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May 25, 2006Road Trip ... And Blog Maintenance
My family is headed south on vacation today, so posting will be light here for a couple of weeks.
In addition, the site will be undergoing some maintenance during the Memorial Day weekend, so I won't be posting at all then.
I will resume more regular updates June 8. Enjoy the holiday!
Posted by Danny at 08:38 AM | Comments (0)
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Former Federal Election Commissioner Brad Smith said the threat of campaign regulations for blogs is still very much alive, despite the FEC largely exempting blogs earlier this year.
Now a contributor at RedState, Smith pointed readers to a new article that included what he saw as a foreboding quote from Rep. Tom Allen, D-Maine.
Allen "co-sponsored legislation in March that would bring political Web sites under campaign finance rules if they spend $5,000 or more on their operations," the paper wrote. "He said he would watch how blogs factor into the 2006 races under the FEC rules before deciding whether to press the issue."
Smith's reaction: "We need to understand that these guys are relentlessly hostile to free, unfettered political speech. Every bit of freedom they see as a potential threat, and they are always ready to regulate as soon as they think the have the votes."
Posted by Danny at 07:04 AM | Comments (0)
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Rep. Sherrod Brown, a Democrat who is running to become Ohio's next governor, made an appeal online for a compromise on stem-cell research yesterday.
The pitch came one year after the House voted to end Bush administration limits on such research, with Brown noting that the legislation has been stalled in the Senate ever since.
"Americans are united in their support for this vital research, which holds the promise to cure and treat cancer, diabetes, multiple sclerosis, Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, cancer, Lou Gehrig's Disease, and spinal cord injuries," Brown wrote at The Huffington Post. He directed readers to a petition on his campaign site dedicated to the issue.
"The truth is that if the stem-cell research bill came to the Senate floor for a vote today, it would pass," Brown said. "A few extremists on the Republican side have been allowed to keep this vital research from moving forward."
Posted by Danny at 06:55 AM | Comments (0)
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Old Media And New Media Converge
Associated Press and Technorati, the search engine for blogs, have reached a deal that will draw a virtual line between the most popular AP articles and the blogs that are writing about them.
"We currently track more than 40 million blogs," said David Sifry, founder and CEO of Technorati, "and bloggers the world over are increasingly helping to shape our knowledge, opinions and ideas -- joining professional journalists in the telling of the complex stories of our lives."
It's a smart move on AP's part and one that I imagine more traditional outlets will follow soon enough.
Get the details on the AP/Technorati deal from PRNewswire. AP's technology writer also penned a story on that deal and another one between AP and the search engine Topix.net
Posted by Danny at 04:34 PM | Comments (0)
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Democratic bloggers who have preached against the Republican "culture of corruption" are going out of their way to be consistent by publicly criticizing alleged transgressions of a lawmaker in their own party -- even before guilt has been formally established.
Their focus is Rep. William Jefferson of Louisiana, the subject of an FBI bribery investigation. A diarist at Daily Kos said Democratic leaders should force Jefferson to resign, and blog founder Markos Moulitsas Zuniga endorsed the idea. "No double standards," Moulitsas said. "Corruption is corruption, no matter where it may arise."
Party leaders shouldn't wait for Jefferson to resign, either, said the diarist blogging under the pseudonym VirginiaDem. They should send him a message.
"Strip him of his committee assignments. Pull support and sponsors from his bills. Cut off all ties between the party apparatus and his scandalous office. Return any money he has given to the party, even if given in previous cycles. Tell all Democratic candidates and officials that they must disassociate from him, too. ... Don't send him a nickel, don't throw him a fundraiser, don't sit around silently hoping he'll go away. Just show him the door."
Like most content in the political blogosphere, however, the appeal had a partisan edge to it. VirginiaDem said Jefferson needs to be forced out because his presence is undermining the effort to paint the GOP as the party of corruption. The postscript: "Whatever you do, don't act like a Republican."
UPDATE: Spurred by an appeal from House candidate Francine Busby, D-Calif., Duncan Black of Eschaton joined those calling for Jefferson's resignation.
"Jefferson is certainly entitled to his legal defense, and he's also certainly entitled to defend himself in the court of public opinion, but since the former is preventing him from doing the latter, I agree with Francine Busby that it's time for him to step down," Black said.
Posted by Danny at 12:34 PM | Comments (1)
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Every Democratic member of Congress now has a copy of "Crashing The Gate: Netroots, Grassroots, and the Rise of People-Powered Politics," a book authored by bloggers Jerome Armstrong and Markos Moulitsas Zuniga.
Volunteers hand-delivered the manifesto to House and Senate offices yesterday as part of the "Roots Project" spearheaded by liberal bloggers. PoliticsTV even videotaped the deliveries.
The next step, according to Christy Hardin Smith at Firedoglake: "[C]all your senators and your member of the House of Representatives and let them know that the copy of "Crashing the Gate" was from you and several thousand of your friends. We'd like calls from everyone ... so they understand that this isn't just a book they can put on a shelf somewhere, but that we hope that they will read it and start a dialogue with all of us."
Posted by Danny at 12:22 PM | Comments (0)
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Outgoing CBS Evening News anchor Bob Scheiffer gave the keynote address last night at the annual Deadline Club Awards ceremony to honor the best in New York-based journalism, and he shared a few thoughts about blogs and the mainstream media.
The report from FishbowlNY:
Schieffer also told an audience of predominantly print and television journalists to not let blogs "rattle us." He said that there are three types of blogs: "straight blogs," "partisan blogs" and "totally irresponsible" blogs -- those akin to people "who put viruses on your computer." Journalists, he said, should "ignore that part of the blogosphere."
That sounds about right to me in terms of the political blogosphere, though I'm not quite sure what Scheiffer meant by "straight blogs." I suspect that most political and policy blogs fall into the partisan category -- and that's not necessarily a bad thing.
Posted by Danny at 12:16 PM | Comments (0)
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The National Association of Manufacturers is not a believer in the hype about global warming. So Pat Cleary, NAM's blogger at ShopFloor, sure was surprised when he found a friendly link to his site from climatecrisis.net, the Web site for the global warming documentary "An Inconvenient Truth."
The film is about former Vice President Al Gore and his crusade to halt global warming. The Web site for the documentary has a blog, and despite its criticisms of the film, ShopFloor somehow merited a link under the "Conversations About Global Warming." Clearly said the link, the only one to take a critical look at popular theories about global warming, remained online from Friday through Sunday.
"In what can only be a colossal mistake by the Father of the Internet, the official blog site for Al Gore's new movie has on its front page a prominent link to the blog you are now reading," Cleary gloated on Monday. In closing, he added in jest, "We want to thank Our Great White Internet Father for this magnanimous if unintentional olive branch and want to bask in the glow of balance and peace reigning in the kingdom, if only 'til somebody gets fired."
One ShopFloor reader saw things a bit differently, suggesting that the blog for the documentary "auto-pulled" the ShopFloor content via a tool provided by the Technorati search engine for blogs. "Frankly, I applaud them for letting be so transparent," the anonymous Xerxes said.
Clearly questioned that rationale. "I think this was a colossal blunder," he said in an e-mail, "so [Technorati] wouldn't normally work this way." But I checked the film's blog today and found a link to this equally critical post about global warming. It looks like other voices are at least occasionally welcome there.
ShopFloor, on the other hand, does not link to "An Inconvenient Truth" when it mentions the film. But it does jokingly link to less politically volatile and more mainstream movies like "Over the Hedge" and "RV."
Is somebody there worried about being fired if Gore's site receives similar link love?
Posted by Danny at 11:59 AM | Comments (0)
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What's A Conservative To Do?
At 10:49 a.m. on Saturday, May 13, Bruce Kesler of Democracy Project fired the rhetorical shot heard 'round the conservative blogosphere. Under the header "Conservative Battle Fatigue," he diagnosed a trio of his favorite online writers as having the political equivalent of post-traumatic stress disorder.
Their open criticisms of President Bush and the GOP-led Congress, Kesler said, are symptoms of the ailment. They have been "worn down by defending difficult positions at the forefront of the battle against irredentist Democrats in Congress and their fifth column in the media."
Kesler concluded with this hopeful yet pointed thought: "I wish them a speedy recovery, before more adversaries are allowed to breach the walls because of their petulance."
All three bloggers -- Stephen Bainbridge, Ed Morrissey and Mark Tapscott -- rejected the diagnosis. And thus began a debate about what a true conservative is supposed to do when the "compassionate conservative" in the White House and the Republican revolutionaries in Congress lose their way on the path of rightward-ness.
Tapscott took the lead, noting that one of his goals "is to encourage a discussion in the blogosphere about whether the GOP deserves the continued support" of its base. An editorial he wrote for The Washington Examiner helped accomplish that goal by inciting Kesler to speak, and Tapscott then seized on the opportunity to continue the debate at his blog.
Over six days at Tapscott's Copy Desk, he posted seven entries on conservative battle fatigue. Tapscott outlined a series of conservative-minded votes on immigration, federal spending and other issues that Congress could take to "nationalize" this year's election and regain favor with its electoral base.
