissey of Captain's Quarter's labeled him "a lame comedian and a worse politician" over a new "parody" advertisement aired on television by the senator's PAC.

-- Hotline On Call reported that Sen. George Allen, R-Va., is advertisting his re-election effort on Instapundit.

-- The Stakeholder, the blog of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, chastised Republican aides on Capitol Hill for withdrawing their teams from a congressional softball league. The entry was in response to a Wall Street Journal article on the once-bipartisan league.

-- Michelle Malkin unveiled Hot Air, the conservative Internet broadcasting network she is heading.

Posted by at 09:54 AM

I just wanted to let Beltway Blogroll readers that this site has been swarmed with comment and trackback spam this week. The level of the spam reached the point that I felt compelled to close comments as we look for a solution to the problem.

We will reopen the comments as soon as possible. If anyone has any ideas on how to address the problems with comment and trackback spam in a Movable Type blog, please e-mail me at dglover@nationaljournal.com.

Posted by at 01:00 PM

The House yesterday passed a bill designed to protect the privacy of telephone numbers -- legislation that was introduced early this year after publicity generated in part by a blogger.

The measure, H.R. 4709, would make it illegal for online brokers to buy and sell individuals' monthly phone records. It would empower both the FCC and FTC to enforce new rules banning "pretexting," the practice of obtaining customers' personal information under false pretenses.

The House passed the legislation on a 409-0 vote. Judiciary Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., said on the floor that the bill "provides consumers with important new protections for the confidentiality of their calling records without compromising the legitimate lawful interests of law enforcement, emergency services and cellular telephone service providers" who might need access to the records.

As reported in my Feb. 14 column, the push to protect phone records had languished until early this year. After John Aravosis of Americablog read an article about the issue, he decided to make cell-phone privacy a pet cause.

Aravosis first bought his own records to prove a point, then he bought the records of someone who mattered: 2004 Democratic presidential candidate Wesley Clark. That ploy generated lots of publicity and jumpstarted the issue in Congress.

Three House bills and two Senate measures were introduced within days. House Judiciary approved H.R. 4709 by voice vote on March 2, and Senate Judiciary approved a similar measure, S. 2178, by voice vote the same day.

Posted by at 12:47 PM | Comments (1)

Bloggers can be a critical bunch. When they don't like what they see or hear in the world around them, they let everyone within click range of their piece of the Web know it. And when they get together at a blog conference, then the rhetoric can really get harsh.

That's what happened Saturday at the first annual Milblog Conference in Washington. About 200 soldiers, veterans, family members and assorted others who gathered to celebrate the military blogging community spent much of their time chastising the media, denouncing peace activists and lamenting the military's lukewarm response to the blogosphere.

The panelists and attendees directed their firepower first and foremost at the media. Novelist and military commentator Austin Bay set the stage as master of ceremonies. He said the nonstop television news cycle "does to war, natural disaster, crime and celebrity trials what pornography does to sex," adding that the milblog community exists "to get the story [of war] right."

The gripes against the "mainstream media" amplified from there:

-- Matt, who left the military in 2001 and now blogs at Blackfive, blasted Newsweek for not telling the story of a friend killed in combat -- an episode that moved him to start blogging.

-- Author and panel moderator Robert (Buzz) Patterson ranked the media among a "fifth column" in America that aids and abets terrorist enemies.

-- Steve Schippert of ThreatsWatch reached into the past to condemn Walter Cronkite for what Schippert called biased reporting about the Tet Offensive. He said such reporting turned people against the Vietnam War but argued that it "can never, ever happen again -- not ever -- because of milbloggers."

-- Chuck Ziegenfuss, who was injured in Iraq last year and blogs at From My Position ... On The Way, mistrusts journalists so much that he regularly searches the Internet for their articles before granting interviews. "You kind of have to control them as much as they're trying to control you," he said.

The subject even arose in the mid-morning panel discussion dubbed "Milblogging Family Style." "We can't have a milblog conference without mainstream media discussions," said Andi, an Army wife and organizer of the event who blogs at Andi's World.

Carla of Some Soldier's Mom displayed a recent copy of her local newspaper, The Daily Courier in Arizona, and complained that it contained "not one word" about U.S. military efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq. "And then they wonder why there are milblogs and why we need additional sources of information," she said.