If they fail, he said, "conservatives then have an obligation to find or create a new party." And they can do that by seizing the tools of the Internet. "What the Internet has done to the mainstream media ... can and most likely will be done to all of the 'Bigs' of our society, including Big Government and the political parties that live by it," Tapscott wrote.
Each new post fostered more of the discussion he sought, both on his site and in other Republican pockets of the blogosphere. One of the more amusing contributions -- a flow chart that sarcastically mapped "a fiendishly simple path to Republican victory in '08" -- was posted at Point Five.
The debate really gained momentum when Jim Geraghty of National Review Online took exception to the thinking of some conservatives that maybe it would be better in the long run if Republicans lost control of Congress this fall.
"If I want a more conservative government, I get it by electing the more conservative of the two choices, even if he isn't as conservative as I would like," Geraghty said. "I do not get it by sitting on the sidelines and pouting, and letting the less conservative guy take the reigns of power."
That's when Hugh Hewitt joined the fun. He cast the debate as one between Geraghtyites and Tapscottians, and put himself in Geraghty's camp. He also needled Tapscott and reminded him of the judicial cost if Democrats regain control of Congress and thus keep conservatives off the federal bench.
"Do you really care about the abuse of eminent domain?" Hewitt wrote. "The absurd decisions stripping 'under God' from the pledge or the tiny cross from the city seal of Los Angeles because of a threat from the ACLU? How about the executive's ability to conduct the war and keep unlawful combatants from clogging the courts with their demands for due process for terrorists?... The list goes on and on, and the left's judges don't give up and go home."
The intraparty debate briefly cooled from boil to simmer late last week. Geraghty offered his closing thoughts Thursday, and Tapscott posted his "final note" the next day, after the topic made it into the mainstream media courtesy of columnist Peggy Noonan.
But The Washington Post turned up the heat again Sunday with a column titled "Bush's Base Betrayal." Key players in the blogosphere discussion -- Bainbridge, Kesler, Morrissey and Tapscott seized on that piece as an opportunity to cross swords again.
Kesler thinks the debate is worth having. "My objective was to draw out constructive alternatives and programs," Kesler said via e-mail. "I think that succeeded. I'm constantly impressed by the respect for each other and the ability of bloggers to be positive and constructive, far more forward-looking than most MSM columnists."
He identified a two-pronged consensus from the debate: building a stronger Republican majority, and renewing activism at the state and local levels to send a message to the Washington GOP establishment. He said the Geraghtyite view will prevail -- but "only because the strong stand by Tapscott will have spurred more than inside-Beltway Republicanism."
Tapscott agreed that the Geraghtyite philosophy appears to be the stronger one. "Judging by the bruises all over my head, I'd say it already has" prevailed, Tapscott joked.
Even so, he said the Tapscottians will exercise their voice at the polls. "How these folks vote will be determined entirely by whether the GOP leadership achieves significant progress in enacting the conservative reforms they've been promising for years," Tapscott said.
Posted by Danny at 07:18 AM | Comments (4)
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Fans of Lorie Byrd and Alexander McClure, two former contributors at the conservative PoliPundit, quickly landed on their feet at different group blogs after last week's PoliPundit implosion.
Wizbang welcomed Byrd to its ranks today, and she introduced herself to readers. McClure made his debut at RedState on Friday.
Posted by Danny at 07:14 AM | Comments (1)
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The Supreme Way To Argue Online
Getting a case all the way to the Supreme Court is a momentous occasion -- perhaps even the kind that merits a blog.
The Pacific Legal Foundation certainly thinks so. It has a new blog decidated to one pending environmental case: Rapanos v. United States. The foundation has dubbed the dispute "the most important property rights case before the court this year."
"Pacific Legal Foundation is representing John Rapanos, a 70-year-old grandfather of six who has stood up to federal regulators' 18-year crusade against him -- all because he moved sand on his own property without a federal permit," the foundation said in a backgrounder published online. Regulators tried to put Rapanos in jail for failing to follow federal law on protecting wetlands and lost, the foundation said, but now Rapanos faces financial fines and damages in a civil lawsuit.
The Supreme Court hears oral arguments in dozens of cases every year and rules on even more in one way or another, so there is great potential to expand the legal blogging community via case-focused blogs.
I can think of at least two good reasons to create such blogs: 1) provide regular news and commentary for the niche communities following the cases; and 2) build grassroots support for one view or the other. The new blog by the Pacific Legal Foundation skews more toward the first goal, but case-focused activist blogs may well be on the horizon.
And if the authors are lucky, maybe the court's justices will discover their blogs and consider the views they read there. It wouldn't be the first time that blogs played a role in the U.S. legal system.
Posted by Danny at 12:35 PM | Comments (0)
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Bull Moose Marshall Wittmann, whose animosity toward the netroots is obvious in his writings, mocked the math skills of liberal bloggers who are celebrating Friday's showing of Democratic Senate candidate Ned Lamont at the Connecticut Democratic Party convention.
"The Moose observes that the McGovernites with modems cannot do math," Wittmann wrote. "By an overwhelming majority, Joe Lieberman is the officially endorsed candidate of the Connecticut Democratic Party. No matter how you spin it, if you are on the short end of 67 to 33, you lose -- unless if you live in the parallel universe of the netroots. ... When one has a modem, anything is possible."
Wittmann praised Lieberman's support for the war in Iraq and again chastised the mainstream media for failing to report that Lamont's campaign prominently used Daily Kos founder Markos Moulitsas Zuniga in an online advertisement. Wittmann registered the same gripe in separate entries last week, noting Moulitsas' infamous "screw them" remark about slain contractors in Iraq that he called "mercenaries."
The presidential campaign of Democrat John Kerry dropped its link to Daily Kos over that comment in 2004, and Wittmann thinks the Lamont campaign should take the same stand by distancing itself from Moulitsas. "And when will the press focus on the fact that Mr. Lamont chose a co-star for his first commercial who once denigrated the deaths of Americans at the hands of terrorists?" Wittmann asked.
Posted by Danny at 09:07 AM | Comments (1)
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A Victory For Lieberman Or Lamont?
Connecticut Democrats on Friday nominated Joseph Lieberman for a fourth term in the Senate. But The Boston Globe reports that his intraparty challenger, businessman Ned Lamont, won enough votes to force a primary on Aug. 8.
Liberal bloggers who have rallied around Lamont because of his opposition to the Iraq war rejoiced at the news. Though Lieberman won the race by a tally of 67 percent to 33 percent, bloggers said Lamont was the real winner because he mustered more than double the minimum 15 percent of delegates he needed to get into the primary.
"We might have just pushed Joe Lieberman out of the Democratic Party and put a whole lot of D.C. Democrats in awkward positions," gloated Matt Stoller of MyDD, who live-blogged the state convention. "If Joe becomes an independent, we will also have changed the netroots narrative."
Chris Bowers cited Lamont's showing as the latest evidence of the growing influence and organization of the netroots. He concluded: "I can only imagine that the right-wing political blogosphere must seethe with envy over how the media and the political establishment has become so much more entranced with the progressive political blogosphere. ... A new power is rising in American politics. The progressive netroots are altering the entire political ecosystem, and things will never be the same again."
One diarist at MyDD challenged the prevailing view about the Connecticut state convention. "Joe Lieberman is victorious. Ned Lamont is a loser!," he wrote under the pseudonym Lieberman Lives. "This was the liberal party faithful, and still Joe won over 65 percent. Now we'll take this victory and Joe will slam the door on Lamont, and his one issue. Gee Matt, and Chris, how does it feel to have lost by about 35 percent."
James Joyner of Outside the Beltway made a similar point. "So, despite getting 1,004 of 1,509 votes among hard-core Democrats, Lieberman was 'severely rebuked' and [the vote was] 'a stunning victory for Ned Lamont'? Huh?"
But such numbers-based opinions were clearly the exception. Triumphant entries like those at Daily Kos, Eschaton and Firedoglake were the norm.
Stoller acknowledged that the blog war against Lieberman has not been won. He predicted that the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, for instance, probably still would invest its money and expertise in Lieberman if he decides to run as an independent. Plus Lieberman "has $5 million that he can spend on sliming Lamont," Stoller said. He urged bloggers to offer their financial support to Lamont via the ActBlue fundraising page for netroots candidates.
Tom Watson proclaimed Lamont "the first YouTube candidate" because his campaign and his supporters have used that online video service so effectively to rally support for Lamont. And as if to prove the point, Lamont quickly produced an online video to thank bloggers for their role in elevating his candidacy.
Here are links to other coverage of the Lamont/Lieberman race and the role of bloggers in that contest:
-- "Ned Lamont For Senate: This Is What I Believe In" (Bowers at MyDD, after spending time with the Lamont campaign)
-- "'Dump Joe,' Cry Liberal Bloggers" (Hartford Courant)
-- "Joe's Getting Blogged Down" (NE Magazine/Hartford Courant)
-- "Kos Celeb" (The Wall Street Journal)
-- "The Left vs. Joe Lieberman" (The New Republic, also in the Los Angeles Times)
-- Column in the Norwich Bulletin of Connecticut
Posted by Danny at 04:32 PM | Comments (0)
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John Conyers of Michigan co-sponsored a bill on "network neutrality" in his role as the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, and he blogged about the legislation at MyDD.
Net neutrality describes the legislative effort to prevent the owners of high-speed Internet networks from charging higher prices to deliver certain high-bandwidth content through their Web pipes. The topic has been the subject of a fairly intense blog swarm for the past several weeks.
Conyers co-sponsored the new bill with Judiciary Chairman James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., because they are not satisified with the language on net neutrality approved by the House Energy and Commerce Committee. National Journal's Technology Daily reported last week that Judiciary was denied the chance to review that measure, so Sensenbrenner and Conyers filed the separate bill.
Conyers said telecommunications companies "have floated the idea of charging Web sites for access. Those who pay will get faster and more reliable delivery of their content to Web surfers. Those who do not will see the delivery of their content degraded.
"In the interests of openness, I frankly acknowledge that I am a recent convert to this point of view," he added. "A few years ago, I publicly expressed my view that regulation to stop impediments to net neutrality was a solution in search of a problem. At that point, I was aware of no telecommunications company that had expressed a desire to do so. That has clearly changed."
Posted by Danny at 03:53 PM | Comments (0)
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Friday Festival Of Blog Bits
PoliPundit may well have lost its place among the Republican blogosphere elite this week, as the group blog imploded in an ugly dispute over the site's stance on immigration reform.
The editorial divorce appears to have been coming for some time. PoliPundit, the anonymous blogger who founded the site, insisted on taking a hard line on immigration and didn't much like that the other bloggers he invited to the site openly disagreed.
The animosity among the PoliPundit contributors had become painfully obvious in recent days, perhaps most noticeably in two posts by D.J. Drummond. Drummond talked openly about his heated differences with the founder of the site but insisted that he had no plans to leave because of them.
That was before President Bush spoke to the nation about immigration reform, however. The spat quickly elevated behind the scenes after the speech, and within hours, PoliPundit contributor Lorie Byrd had announced her departure from the site.
Since then, PoliPundit has posted farewell messages from Drummond and Alexandar McClure, as well as his own retort to Byrd's last post. Though the bloggers who left have tried to be cordial since the split, the pointed and downright nasty comments on PoliPundit's post indicate how much damage the controversy has done to the reputation of the site and its founder.
Other bloggers also have criticized PoliPundit. "It's apparent that Poli has let his personal feelings interfere with his judgment here," The New Editor wrote. "When editors and writers at the MSM do that, we call them on it. A blog wallpapered with advertising should adhere to a higher standard than personal venting."
Dale Franks offered the perspective of someone who has engaged in debates with his colleagues at The QandO Blog, another group effort. "[I]f you're gonna run a group blog, then it seems to me that you have to allow for these disagreements at the margin," he said. "It is unreasonable to expect any group of three or more people to maintain perfect ideological lockstep. Moreover, it adds, I think, to the spice of a group blog. Overall, I think it's a good thing that members of a group blog can find and explore areas of disagreement."
Various blogs, including Captain's Quarters, Democracy Project and Wizbang, encouraged their readers to support Byrd in particular at her own blog and wherever she may go next.
For more blog bits from this week, go to the extended entry.
-- A confident report from Chris Bowers of MyDD after his election to a Democratic Party post this week: "I will now serve on the Pennsylvania Democratic State Committee. The city, the state, and the nation will change as a result. I promise everyone that.
-- Bloggers like to plug pet policy topics periodically, and the ones that merited mentions this week included voting rights for the District of Columbia and term limits for appropriators. Art Brodsky of Public Knowledge also posted two entries on telecom reform at TPMCafe.
-- Some bloggers sense "a subtle shift in the ways in which foreign affairs are being discussed in the blogosphere."
-- Tennessee blogger Bill Hobbs drafted a plan to save Bush's presidency. The gist of it: "screw the left every chance he gets" and stop caving to moderates and liberals.
-- Daily Kos founder Markos Moulitsas Zuniga was featured in a campaign ad for Ned Lamont, a Democratic Senate candidate in Connecticut. Hot Air had a little fun remixing the ad. Lamont also launched his campaign blog.
-- Duncan Black of Eschaton made a fundraising pitch for two of his favorite candidates in his home state of Pennsylvania: Lois Murphy and Patrick Murphy (no relation). They won their primary races this week.
-- Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean accepted an invitation to speak at the YearlyKos convention in Las Vegas next month.
-- Who are the favorite columnists of conservative bloggers? Right Wing News has the answers.
-- Winfield Myers is back to blogging at Democracy Project after a break of nearly a year to serve as managing editor of The American Enterprise magazine. His new full-time job is director of Campus Watch.
-- A Huffington Post contributor launched a "meet the blogger" feature, with himself as the initial subject. That's just what I would expect from a blogger.
-- Allison Hayward of Skeptic's Eye may hold the honor of being the first blogger to attend a State Dinner. She was at the White House this week when Bush welcomed Australian Prime Minister John Howard.
-- The Wall Street Journal exposed some erroneous reporting on the Web about White House adviser Karl Rove; conservative bloggers rejoiced at the misfortune of their enemies on the left; and liberal bloggers bashed the Journal and boasted of their self-policing prowess. Such is the circle of life in the blogosphere.
Posted by Danny at 10:30 AM | Comments (0)
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In The Blog's-Eye: Murtha And The Marines
Liberal bloggers went ballistic last fall when Rep. Jean Schmidt appeared to call Rep. John Murtha a "coward" for advocating a withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq. Now Murtha, D-Pa., finds himself in hot water over some recent blunt words he uttered about U.S. soldiers.
Army Times reported today that Murtha, a former Marine, said Marines "killed innocent civilians in cold blood" in Iraq on Nov. 19. Ironically, the incident occurred just days before the House floor debate where Schmidt, R-Ohio, made a reference to Murtha.
Michelle Malkin has a roundup on Murtha's comments under the header "John Murtha Hangs The Marines." And the Mudville Gazette wrote: "Let's keep in mind that no matter the outcome of this investigation, it has an effect on all of our troops. Given Murtha's latest comments, the media will no doubt fan the flames, leaving those on the ground to deal with the fallout."
Confederate Yankee called on the House to censure Murtha. "He has dishonored his seat, the military criminal justice system, the Marine Corps and the United States of America. How a man can make such vicious, unsupported claims and still proclaim to love the Marine Corps and America is beyond my understanding."
Posted by Danny at 10:34 PM | Comments (0)
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Another 'Brother' Killed In Political Action
Democrats in Kentucky on Tuesday rejected a military veteran as their party's congressional nominee for the 3rd District.
The defeat was the latest setback for a member of the "Band of Brothers" and prompted some people in the liberal blogosphere to question whether vets who run as Democrats have the ability to win.
Iraq war veteran Andrew Horne won only 32 percent of the vote, compared with 54 percent for John Yarmuth.
Yarmuth is the founder and executive editor of the Louisville Eccentric Observer, a 15-year-old newsweekly serving the Louisville area. He will face Rep. Anne Northup in November.
Two weeks ago, "fighting Dem" Joe Sulzer lost his bid to represent his party in the challenge to Rep. Bob Ney, R-Ohio. And Tim Dunn, D-N.C., withdrew from the 8th District race in North Carolina. (He won 12 percent of the vote because his name still appeared on the ballot.)
Those losses followed other troubles for veteran candidates as previously noted here, and they prompted some soul-searching at Swing State Project (as first reported today at The Blogometer).
"[T]he fighting Dems idea isn't turning out to be as powerful as some people, myself included, had hoped, in large part because very few of these candidates are running anything approaching even mid-major status races," DavidNYC wrote. "Yeah, there are a few nice profiles here and there in the tradmed every so often, but I don't think this is going to be as big as some of us thought."
Posted by Danny at 05:24 PM | Comments (0)
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When it comes to their relationships with advertisers, bloggers are a different breed than their old media counterparts. That is obvious from the open barbs that some bloggers are directing at their newest advertiser: Hands Off the Internet, whose co-chairman is former White House press secretary Mike McCurry.
The group, whose members include major telecommunications companies and others opposed to Internet regulation, started an advertising run on several major blogs last week. The ads, which also are running in traditional outlets like NationalJournal.com and washingtonpost.com, promote an animated video at DontRegulate.org.
The video challenges the arguments of bloggers, elected officials and others who are urging "network neutrality" as a way to Save the Internet from unequal content treatment. "Is the Internet really in danger? Does the Internet really need saving?" the ad asks. The implied answer is a resounding "no."
The message is a direct challenge to the beliefs of hundreds of bloggers who have been swarming against dominant telecom firms for the past few weeks -- including those who write at the blogs where the ads are now running. Those blogs include Eschaton and MyDD.
You might think that bloggers who agree to take ad money from a nemesis would be a little more reluctant to directly confront that foe in the future. But that's not how life works in the blogosphere. In fact, the bloggers in question have not only continued their bashing of telecom giants, but they have condemned the very ad they agreed to run.