The criticism was not limited to the conference room at the Academy for Educational Development, either. Milbloggers unable to attend the event took their jabs at the media in a Web chat that was projected onto a screen throughout the conference.

As disgusted with the media as milbloggers are -- one said reporters are "stigmatized" in the eyes of many military people and called them "the enemy" -- they were even more hostile toward anti-war protestors. They are known as "moonbats" in milblog parlance.

At least twice, panelists called attention to "Concrete Bob," an active member of Free Republic who was in the audience. He played a key role early this year in forcing the group Code Pink Women for Peace to relocate its protests outside Walter Reed Army Medical Center.

The protests prompted the milblog community to swarm both virtually and physically. Concrete Bob received a rousing round of applause when Andi praised him for "kicking Code Pink to the curb".

"The people who are in that hospital are not the policymakers," said Ziegenfuss, who spent time at Walter Reed recovering from his injuries. "They are the policy enforcers. ... There's a time and a place for everything, and outside a hospital is not the place."

The milbloggers' rap against the Pentagon was more respectful and subdued but no less assertive. They think the military brass are blowing it big time when it comes to the blogosphere, both by failing to embrace bloggers and by pondering potentially onerous rules for blogging by soldiers.

The military certainly has taken note of the blogosphere. At least one official from U.S. Central Command, for instance, attended the conference. That is just one example of attempts at blog outreach that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld mentioned in a February speech.

The Defense Department research wing that created the Internet also is looking to cull information from foreign-language blogs. And just last week, the department's press service announced that the Defense Science Board this summer will study the military impact of blogs.

But bloggers see room for improvement. John Donovan of Argghhh, a milblogger at the event, said in an interview that the Pentagon right now is just sending "obvious pieces of recruiting propaganda" that milbloggers are rejecting. "They're frankly clumsy about it because they still don't understand blogs," he said.

Bill Roggio of The Counterterrorism Blog and The Fourth Rail offered this message to the Pentagon public affairs team: "Accept us like you accept the media. ... Allow your people to talk. The risk you take with [operational security] is miniscule compared with the benefits you can get from engaging the milbloggers."

Engaging them is only half the equation, though; the other half is not quashing them. Panelists repeatedly urged milbloggers to remember one key principle before posting content to a blog: that their words can be read by enemies like al-Qaida terrorist leader Osama bin Laden. That means milbloggers need to write responsibly.

Missteps may well come, the panelists said, but the military should not respond by regulating blogs. "If the Army restricts bloggers," said Matt of Blackfive, "all you will have are ... dissident bloggers who are willing to take a risk."

John Noonan of OPFOR offered another idea instead: "We will help you and do it in a less abrasive way."

Posted by at 07:09 AM | Comments (0)

How deep is the partisan rancor in Congress? So deep that aides are bickering over who knows more about blogs.

The spat broke out in the House on Friday between spokesmen for Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Georgia Republican Jack Kingston, who has earned good press for his outreach to conservative bloggers. Kingston's press office started the verbal fight with a blog post (and subsequent e-mail to select bloggers) that proves even flacks can excel at "gotcha" journalism.

The entry noted that Pelosi, who recently generated some mixed coverage for her efforts in the blogosphere, had on her congressional site a tip sheet for wannabe congressional bloggers. The gotcha part of the story: Of the seven blogs recognized in the "Blogging 101" document generated by Pelosi's office, five of them were Republican.

GOP Bloggers and Suitably Flip were among the conservative blogs to note the development. "Maybe [Pelosi will] even take her own advice and kick off a blog of her own," Philip (Flip) Pidot wrote at Suitably Flip, adding that "to date, she appears only in the maniacal pages of Daily Kos."

Pelosi's staff reacted to the unflattering yet largely insignificant partisan jabs in knee-jerk fashion and pulled the blog advice offline. But that decision just made the story newsworthy -- especially because Kingston's Web-wise staff had expected the move and had made a copy of the document, which is now on Kingston's blog.