"Let them spend their money," Duncan Black wrote at Eschaton. "I'm happy to take some of it, but you can feel free to ignore the telco ad to the right."
Matt Stoller of MyDD decried the "childish and nasty tone" of the ad, which he said repeats "the lie that the government had no role in the Internet's success and that bloggers are a bunch of irresponsible rabble." He also encouraged other blogs running the ad to link to his critical post.
"Serious, this is a totally clueless attempt to attack and discredit the grassroots and the blogs," Stoller said. "By coming out with a dishonest and destructive campaign that repeats every single reactionary attack on bloggers, McCurry and his ilk are revealing themselves as naively unprepared for the future."
John Aravosis of Americablog adopted a less in-your-face attitude when he drew readers' attention to the Hands Off the Internet ad on his site. "I'm still trying to figure it all out," he said, "but as the anti-net neutrality folks just launched a site (and bought an ad on this blog touting the site), I'd figured I'd link to both the pro and the anti guys and let you folks start thinking about the issue."
His approach appears to have been the exception, however. Other blogs that both ran the ad and attacked it, either directly or indirectly, included Crooks and Liars, and Seeing the Forest.
Other bloggers who weren't part of the buy condemned the ad as well. MediaCitizen characterized it as an attempt to "deceive bloggers." The site also reprinted from the Save the Internet blog an analysis that dubbed the ad the "Big Lie Of The Week."
All of the animosity might make you wonder why bloggers would even give space to an avowed enemy. Apparently the idea of rejecting the ad did cross some minds. Seeing the Forest, for instance, admitted to initially rejecting it.
BuzzFlash seized on the development as an opportunity to decry blog ads in general and the Advertise Liberally network in particular.
"This is the deal with the devil you make when you start to depend on advertising," BuzzFlash wrote in an editorial. "You end up in bed with the very people who would like nothing better than to see you shut down in the end. They are paying you in the short term, in order to pass legislation that will knock you off the Internet in the long-term. If anyone ever asks again, why BuzzFlash doesn't accept advertising, let this example be your answer."
The editorial prompted Black to defend himself at Eschaton. "I do not endorse all of the candidates, causes, products, organizations, books, movies, television shows, etc. ... that are advertised here." he said in a fallback to the old media mantra about separating advertising from editorial. "If I pick and choose ads, then that means I'm implicitly endorsing the things advertised here, and that's just not the case."
But some bloggers -- the ones who think of their colleagues as activists rather than journalists -- simply don't buy that logic. "Please, fellow bloggers: Remove the wolves from your blogs. Now. You are confusing your readers and making the rest of us wonder which side you're really on," a blogger named Philip David Morgan wrote on his LiveJournal site. "Don't keep this ad on your blog. Get rid of it however you can or have to."
Posted by Danny at 12:08 PM | Comments (0)
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Thin-Skinned Bloggers
Some folks like to debate the question of whether bloggers are journalists. I made my opinion on the topic known about a year ago in a roundtable at the Heritage Foundation: Bloggers are capable of producing solid journalism, but they are no more journalists than journalists who blog are bloggers.
The two do have a few traits in common, however, and one of them has become increasingly clear as journalists and bloggers continue their rhetorical warfare online. Bloggers have skins at least as thin as those in the hated mainstream media.
The latest case in point is a blog entry from Saturday at Think Progress. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., mentioned the blogosphere in a speech at Liberty University, and Think Progress editor Judd Legum didn't care much for McCain's analysis.
Here's what McCain said: "When I was a young man, I was quite infatuated with self-expression, and rightly so because, if memory conveniently serves, I was so much more eloquent, well-informed, and wiser than anyone else I knew. It seemed I understood the world and the purpose of life so much more profoundly than most people. ... It's a pity that there wasn't a blogosphere then. I would have felt very much at home in the medium."
Legum's retort: "Oh, so McCain is always right. The problem is that we're bloggers so we're too impressed with ourselves to understand. If you are reading this, you are part of the blogosphere too, so you won't understand McCain's genius either."
Legum is far too sensitive, and his response to McCain was utterly unwarranted. I didn't actually hear McCain's speech, but by my reading of the text, it sounds like he was making a self-deprecating joke, not "attacking the blogosphere," as Legum put it. Granted, the senator made his point in a way that wasn't flattering to blogs, but a passing, light-hearted reference in a speech that never mentioned blogs again does not an attack make.
And even if he were serious, could any blogger with an open mind really object to McCain's point? I typically read or scan at least a couple of hundred blog posts across the political spectrum every day, and I don't know many bloggers, of any political persausion, who aren't "infatuated with self-expression." Their love of free speech and determination to speak their minds freely are precisely why they blog -- and good for them.
Furthermore, while not all bloggers consider themselves "much more eloquent, well-informed and wiser than anyone else," many of them certainly write as if they think that way. Humility in word is not a trait found frequently in the blogosphere. Bloggers -- like good MSM columnists -- write with boldness, and their words exude an unwavering confidence in their own ideas and opinions. If that were not the case, nobody would read them.
When politicians, journalists and others make ridiculous statements about bloggers, as they regularly do, bloggers are justified in challenging them. But not every negative comment about blogs needs a response -- and not every comment perceived as negative actually is.
UPDATE: McCain's reputation as a maverick Republican apparently makes conservative bloggers equally sensitive about his passing, harmless and arguably accurate references to the blogosphere. Byron York at The Corner, for instance, cited the jab at bloggers in McCain's speech.
Posted by Danny at 04:18 PM | Comments (0)
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Pete Ashdown Day escaped my notice earlier this month. It was an online rally on behalf of Utah Democrat Pete Ashdown, who is challenging Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch this year.
Ashdown has a technology background -- he founded XMission, the oldest Internet service provider in Utah -- and thus has a loyal following in the online community. Bloggers who support him chose to post coordinated entries about the race May 2. Ashdown provided links to the favorable coverage at his campaign blog.
The positive blog swarm made perfect sense in Utah, which is aptly named the Beehive State. But I imagine such efforts will become commonplace as the campaign season gains steam and bloggers try to steer voters toward their favored candidates.
Posted by Danny at 12:01 PM | Comments (0)
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I've been doing a little blog cleaning on the roll to the left the past couple of weeks and wanted to highlight some of the new links. The latest publications on the blogroll are:
-- Cato@Liberty from the Cato Institute, which complements the think tank's combination blog/magazine, Cato Unbound. I've also added a link to The Agitator, which is written by Cato policy analyst Radley Balko. His blog was featured in a Beltway Blogroll column in December.
-- Dollarocracy, SunSpots and Under the Influence, blogs of the new Sunlight Foundation. The group, whose mission is to use technology to make government more transparent to the public, also publishes Congresspedia, a collaborative encyclopedia about members of Congress based on the Wikipedia model.
-- Information Policy Action Committee, which focuses on intellectual property and other issues of the information age.
-- NetCompetition and Save the Internet, two new groups involved in the debate over a potential mandate for "network neutrality" on high-speed Internet services.
-- The Sorensen Institute for Political Leadership Blog. The institute is at the University of Virginia, and I will be one of the panelists at its Virginia blog summit next month.
Posted by Danny at 11:48 AM | Comments (1)
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The 'Mysterious Disappearance' Of A Privacy Bill
Rep. Edward Markey yesterday asked House Speaker Dennis Hastert about the "mysterious disappearance" of a bill that aims to protect the privacy of Americans' telephone records.
The measure, inspired in part by a blogger, had been on the House agenda for noncontroversial legislation last week but was pulled at the last minute. Markey, D-Mass., wondered aloud whether the decision to pull the bill is related to news that broke yesterday about the Bush administration collecting the phone records of millions of Americans.
"There are rumors, as you may have heard, that the House Intelligence Committee has sought an exemption from the bill's privacy protections, for 'intelligence-gathering activities,'" Markey wrote in a letter to Hastert, R-Ill.
"If true, this raises important questions concerning whether intelligence agencies are seeking an exemption in order to obtain the phone records of Americans without due legal process as part of some future plan, or whether intelligence entities were seeking an exemption in the bill to clarify the legality of such a program because they are currently gathering such records."
Markey, who has a blog on his congressional site and makes regular guest appearances elsewhere in the blogosphere, ended the letter with the kind of jab you would expect from a blogger. He asked if the bill is "in some legislative 'Guantanamo Bay,'" a reference to the military prison where "enemy combatants" are held without the kind of due process normally afforded Americans.
The House already has passed a related measure.
Posted by Danny at 12:47 PM | Comments (0)
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The Los Angeles Police Department (supposedly) unveiled a blog today. Its motivation for doing so is one shared by most, if not all, public officials: The department doesn't like the way it gets covered in the media.
"The purpose of this blog is to provide real-time, unfiltered information to the public," the LAPD said in an online announcement of the blog.
Police Chief William Bratton was a bit more blunt in a Los Angeles Times story. "I see the blog ... as an opportunity to communicate with the public and educate them about what we are doing at the LAPD," the paper quoted him as saying. "But I also see it as an opportunity for me to respond to those issues where I feel the department is being misrepresented."
By the way, I said "supposedly" because when I clicked on the link provided in the department's announcement, I was redirected to an "under construction and coming soon" page.
Lesson No. 1 for the LAPD: Don't tell bloggers you've created a blog and link to it until it's actually there. That is annoying -- and also counterproductive if you're goal is to avoid bad press.
UPDATE: The blog link is working now, and curiously, the blog has entries dating back to Wednesday. So I guess the LAPD has been blogging for two days without anybody knowing it.
Posted by Danny at 12:29 PM | Comments (0)
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Note to candidates and lawmakers: Beware bloggers who request interviews. If you decline, they might scold you publicly for saying nothing at all.
Ask Sen. Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn. He felt the sting of Jonathan Singer at MyDD this week after Singer's repeated attempts to add Lieberman, an unpopular figure among many Democratic bloggers, to his impressive list of candidate and lawmaker interviewees.
Singer blamed Lieberman's reluctance on an irrational fear of bloggers and offered this warning: "I believe it is very foolish for any politician to believe that they can be aided by ignoring the blogosphere, that the unrest will melt away if they do not engage their critics. We're not going away any time soon, regardless of what some Beltway insiders might hope, so it's probably better to be even a little open to us rather than to more or less act as if we don't exist."
Ari Melber of the Center for Constitutional Rights chastised Lieberman at The Huffington Post. "[T]he snub is yet another political error that will hurt Lieberman," he wrote. "It reinforces the perception that he would rather chat with [conservative talk-radio personality] Sean Hannity than a Democratic writer."
Here are more blog bits from this week:
-- Should George Bush Be Impeached? La Shawn Barber asked the question and caused an uproar among fellow conservatives when she answered it in the affirmative.
-- Robert Bluey, the editor of Human Events Online, and Tim Chapman, the new director of the Center for Media and Public Policy at The Heritage Foundation, organized what they promise is the first of a series of off-the-record meetings on Capitol Hill for conservative bloggers.
-- Chris Bowers, a blogger at MyDD, is running for a seat on the Pennsylvania State Democratic Committee. He has six days to campaign and needs 100 write-in votes to win the seat. Another obstacle: Bowers said he is "not exactly the most popular person within the state Democratic Party."
-- Sarah Carter, the granddaughter of former Democratic President Jimmy Carter, made a front-page appearance at MyDD. She is campaign blogging for her father, Jack, a Senate candidate in Nevada. Sarah Carter, who also keeps a diary at MyDD and one at Daily Kos, touted her father's guest-blogging stint this week at Give 'Em Hell, Harry, the blog of Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.
-- Rep. Mike Pence, R-Ind., did some traveling abroad over the past several days and blogged about his policy adventures in Greece, Iraq and Turkey.
-- Some governors are "podcasting," but before you listen to their audio downloads, you might want to hear what Christopher Swope had to say about them at 13th Floor.
-- John Engler, a former governor of Michigan, posted his first blog entry last week in his role as president and CEO of the National Association of Manufacturers.
-- The YearlyKos conference next month will include a panel discussion on election reform that was announced this week.
-- Markos Moulitsas Zuniga of Daily Kos penned an op-ed in The Washington Post about the presidential ambitions of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton. He thinks she has "a Bill Clinton problem." Power Line thinks Moulitsas needed a better editor, and Christian Grantham said the logic in the article is "intellectually retarded."
-- Time magazine published a piece about the emergence of blog specialists on Capitol Hill. Matt Stoller of MyDD was flattered to have earned complaints from anoymous Democratic aides.
-- Another installment of "Blogs and the 2008 Presidential Campaign," from Howard Mortman at Extreme Mortman. The subject is blogger Vincent Harris of Too Conservative. Mortman also posted the blog reading list of National Journal columnist Charlie Cook.
-- From the mind of Jeff Jarvis at BuzzMachine: "There is no blogosphere. There is only the people in it." By that warped logic -- really just an attempt to keep the bad behavior of a few bloggers from tarnishing the reputation of the whole -- there is no media, just journalists in it. Sorry, Mr. Jarvis, but like it or not, the actions of individual bloggers influence the way others see the collective blogosphere.
Posted by Danny at 07:11 AM
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CapitolLink: No Love Lost For Rumsfeld
Rep. Major Owen, D-N.Y., made his antipathy for Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld abundantly clear at The Huffington Post yesterday. Here is a sampling:
He is an arrogant old man with a juvenile conception of when and how to play the game of war, a game with toy soldiers and science fiction weaponry. Rummy is far more certain of his military genius than any of the great generals of our time: Zhukov, Montgomery, Rabin, Eisenhower. ... To set the record straight and allow our grandchildren to understand who is hero and who is villain, moderate peacemakers must shed their civility and confront Rumsfeld, the warmonger, in terms that match his extreme contempt for us.Too many dedicated soldiers and innocent civilians have died wasteful deaths for history to ever pardon Rumsfeld. Continuing to speak respectfully of Rumsfeld is a misguided and ignoble gesture. ... In addition to a ban on the playing of the "Battle Hymn of the Republic" at his funeral, we must all resolve that on-site or symbolically we will spit on Rumsfeld's grave. History must permit no small statues or even tiny medals to be awarded to heartless military tyrants.
Posted by Danny at 10:36 PM | Comments (0)
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The Virginia Department of Business Assistance this week suspended a worker for 10 days for blogging on agency time, the Richmond Times-Dispatch and Martinsville Bulletin report.
The Richmond-based employee, Will Vehrs, told AP that the suspension was for "excessive casual use of the Internet." But he has been blogging from work for a while now and only recently landed in trouble when he took some jabs at the economies of Martinsville and Henry County in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. His comments were part of a caption contest.
The comments -- for which Vehrs later and repeatedly apologized, even inviting Martinsville and Henry County residents to post comments -- prompted outrage from some state lawmakers. Delegate Ward Armstrong of Henry County even wrote a letter of complaint to Gov. Tim Kaine, a Democrat, asking him to call for Vehrs' immediate resignation.
Vehrs blogs at Commonwealth Conservative and addressed the suspension in an entry there.
"I think the punishment is unduly harsh and doesn't do anything to allow me to atone in a positive way for my mistake," he wrote. "It also doesn't address in a broader way issues with economically distressed areas or blogging by state employees. But that's their call, not mine. I had a three-part resolution to offer, but they never gave me a chance."
Vehrs also is blogging for the Martinsville paper as a form or penance and plans to make a trip to the area. "I remain very chastened by the ruckus I have caused, and I want people to know that those unfortunate entries I made in that ill-fated caption contest in no way reflect how I feel about your community," he wrote in his first entry. "Perhaps, if you get to know me through my blogging and other potential personal interactions, I'll be able to convince you that I never meant any harm."
Despite the suspension and Vehrs' outreach, the furor has continued. The Times-Dispatch blasted Vehrs in an editorial yesterday. "Quips that offended the region were as clever as typical jests in the blogosphere -- i.e., not very," the paper wrote. "The jokes offend Martinsville and Henry County primarily because of their deficient wit."
But Times columnist Ray McAllister took a somewhat contrary view in a column about blogs. "Some are well-informed, passionate, smart, funny, valuable. ... Some are self-indulgent, sniping, ax-grinding, partisan -- all without adult supervision," he wrote. "Some are simply boring." In that big scheme of things, he said Vehrs' blogging activities are "positively responsible" and his suspension over them "so funny."
Vehrs' blogger friends are upset that he was punished, with some now targeting Armstrong, who was embroiled in a speech controversy of his own a few years ago and is now being portrayed as a hypocrite.
One state lawmaker who blogs with Vehrs at another site, VACostCosting, said the story about Vehrs has been overblown.
"Honestly, if every time a state employee takes a cigarette break and says something negative about their job, vents, makes a joke, will they be called out and asked to resign?" Delegate Chris Saxman wrote. "How do we expect our employees to perform if we intend on overpoliticizing a blog post? It was not anonymous. It was a joke. It was wrong. The man has apologized. Let it go."
Posted by Danny at 07:02 AM
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Lefty bloggers are as angry with Jonathan Chait of The New Republic as they are with Richard Cohen of The Washington Post. Chait explains why in posts here, here and here.
Bull Moose Marshall Wittman (himself a target of loathing by liberal bloggers) thinks all of the vitriol from the left side of the blogosphere is the conspiratorial work of White House adviser Karl Rove because it is "the only thing that it is going well for the Republicans." He has penned related criticisms in the past.
Wittman said bloggers are moving the party to the left in spite of the fact that the only Democrat re-elected to the presidency in the past 60 years, Bill Clinton, was a centrist. He also complained that "Democratic politicians are increasingly pandering to the netroots. That pandering may gain them access to money and some activists, but it is not where the voters reside who they will need to become a majority party."
He said the "smart Democrat" who realizes the deep flaws of liberal bloggers has a shot at becoming president. (Could he have Clinton's wife, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, in mind?)