That's when Raw Story jumped on the story, inviting the spokesmen for Pelosi and Kingston to explain what happened. Here's the back-and-forth from Brendan Daly of Pelosi's office and David All of Kingston's office:

-- Now that Rep. Kingston is spending so much time on our web site, perhaps he'll learn a thing or two from the Democrats about our real plans to make health care more affordable, decrease gas prices, and protect our homeland. Clearly, he won't get that by reading the Republican blogs. (Daly)

-- It's strange that the minority leader's press shop would attack Republicans with angry, snarky rhetoric in a story about how their own 'blog tips' highlight the leadership of Republican blogs. Some folks just don't get it. (All)

Thankfully, lawmakers return from their Easter break this week, so we can hope that folks on Capitol Hill will hold their rhetorical fire for matters more substantive than which party is more in tune with the blogosphere.

Posted by at 12:31 PM | Comments (1)

House Majority Whip Roy Blunt and his wife, Abigail, are the proud adoptive parents of a new son from Russia. The Blunts officially welcomed 18-month-old Alexander Charles to their family in a statement released Friday.

The directors of RedState seized on the announcement as an opportunity to appeal for adoption reform. "Having gone through the adoption process and knowing the cumbersome bureaucracy involved," the directors wrote, "it would be a good thing if Representative Blunt encouraged the president, who one time suggested fixes to the system, to actually engage on the topic."

My wife, Kimberly, and I have traversed the bureaucratic maze of international adoption three times to adopt our son and daughters from Guatemala, so I fully appreciate the renewed appeal for change. But today, after the Blunts have welcomed a son and my own family just celebrated the one-year mark of our youngest daughter's homecoming, I'd much rather talk about the joy of adoption.

I can think of no better way to do that than pointing Beltway Blogroll readers to Catie Come Home, the blog my father and I wrote a year ago while in Guatemala.

Readers interested in adoption also might want to read "Our Long Journey To Parenthood," the essay I wrote in 1999 after the adoption of our son, Anthony. The essay also explains where our first daughter, Eliana, got her name.

Posted by at 12:23 PM | Comments (0)

Arizona Republican Rick Renzi apparently loves what he has seen at The Counterrorism Blog so much that he is willing to back that work from his own wallet.

Andrew Cochran, founder and co-editor of the blog, revealed yesterday that Renzi was one of the first contributors to the new Counterterrorism Foundation. That body accepts donations online to support the work done at the blog, including the embedding of writers like new blog co-editor Bill Roggio. He leaves for Afghanistan soon for another non-military stint with U.S. troops in that country.

"Rep. Renzi was inspired to run for Congress after personally witnessing the terrorist attack on the Pentagon on September 11, 2001, from his car as he was driving toward Washington," Cochran wrote. "He serves on the U.S. House Intelligence Committee and is the author of language included in the House-passed immigration bill [that] would use state-of-the-art technologies to protect our borders. We deeply appreciate Rep. Renzi's contribution and his support of the Counterterrorism Foundation."

Posted by at 04:28 PM | Comments (0)

Last year about this time, Tennessee blogger Bill Hobbs had a grand idea in legislative blogging.

His vision prompted him to created a Web site called VolPols, a place where every member of his home state's legislature could blog for free. To sweeten the pot, Hobbs offered his services as a blog consultant on the side to train any takers.

Sadly, no one in the Volunteer State accepted the offer, so now Hobbs is halting the project, at least temporarily. "Although I made the offer repeatedly to all members of the legislature, and specifically asked several Democratic and Republican members to start blogs on the site," Hobbs lamented, "none did. Today, there are no more blogging Tennessee legislators than there were a year ago."

While Hobbs has not abandoned the project, his note about it sounds a bit defeatist. That might have something to do with the controversy that has swirled around Hobbs the past several days over an unflattering cartoon depicting the Islamic prophet Mohammed that Hobbs briefly put online.

His idea about a portal for legislative blogs is a good one, though, and I hope he finds a way to resurrect it -- and perhaps duplicate it in all 50 states.

Posted by at 04:01 PM | Comments (0)

Sen. John Kerry on Saturday marked the 35th anniversary of his congressional testimony about the Vietnam War by urging readers of The Huffington Post to follow his example and challenge the Bush administration's actions in the war in Iraq.

Here's an excerpt from the Massachusetts Democrat's blog entry:

I felt compelled to speak out about what was happening in Vietnam, where the children of America were pulled from front porches and living rooms and plunged almost overnight into a world of sniper fire, ambushes, rockets, booby traps, body bags, explosions, sleeplessness, and the confusion created by an enemy who was sometimes invisible and firing at us, and sometimes right next to us and smiling. It was clear that thousands of Americans were losing their lives in Vietnam while politicians in Washington schemed to save their political reputations.