Wittman closed his diatribe against bloggers with another attempt to humble them. "Bloggers (including yours truly) are simply deluded if they believe [they] are anything more than unedited and uncredentialed keyboarders with strong feelings," he wrote.
"The left-wing blogosphere is a place where bile passes for wisdom. ... The medium is nothing more than a method of communication for a very narrow slice of the electorate. Moreover, a couple of the most influential left-wing bloggers are crude, crass, humorless and annoyingly predictable."
Posted by Danny at 06:52 AM
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Suitably Flip About The New York Senate
Philip (Flip) Pidot, who blogs at Suitably Flip, is running as a Republican for a seat in the New York state Senate. This week, he offically announced his candidacy and unveiled his campaign Web site, including a blog.
Pidot was born in the 26th District that encompasses the east side of Manhattan, where he is now running. He works in investment management, with a focus on companies that face corporate governance problems. His first job in the financial sector -- with the business-risk unit of Arthur Andersen -- gave him a role in investigating corporate fraud and other white-collar crimes. He also has done consulting in education, hospitality, retail, e-commerce and entertainment media for small firms in New York.
Pidot's site offers a glimpse into his views on everything from the economy and homeland security to health care and education.
"I'm confident it's a winnable race," he wrote in an e-mail. "Despite the strongly Democratic enrollment of the city's electorate, this district remains one of the most viable seats."
Posted by Danny at 07:10 AM
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For the next few months, blogger Tim Tagaris will be working diligently to help Connecticut businessman Ned Lamont upset Joseph Lieberman in the state's Aug. 8 Democratic primary and, hopefully, take his seat in the U.S. Senate.
But Tagaris already is looking beyond Campaign 2006 to a potential campaign of his own in Ohio come 2008 or 2010.
Tagaris begins his new job as Internet outreach coordinator and official blogger with Lamont's campaign today. He took the post after a six-month stint at the blog of the Democratic National Committee. Before that, he blogged at Swing State Project and about the Ohio congressional campaigns of Sherrod Brown and Paul Hackett.
In an e-mail sent in response to my post about bloggers running for office, Tagaris said he eventually plans to return to Ohio and seek a seat either in the state House or U.S. House. "I'd guess I'm going to have to decide whether to work on a presidential campaign and run in 2010 or do it in 2008," he wrote.
Tagaris is considering either a congressional run in the 16th District, assuming current Republican Rep. Ralph Regula retires in 2008, or a state House run in the 52nd District. Tagaris said he probably would not seek an open congressional seat in 2008, but if state Rep. Jamey Healy seeks it instead of running for re-election in the 52nd, "it would make the most sense to run for 52 then."
If Healy instead waits to seek a state Senate seat in 2010, Tagaris said he would have to choose between campaigns that year for the 52nd state House seat and 16th U.S. House seat. That strategy assumes a Regula retirement and the election of a Republican to the 16th District in 2008. If a Democrat were to win an open race in the 16th in 2008, Tagaris said he would run for the state House seat in 2010.
Posted by Danny at 07:08 AM
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The Republican outreach to blogs from Capitol Hill continues on two fronts today -- a virtual town-hall meeting between bloggers and Rep. Jack Kingston of Georgia, and a bloggers-only meeting with two lawmakers who are promoting the Congressional Constitutional Caucus.
Kingston's press staff announced the town-hall meeting on the congressman's blog an in an e-mail to bloggers. The one-hour call-in event could include discussions on immigration, gasoline prices and the Medicare prescription-drug program, but other topics are welcome.
This afternoon, GOP Reps. Virginia Foxx of North Carolina and E. Scott Garrett of New Jersey will hold the bloggers-only session about the Constitutional Caucus, said Garrett spokeswoman Audrey Jones. The meeting is at 3 p.m. in Room H-126 of the Capitol.
"The Constitutional Caucus was founded by Congressman Garrett and currently has 25 active members," Jones wrote in an e-mail. "It is just kicking off now and is a reforming and refreshing idea in Congress. Its purpose is to serve as an effective forum to ensure that the federal government is operating under the intent of the Tenth Amendment," which reserves to the states and the people powers that are not specifically granted to the federal government.
The caucus also plans to hold a conference call with other bloggers around the country in the future.
Posted by Danny at 07:06 AM
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Bloggers were mean to Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen, so Cohen got his revenge the way journalists have done for generations: by the barrel of ink.
Now bloggers are having another conniption over Cohen's words and proving that folks who get their bits and bytes on the cheap are at least as dangerous as publishers of old.
Such is life in a new media world where professional and citizen journalists are in almost constant conflict. Click to the extended entry for links and commentary on the latest brouhaha.
Cohen: "[I]t marks the end of a silly pretense about interactive media: We give you our e-mail addresses and then, in theory, we have this nice chat. Forget about it. Not only is e-mail too often a kind of epistolary spitball, but there's no way I can even read the 3,506 e-mails now backed up in my queue -- seven more since I started writing this column."
Daily Kos: "The nature of the modern medium ensures that any critique by Internet users -- conservative and liberal alike -- will be massive, unfiltered, and instantaneous. And it will always be effortless to cherry-pick intense or inappropriate comments or e-mails and use them to dismiss an entire dissenting view as nothing more than the angry rants of a disillusioned group. Yet the true measure of character comes in rejecting the temptation to take the easy way out, and instead to embrace an honest and genuine dialogue about the issues."
Eschaton: "My stars, he got some angry, obsenity-laced e-mails whose content he divined due to his telepathic connection with his computer, or something, because he didn't bother to read them. Really, a columnist who has access to about the most valuable real estate in journalism and decides to write about e=mails he didn't even read really needs to retire."
MyDD: "There's a hatred of democracy and popular participation that has crept into our punditocracy, political class, and political bloodstream. I feel myself tempted that way on occasion, but it's deeply wrong."
Balloon Juice: "[T]here is a certain segment of the online left (and right, for that matter) who think that the key to electoral victory is to keep a certain segment of the population in a frothing rage. Any perceived slight must immediately be met with an e=mail campaign and a 'Wanker of the Day' post that can be linked by the entire 'spittle-flecked monitor' wing of the Democratic Party."
Austin Bay: "The American left is where the American far right was in the 1950s -- besotted with anger, boiling in conspiracy theories. There is a difference, however. 'Opinion leaders' like Cohen have let the hard left take a large bite out of their own liberal 'mainstream.' Cohen has just now discovered it because his e-mail box got jammed with garbage. It is a step toward enlightenment, however hesitant a step."
Captain's Quarters: "Many on the left have well-written and provocative arguments, sometimes overheated but usually not irrational. However, a large segment rely on nothing but schoolyard namecalling ... and a deep, unrelenting anger colors all of their discourse. It's not just the blogs, either. Not a day goes by when I don't receive some meandering and hyperbolic rant from anonymous individuals with fake e-mail domains."
Hugh Hewitt: "That's the 'netroots,' Mr. Cohen, and if the Dems seize either house of Congress in 2006, or the presidency in 2008, they are coming to town."
Posted by Danny at 07:04 AM
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CapitolLink: Blogger Outreach On 'Net Neutrality'
Here's a strange twist to the "network neutrality" blog swarm I covered in my latest column: Instead of bloggers lobbying Congress to vote to preserve net neutrality, a congressman lobbied a blogger to keep the pressure on his colleagues.
David Goldstein was the blogger in question, and he was contacted by the office of Rep. Jay Inslee, D-Wash. The staff passed along a request from Inslee to meet with Goldstein.
"That Rep. Inslee would seek out the help of a local blogger on an issue of national importance is a testament to the power of the Internet to both democratize the media, and enable grassroots activism," Goldstein wrote. "But it is also a testament to what is at risk should we fail to prevent a handful of corporate telecommunications giants from becoming gatekeepers over content distribution."
And here's one bit of information the congressman shared: "Rep. Inslee made a point of assuring me that his colleagues and their staff are avid readers of the blogs ... and not just the big national sites like Huffington Post and Daily Kos. Every congressional office is acutely aware of the local blogs in and around their home district."
Posted by Danny at 07:32 PM
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The surest way to incite the collective hostility of bloggers is to seek limits on how they use their medium of choice: the Internet.
The Federal Election Commission learned that lesson last year when word spread of potential campaign regulations for blogs -- an idea the agency largely abandoned as the result of a blog swarm. Now bloggers have major communications companies and their congressional allies in their sights over an obscure concept known as "network neutrality."
The bloggers are stinging their targets relentlessly. They have lobbied members of Congress to support their cause; they have ridiculed and condemned those who don't; and they have venomously derided one industry spokesman as a "mouthpiece for deception."
"This is something bloggers care about because the free Internet is a key principle for the blogosphere," said Matt Stoller of MyDD, who has written frequently about the issue in recent weeks.
Network neutrality is an important aspect of the ongoing debate over reforming telecommunications law for the first time in a decade. Most observers agree that changes are long overdue in an era when high-speed Web connections, Internet telephony, online video and other services have revolutionized communications.