Thirty-five years later, in another war gone off course, I see history repeating itself. It is both a right and an obligation for Americans today to disagree with a president who is wrong, a policy that is wrong, and a course in Iraq that weakens the nation. Again, we must refuse to sit quietly and watch our troops sacrificed for a policy that isn't working while Americans who dissent and ask tough questions are branded unpatriotic.

Kerry's entry sounds like the kind that could spark a rise out of conservative bloggers. But Kerry also made an appearance on ABC's "This Week that is giving bloggers like Ed Morrissey of Captain's Quarters plenty to say about Kerry.

Posted by at 03:49 PM | Comments (0)

Soldiers, their family members and others who are part of the military blogging community (or fans of such "milbloggers") gathered in Washington today for the first annual Milblog Conference.

I was at the event and will provide a full report in my bi-weekly Beltway Blogroll column that goes online here Tuesday. I'll also post some other entries with insights that I cannot fit into the space constraints of the column. (That's one reason I love blogging instead!)

For now, here are some links to live-blog posts and other coverage of the event:

-- Argghhh
-- The Counterterrorism Blog
-- Crazy Politico's Rantings
-- Dadmanly
-- Euphoric Reality (separate entries for panels 1, 2 and 3)
-- The Gunn Nutt (panels 1, 2 and 3)
-- La Shawn Barber's Corner
-- Media Lies (here, here and here)
-- Milblogging
-- OPFOR
-- Pajamas Media

Posted by at 11:40 PM | Comments (0)

The directors of RedState opened the week with a powerful endorsement of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

"Secretary Rumsfeld has been a solid and committed leader during a time of great trial," they wrote in one of their occasional attempts at playing the role of information age editorial board. "If irritated [Defense Department] professionals and former members of the Pentagon bureaucracy is all it takes to oust a Defense secretary -- with an assist from grandstanding journalists, peaceniks in the streets and ill-informed conservatives on the op-ed pages -- then Washington is truly gone haywire. Our armed forces deserve better, and Donald Rumsfeld deserves our support."

Two days later, President Bush reiterated his support for Rumsfeld. "I'm the decider, and I decide what is best. And what's best is for Don Rumsfeld to remain as secretary of Defense."

Other blog bits from this week:

-- Hugh Hewitt challenged bloggers to toss some financial support to the Minnesota Senate campaign of Republican Rep. Mark Kennedy. The Republican National Committee echoed the call, as did Captain's Quarters.

-- Hotline On Call noted that former Virginia Gov. Mark Warner, a potential Democratic presidential candidate in 2008, placed a call to Iowa-based blogger Chris Woods (corrected per comment below), a contributor at MyDD. Warner reportedly took that step before contacting Iowa's well-known political writers. Fellow MyDD blogger Matt Stoller proclaimed Bowers a "kingmaker" for his newfound notoriety.

-- A Senate candidate has taken his campaign to the MySpace social-networking service. A mayoral candidate in New Orleans, meanwhile, found herself in trouble over a manufactured photo on her campaign site, according to 13th Floor.

-- Stoller took a half-dozen fellow Democrats to task for voting against what he considers strong language to ensure "network neutrality," a term that refers to equal treatment for content delivered over high-speed Internet services. Those six House members "took a sledgehammer to the Internet," Stoller said. It was the first of his two shots at people in his own party over the issue. The second one blasted former White House press secretary Mike McCurry. Are we seeing the makings of a blog swarm on net neutrality?

-- Michelle Malkin touted the "Send A Brick" to Congress campaign being run by a citizens' group that opposes amnesty for illegal immigrants. Add that to last week's blog bit about a blogger's delivery of "rubber stamps" to a senator, and I'd say lawmakers are getting some strange deliveries these days. I wonder how tough it is to get bricks and rubber stamps through the tighter security on Capitol Hill.

-- Carol Darr of the Institute for Politics, Democracy and the Internet was featured in another article and online chat about new campaign finance rules for the Internet. Neither Duncan Black of Eschaton nor Adam Bonin of Daily Kos were impressed. (I interviewed Darr for my column on the same topic about two weeks ago.)