But they disagree about whether the few firms that control most broadband pipes should have virtually free reign over those lines. Companies like AT&T want the right to charge more for certain high-speed services, but major technology companies like Amazon.com, eBay, Google, Microsoft and Yahoo! are insisting on equal treatment, or network neutrality.
Hundreds of bloggers agree with the net neutrality crowd, and they quickly have become a significant presence in the debate.
In their fight against the FEC, more than 1,800 bloggers spontaneously organized as The Online Coalition to make their case. This time, they are being aggressively courted by Save The Internet, a new group whose charter members include blogs like the popular Instapundit and Personal Democracy Forum.
Save The Internet is recruiting "a corps of bloggers ... to win the campaign for Internet freedom" and offers them a toolkit for posting logos, video and other information. The effort thus far has generated more than 3,000 links and 5,100 "friends" at MySpace, a social-networking site popular among many bloggers.
Save the Internet also has a blog of its own. So do other pro-neutrality groups, including Common Cause, Public Knowledge and the U.S. Public Interest Research Group. And Massachusetts Democrat Edward Markey, a key House advocate of neutrality, has blogged at both The Agonist and The Huffington Post.
The telecom and cable industries have a presence in the blogosphere, too. A new industry-backed forum called NetCompetition, for instance, is using its blog to challenge the arguments for net neutrality. "I approached the companies and associations about the idea," said Scott Cleland of the Precursor research and consulting firm, "and there was near universal, strong interest in promoting a more substantive debate on the merits. It came together in just a few weeks."
The site includes links to Save the Internet and other pro-neutrality forces.
Mike McCurry, once a spokesman for former President Clinton and now a co-chairman of Hands Off The Internet, also has blogged at The Huffington Post and commented at MyDD. But the reaction to McCurry's outreach proves that the momentum in the blogosphere is clearly with proponents of network neutrality.
He is subjected to verbal beatings every time he writes. "He's simply lying about the issue," Stoller said in an e-mail interview when speaking of McCurry, a fellow Democrat. "And thousands of people are as outraged as I am about this."
Whether thousands are outraged is an open question, but enough bloggers have joined the swarm over network neutrality to influence the political dynamic. As Stoller noted, House Democrats Eliot Engel of New York and Bart Stupak of Michigan changed their votes from subcommittee to full committee, and last week's planned House floor debate on the telecom bill was delayed. "It's always hard to tell if it was the blogs that did it," Stoller said, "but I think we had an effect."
"Bloggers have started developing friendships with offices of various congressmen on Capitol Hill and have the potential to get face time and politely express their views, when they otherwise might not be able to," added Erick-Woods Erickson, a director at RedState and the voice behind Broadband Blog.
He said that could be especially true in the Senate or later in the legislative process. "If what I'm hearing is true," Erickson said, "I suspect this will go to conference and a compromise will be reached. It's during that time that I think bloggers will be most effective."
Cleland acknowledged that proponents of net neutrality "have taken the issue to the blogging community first and have established a first-impression advantage in this debate." But he and others in the industry who believe that open competition is "the best way to guard a free and open Internet" are convinced that at least some bloggers can be swayed.
"As people are more thoughtful on this and begin to hear both sides, we believe they will see it as a series of trade-offs that have been made and will continue to be made -- and that it's not a black-and-white issue," Cleland said. Of bloggers in particular, he noted that they "are a freedom-loving crowd" who will come to realize that "competition ensures a much greater diffusion of power and is a better check and balance on the Internet than government."
Posted by Danny at 07:08 AM
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I interviewed Craig Aaron of Free Press and Save The Internet for my column on the blog swarm surrounding "network neutrality," but I did not receive his answers via e-mail in time to include any of his thoughts in the piece. As a fallback option, Aaron agreed to let me publish the entire text of the interview.
Beltway Blogroll: Tell me about the coalition and how it formed. I moderated a panel at the Online Politics Conference where Eli Pariser of MoveOn spoke passionately about this issue and the AOL "e-mail tax". What role did that speech have in the formation of the coalition?
Craig Aaron: We've been talking to a lot of our allies and acquaintances about this issue over the past few months. But it formed most directly out of the DearAOL campaign. Those were the first groups we reached out to in launching the SavetheInternet.com Coalition.
BB: Was there a conscious effort to reach out to bloggers? If so, why? What are the elements of that outreach, and what other ideas may be coming? Are blog ads part of it? If so, where are you advertising and how much are you spending?
CA: Yes. The net neutrality issue directly impacts bloggers -- who would never be able to overcome the barriers to entry if AT&T and its ilk create a two-tiered Internet. We reached out to a core group of bloggers who had already covered the issue and asked them to reach out to their networks. It was a grassroots (or netroots, I suppose) effort. Nearly 3,000 blogs are now linking to the site.
So far, we haven't bought any ads for SavetheInternet.com (though we bought some earlier to highlight the issue, as did Common Cause). All the logos and buttons for the site are being put up for free by the bloggers. (Same can't be said for Hands Off the Internet or Future ... Faster) [Editor's note: Those two groups are funded by the communications industry that opposes legislative effort to ensure neutrality for content on high-speed Internet networks.]
BB: Why should bloggers care about the push for net neutrality? How specifically might it affect the development of the political/policy blogosphere or the blogosphere more broadly?
CA: The freedom of the Internet is at stake. Why should we take away the collective decisions made by millions and hand them over to a few executives. The Internet has always been driven by innovation. Web sites and services succeeded or failed on their own merit. Without net neutrality, decisions now being made collectively by millions of users will be made in corporate boardrooms.
The choice we face now is whether we can pick the content and services we want, or whether the broadband barons will choose for us. Without network neutrality, the blogosphere itself might never have materialized. What blogs -- which are moving into video and other new technologies -- will be able to afford a spot in the fast lane? How will new voices find an audience? The cable-telco model will silence citizen journalists and put more power in the hands of corporate-owned media outlets.
BB: What kind of impact have the bloggers behind this push had already? Is the swarm changing votes in Congress? Are you hearing from the offices of lawmakers, and if so, what are they saying? Which lawmakers?
CA: They've had a tremendous impact. So far (with a few notable exceptions like The New York Times), the mainstream media have been largely ignoring this issue. The blogosphere has been driving this forward. They're the ones (along with the consumer and political groups) who've helped gather more than 600,000 signatures and direct tens of thousands of calls to Congress.
I give the bloggers a lot of credit for beginning to popularize this issue. We didn't win the House committee vote, but the momentum is shifting. Network neutrality is becoming one of the key issues in the Telecom Act rewrite -- and at this point no member can vote against Internet freedom saying they didn't understand the stakes.
I know Congressman Edward Markey has had briefing calls with bloggers. Many local bloggers are contacting and writing about their reps position on net neutrality.
BB: What projects/plans, if any, do you have for pushing the swarm forward and keeping it intact? Can bloggers really muster the consistent power necessary to beat the well-heeled telecom industry on its own turf in Washington?
CA: We're going to continue our outreach efforts, working to collect a million signatures and keep this issue front and center -- including a rally on the Hill and other things that are still on the drawing board. The telecoms and cable companies are spending a million bucks a week on TV in D.C. alone. But organized people can beat organized money.
It's an uphill battle. But as millions of Americans begin to learn about this issue --- and understand that the Internet as they know it is at risk -- they will hold their elected representatives responsible. If the tremendous response in just the first two weeks of this campaign is any indication, momentum is on the side of Internet freedom.
Check out these results as of Friday on Google Blog Search:
-- 2,749 = Blogs with links to www.savetheinternet.com.
-- 1 = Blogs with links to www.handsofftheinternet.com. And that one blog favors the savetheinternet.com position.
BB: While the swarm involves hundreds of blogs, there appears to be more of a partisan split on this issue than there was in the fight against the FEC. Why is that?
CA: I don't think there's a partisan split here. On the contrary, we're building a broad, grassroots, bipartisan coalition. We've seen lots of support, left and right, Republican and Democrat, business bloggers and even the founders of the Internet and World Wide Web.
Our opponents are trying to say this effort is being led by "MoveOn and Nancy Pelosi" -- but they know that the issue of Internet freedom resonates across party lines (why else co-opt so much of our language on their Astroturf sites and talking points?). Libertarians like Glenn Reynolds (Instapundit) have signed on, as have groups identified with the right like the Gun Owners [of America] and the Parents Television Council. Any day now, we expect a bipartisan bill in the Senate supporting meaningful protections for net neutrality.
Sure, the cable [companies] and telcos have been spending lots of money on this effort, and on the surface their "don't regulate the Internet" argument has a lot of appeal to libertarian types. But as more bloggers do their research and begin to understand that net neutrality has always been part of the internet, and that these companies aren't really interested in deregulation -- just rules written in their favor -- they'll join this effort regardless of their political leanings.
Posted by Danny at 07:05 AM
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The debate over "network neutrality" for content on high-speed Internet services creates a bit of a philosophical conflict for conservative bloggers.
As conservatives, they favor free markets, which in the case of Internet content means that network owners should have the freedom to charge more for certain high-bandwidth services. But as bloggers, they favor a "free" Internet -- one that poses no expensive barriers to entry for the average citizen.