-- Two House lawmakers who recently returned from a trip to Iraq reported on their journey in a blog call this week. Human Events Online, A Soldier's Perspective and Suitably Flip wrote entries after the call.

-- Steve Clemons of The Washington Note recapped a dinner session with John Bellinger, the lawyer for Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

-- The Counterterrorism Blog has a new look and a new partner. Milblogger Bill Roggio of The Fourth Rail is now a co-editor of the publication. Blog founder Andrew Cochran explained the changes this week.

-- The ever-entrepreneurial Joshua Micah Marshall of Talking Points Memo has a new project in the works: a publication to provide thorough coverage of 30 to 40 congressional races "that seem genuinely in play." What will his fellow Democratic bloggers who believe every district should be considered competitive think about one of their own deeming just a handful of races worthy of attention?

-- Armando, a regular contributor at Daily Kos, doesn't walk in the same circles as Josh Trevino, one of the founders of RedState. But the two have decided to square off at a new blog called Swords Crossed. Armando shared his thoughts on the new venture.

-- The Washington Post published a critical look at liberal bloggers. Liberal bloggers reacted predictably, labeling it a "hit piece" and "payback" for liberal bloggers who criticized the paper.

-- The word from the latest "State Of The Blogosphere" report: There are now 35.3 million blogs, with the number still doubling about every six months.

Posted by at 07:15 AM | Comments (1)

If you want to know about the growing influence of legal blogs, third-year Ohio State University law student Ian Best is the man with the answers.

Late last week at his 3L Epiphany blog, he posted an entry that lists court decisions with blog citations. The list encompasses 23 cases from federal and state courts across the country. The states include California, Florida, Indiana, Massachusetts, New York, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio Tennessee, Utah, West Virginia and Wisconsin.

The earliest citation was in a 2003 case before the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of appeals; the rest occurred between 2004 and the present, with the latest being cases in Florida and Ohio this year.

"The blog with the most case citations is Sentencing Law and Policy, with 21 citations in 17 cases," Best wrote. He added that "three other well-known legal blogs" -- How Appealing, Legal Theory Blog and The Volokh Conspiracy -- merited citations, too.

Eugene Volokh praised Doug Berman of Sentencing Law and Policy for getting so much attention from judges. "Many (likely most) law professors never get that many court citations for all their law review articles put together, much less for their blog posts," Volokh wrote.

Best followed his research on blog citations in court cases with insightful interviews about blogs with two judges: U.S. District Judge Richard Kopf in Nebraska and Ohio Supreme Court Justice Judith Lanzinger. Both shared their insights about blogs and their blog-reading habits (Kopf reads them every day, Lanzinger only "periodically").

Lanzinger offered this warning: "Assuming that legal blogs are now in their infancy, and that they will grow to have a long and fruitful life, I think that lawyers who ignore them altogether will do so at their peril."

Kopf also shared his thoughts on how technology might lead to other changes in the legal world. He noted in particular the potential impact of both video and audio technology.

"[A]s video technology and the Net become interwoven," he said, "I see little reason to require witnesses to travel long distances to attend trials when they could as easily appear by interactive video. As another example, think about whether court reporters are needed given advances in digital audio recording. Digital audio recordings of trials can be provided over the Net, perhaps even in real time. Vendors located at any place in the world could access the digital audio over the Net and bid to provide transcriptions, presumably at very low prices."

(Hat tip to Concurring Opinions.)

Posted by at 09:04 AM | Comments (0)

"The Rise Of Blogs," the article I wrote for National Journal magazine in January, made the point that bloggers are "influentials" among their peers. BlogAds founder Henry Copeland noted that "the blogosphere is crawling with certified, grade-A opinion makers.

New analysis from Jupiter Research, as reported by ElectricNews.Net and The Guardian, drives that point home. Although the article focuses on the influence of blogs in Europe, and particularly the media and business sectors there, the message that bloggers exert a "disproportionately large influence" on society holds true for the the American political realm, too.

The lead at ElectricNews.Net captures the essence of the research nicely: "Companies that ignore the opinions of bloggers and Internet commentators could create massive public relations disasters." Just change the word "companies" to "government officials," and the conclusion just as readily applies to Washington.

Posted by at 07:15 AM | Comments (0)

This year's Pulitzer Prize winners were announced yesterday, and bloggers who love to hate the media wasted no time in reacting.

With few exceptions, the reactions are surprisingly muted. Power Line penned the harshest criticisms -- over the award to The New York Times ("The Pulitzer Prize For Treason") for breaking the news about secret domestic surveillance by the Bush administration, and over the award to Washington Post fashion writer Robin Givhan ("The Pulitzer Prize for Vapidity").

Firedoglake also lamented "what a sad waste of time the Pulitzers have become." But one writer at Daily Kos, which keeps company in the same part of the blogosphere as Firedoglake, had a different take: "This year's Pulitzers have been announced, featuring some outstanding work, and some not so outstanding work, but that happens."

America Abroad, Americablog and Michelle Malkin also commented. The Hotline's Blogometer has a roundup as well.

Posted by at 12:36 PM | Comments (0)

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, a potential presidential candidate in 2008, is making a concerted push to be an innovator in the realm of political technology.

Last week, the Tennessee Republican launched his own podcasts at the Web site for VOLPAC, his political action committee. "In these podcasts, I'll be giving unscripted and unfiltered updates from Washington, D.C., about legislation in the Senate and from across America as I campaign with conservative candidates," Frist wrote. "We already have five of these updates on the site now."

Frist also is one of Congress' early and more prolific bloggers, and he has granted exclusive podcasts to Instapundit Glenn Reynolds, who lives in Tennessee.

Today, Frist added another element to his tech forays: iFrist Volunteers. "If Republicans are going to continue to lead America forward," Frist wrote at his blog, "we need to do a better job communicating with the Republican grassroots. ... IFrist volunteers can sign petitions, complete surveys, endorse candidates, spread the word and help build support for the Republican agenda by encouraging their friends, family and co-workers to participate."

All of the activity prompted Washington Post blogger Chris Cillizza to wonder aloud whether Frist is the "Howard Dean of the GOP" -- a reference to the Democratic presidential candidate who caused the biggest blogospheric and online stir in 2004. Cillizza said Frist "appears to be the candidate most closely copying the Internet blueprint of Dean."

Scott Shields of MyDD, one of the blogs that rose to prominence during the Dean campaign, scoffed at the notion that Frist is anything like Dean. In a fundamentally lazy statement, he stereotyped most journalists as being "fundamentally lazy," with Cillizza's "pretty much mindless piece" as the only evidence to support his sweeping generalization.

Shields' point about the differences between Frist and Dean is fair enough. "Dean established himself as a credible political figure as the governor of a small state and likely wouldn't have attained the level of national notoriety he did without the progressive netroots behind him," Shields wrote. "In contrast, Senator Frist is the majority leader of the United States Senate. He's already in the national spotlight."

But Shields' slap at journalists is both ridiculous and wrong. It's kind of like a certain journalist who infamously dismissed all bloggers as pajama-clad losers.

UPDATE: Shields apparently thinks he hurt my feelings with his comment about lazy journalists. That's just as ridiculous and wrong as his comment about journalists. Shields didn't call me lazy, so why would my feelings be hurt.

I've also known and worked with a few lazy journalists in my day and have no problem believing they exist. Plus I have criticized my journalistic colleagues for their shortcomings, especially their sweeping generalizations about bloggers, so I firmly believe that all of us, including me, can improve the work we do.

But Shields' attack on "most" journalists based on a single blog posting written by one of them -- and a blog posting that arguably offers some worthwhile insight -- is baseless. It was driven by his own affinity for Dean and his desire not to have his political hero associated with a leading Republican.

Shields may well be right that Bill Frist is no Howard Dean. He certainly supported that view with more evidence and insight than his potshot at journalists. But his take on journalists is quite wrong. As I said, most of us are no more lazy than most bloggers are pajama-clad losers.

UPDATE II: This response from Shields also is misleading: "Take all of the journalists in the world -- every small-town AM radio reporter, every local coupon-clipper stringer, etc. -- and I promise you will find that most are not doing Seymour Hersh-level journalism." He's probably right on that score. But his initial entry clearly stated that he was referring to journalists (like Cillizza) who do their work in the political arena.

UPDATE III: Daily Kos also reacted to Cillizza's comparison of Frist to Dean, minus the poke at journalists. The conclusion: "Where Dean ... and others use the Internet as a means of citizen empowerment, Frist and others use it as a means of retaining power themselves."

Posted by at 12:07 PM | Comments (7)

Rep. Jack Kingston held a conference call with a handful of conservative bloggers. The subjects ranged from Iraq and Iran to immigration reform and energy independence.

You can get full reports at Capitol Report, Captain's Quarters, HughHewitt.com, Right Wing News, The Right Angle and Wizbang.

Later in the week, The Washington Times mentioned the blog call in a story on Kingston's outreach to blogs.

The Hill covered the flip side of that coin: blog outreach by House Democrats, particularly Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, R-Calif. Capitol Report, GOP Bloggers and even the blog of the Republican National Committee highlighted the less-flattering aspects of the article.

The liberal Americablog, by contrast played up this quote from the story: "The liberal blogosphere is better developed than its conservative counterpart." And Matt Stoller of MyDD added that "it's good to see more recognition of the progressive blogosphere."

It's always amusing to see how the same story can spark such conflicting reactions.

More blog bits from this week:

-- Word that outgoing Rep. Tom DeLay, R-Texas, might be chosen by President Bush to head the White House Office of Management and Budget sparked a flurry of commentary in the blogosphere. For views across the political spectrum, visit Capitol Report, Firedoglake, Power Line, The Stakeholder and TPM Muckraker.

-- Stoller played delivery man to the office of Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., on behalf of the Rubber Stamp Republican Congress project of Firedoglake.

-- When Stoller caught some heat from his friends in the liberal blogosphere, meanwhile, he changed his mind about Rep. Melissa Bean, D-Illinois. And Chris Bowers of MyDD provided an update on the push to recruit Democrats for races in most House districts.

-- Pat Cleary of ShopFloor, the blog of the National Association of Manufacturers, praised his readers for bombarding the Interior Department with comments about the push for environmentally safe mineral exploration.

-- The Week magazine published its explanation of why it chose Ed Morrissey of Captain's Quarters as blogger of the year. For more evidence of why he won the award, check this bit of enterprising journalism about Iraq intelligence, as well as the response at both Barone Blog and RedState.

-- The Cincinnati Enquirer stopped publishing the "Grandma in Iraq" blog after bad press about the author of the blog, an Army public affairs officer.

-- Rick Hasen of Election Law concluded that new Federal Election Commissioner Hans von Spakovsky once wrote under the pseudonym "Publius."

-- CNN reported on complaints by two former staffers to Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., that he made them baby-sit, run errands and do political work. GOP Bloggers said it's about time someone covered the story. But what inquiring blogosphere minds really want to know is whether Conyers made the employees blog at ConyersBlog.

-- Andy Roth of The Club For Growth really wanted to find some useful information in "Crashing The Gates," the book by liberal bloggers Jerome Armstrong and Markos Moulitsas Zuniga. He didn't.

-- TalkLeft is being blocked at a public library in California.

-- Blogging by research universities: Blogspotting at BusinessWeek Online has a host of questions about the merits of the practice.

-- ABC News Washington correspondent Jake Tapper announced that he is taking a break from blogging at Down and Dirty "for a host of complicated reasons."

-- What makes a blog a blog? Asked and answered, in multiple ways, at Concurring Opinions.

Posted by at 11:49 AM | Comments (0)

Yesterday's update to my ongoing list of links to candidate and lawmaker interviews included a series of pointers to video blog clips with Sen. John McCain at Ankle Biting Pundits.

That site has a new clip up today, this one with former House Speaker Newt Gingrich. The topic is the war in Iraq.

Gingrich is not technically a lawmaker or candidate, but that's not the reason for this separate blurb. Rather, my goal here is to draw attention to something profound that Patrick Hynes said about video blogs, or vlogs, in his blog entry to highlight the video.

"Blogs have already damaged the credibility of the MSM," he wrote. "I believe vlogging has the potential to kill off agenda-driven, gotcha journalism. Newsmakers can now go straight to the people with the facts, not run them through the filter of what Rush [Limbaugh] calls 'the drive-by media.'"

He's absolutely correct -- and that's why I expect to see more vlogging in both the political and policy arenas.

Posted by at 12:51 PM | Comments (5)