The growth of the blogosphere is at least in part the result of how easy and cheap it is to start a blog. Some services, including Google's Blogger.com software that is used by some high-profile bloggers, are indeed free.
So how do they reconcile those two seemingly competing views? It's certainly not a simple task, according to Erick-Woods Erickson. In fact, he and the other directors at RedState have struggled to take a position on network neutrality.
"The RedState directors voted in February to be in favor of net neutrality, but we have not released a public statement," Erickson said. "It was written but held up over technical issues in the editorial -- making sure our statements of fact were accurate. Since then, one of the directors has had a change of heart and would prefer us avoiding the issue. We're still discussing it."
The differences over the issue may well lead to a split vote, he said. "It might have to be a majority-rules situation, but we try very hard to be unanimous in our decisions."
Erickson added, however, that the free-market leanings of conservative bloggers should not make the push for net neutrality a difficult issue. "At the local level, most broadband providers are monopolies," he said. "There are really only one or two choices in most areas. Even free markets believe monopolies should have some regulation."
That explains the decision of Instapundit Glenn Reynolds, a libertarian blogger, to endorse Save The Internet, a coalition pushing for a legislative guarantee of network neutrality.
"Back when I was a communications lawyer in the 1980s," Reynolds wrote in an e-mail, "I worked on something called Open Network Architecture, an FCC initiative intended to ensure that the phone companies (already deregulated but posessed, then as now, of considerable unearned market power) made their connections available to all comers on an equal basis. This seems quite similar to me.
"I'm in favor of free markets, but against a background of pervasive regulation -- which we have here -- it's not always the case that avoiding a particular regulation results in freer markets."
Erickson's concern is that content providers and broadband providers who currently "make sure every packet of data on the Internet is as small as possible and travels as efficiently as possible across the Internet" are not committed to continuing that approach.
"If the broadband providers have their way, there will no longer be an incentive to make the packets of information as small as possible and efficient as possible," he said. "Companies can just pay for priority on the network and pass the cost on to the consumer. The broadband providers will have no incentive to make their networks more efficient, faster and less crowded because they'll be making money off the content providers paying for priority on the network.
"In the end, the consumer loses. We should all be concerned about that."
Posted by Danny at 07:02 AM
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Congress is far from reaching a decision on whether to legislate a guarantee of "network neutrality" for different types of Internet content, but some candidates already are taking a stand on the issue.
Blogger Matt Stoller of MyDD has been tracking candidate statements on the issue. His tally indicates that four Democrats -- Senate candidate Harris Miller of Virginia, and House candidates Paul Arohnson of New Jersey, David Harris of Texas, and Chris Owens of New York -- back the legislative push for net neutrality.
"I'm also hoping that we can find some primary challenges out of this as well," Stoller added in an e-mail interview. "Americans want to protect the freedom and openness of the Internet. That makes it a campaign issue."
Erick-Woods Erickson of RedState isn't convinced. He gave two reasons why net neutrality won't take root as a campaign issue.
"I don't think people understand the issue," he said. "The broadband providers and others confuse the issue with talk of a tiered network, something that I have no problem with and something that already exists. I also don't think high-speed Internet is as much a part of the culture of the average voter as it is for bloggers to really make a big difference to average voters."
Posted by Danny at 07:00 AM
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Bloggers On The Campaign Trail
This year's election probably won't be dubbed the "Year of the Blogger" by anyone in the media, but years from now, 2006 may be the year people look back to for a reference point about bloggers running for elected office.
Will Hinton, a blogger in Georgia, briefly pondered a run against Rep. Cynthia McKinney. Although he ultimately decided it was not a workable option, Hinton predicted, "The day is going to come where a blogger actually files as a candidate and runs for public office."
Apparently that day came several months ago. GOP Bloggers reports that Doug Halsted, a blogger who writes at Iowa Geek, is running for a seat in Iowa's state Senate. He first expressed his interest in October and now has a blog on his campaign site.
An earlier report in GOP Bloggers identified Len Munsil as "a genuine blogger" seeking the Republican gubernatorial nomination in Arizona. So far as I can tell, Munsil's blogging tenure appears to be directly connected to his gubernatorial campaign. That's not quite the same thing as a blogger deciding to run for office, but it's still worth noting.
Are there other bloggers out there running for office or thinking about it? Any Democrats? Third-party candidates? Independents? Let me know at dglover@nationaljournal.com.
Posted by Danny at 07:33 PM
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Two Democratic "netroots" bloggers have landed gigs with U.S. Senate campaigns.
Scott Shields announced his hiatus from MyDD today. He will be working to elect appointed Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J.
"Since his appointment to the Senate early this year, Senator Menendez has done nothing but impress me," Shields wrote. "He was the first member of Congress to stand up and say no to the Dubai ports deal. He's stood up to credit-card companies, putting forward a 'credit card bill of rights in the Senate to protect consumers. And right now, he's heading up efforts to ease the immediate financial burden on Americans at the pump while also focusing on the long-term prospect of achieving real energy security."
Shields' move comes soon after Tim Tagaris signed on to work for Senate campaign of businessman Ned Lamont in Connecticut. Lamont is challenging Sen. Joseph Lieberman, a whipping boy of the netroots, in the Democratic primary. Tagaris left Grow Ohio last fall to blog for the Democratic National Committee.
The emergence of a revolving door between blogs and campaigns has stirred some controversy in the past.
Other bloggers have taken jobs on Capitol Hill, at trade groups, in the media and at think tanks. That just goes to show that blogging can lead to bigger and presumably better places.
Posted by Danny at 12:48 PM
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Next month is shaping up to be a busy one for blog conferences.
The Yearly Kos summit of loyalists in the Daily Kos community has been on the radar for months. It will be held June 8-11 in Las Vegas.
The roster of speakers includes a few elected and former elected officials from the Democratic Party: Sen. Barbara Boxer of California; Rep. Brad Miller of North Carolina; Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada; and former Govs. Tom Vilsack of Iowa and Mark Warner of Virginia.
Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean, whose 2004 presidential campaign helped inspire the birth of the Daily Kos community, also has been invited. So have two other 2004 presidential candidates -- Wesley Clark and John Edwards -- as well as Rep. John Conyers of Michigan, Govs. Janet Napolitano of Arizona and Bill Richardson of New Mexico.
Days after the Yearly Kos event, Virginia bloggers will gather for the second consecutive summer at the Sorensen Institute for Political Leadership at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville.
Their two-day summit on June 16-17 will focus on blogging and democracy. The agenda calls for discussions on blogging basics, campaign finance rules and ethics, among other things.
If you are aware of other forthcoming political or policy-related blog events, please e-mail me at dglover@nationaljournal.com, and I will post links and details at Beltway Blogroll.
UPDATE: Personal Democracy Forum holds its annual conference in New York starting a week from today. The list of speakers includes only two elected officials -- Rep. Anthony Weiner, D-N.Y.; and New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer -- but a few congressional and campaign aides will speak as well. They are: David All with Rep. Jack Kingston, R-Ga.; Mindy Finn of the campaign for Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa.; and Ari Rabin-Havt with Reid's office.
Joe Rospars of the DNC and Patrick Ruffini of the Republican National Committee also will speak, and Edwards and his wife, Elizabeth, have been invited.
Posted by Danny at 12:28 PM
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The advertising firm that sued a blogger in Maine over critical comments about the company's work for a government client blinked on Friday after a barrage of bad publicity in the blogosphere.
Advertising Age reports that the ad firm, Warren Kremer Paino Advertising, withdrew its lawsuit against Lance Dutson of the Maine Web Report. Dutson regularly had posted criticisms of the work the agency was doing for the Maine Office of Tourism.
"This will make the Cinco de Mayo celebration tonight that much sweeter ... for the Dutson clan," Dutson wrote. He also praised the Media Bloggers Association (of which I am a member) for its role in contesting the suit. The group "moves to a perfect 10-0 against this type of corporate bullying," Dutson concluded, "and the world is now even more aware of the force that the blogosphere has become."
Tom McCartin, president of the company, explained the decision to withdraw the case this way: "It had really taken on a life of its own, and it had really become more of a distraction to the business at hand, which is to advance the tourism industry in Maine. And above all, as I think any good agency would tell you, we have the interests of our client at heart."
MBA described the ad agency's end to the dispute as a case of "unconditional surrender." Attorney Jon Stanley, who helped defend Dutson, said the agency clearly did not understand how to operate in the new media world. "This is a textbook case of how blogs work," he said. "This result could not have come about without the blogosphere. Lance's defense team was put together through the blogs, and pressure was brought to bear on [the agency] through the blogs."
Dutson revisited his experiences and the lessons learned over the last couple of months in a post dubbed "Lawsuits And Censorship." He chastised both the government and the media for their behavior as the story unfolded.
Here are excerpts of commentary on the case and the decision to end it:
-- BuzzMachine: "Mind you, this case is not just about journalism but also citizenry: We must always have the right and even duty to watch and question our government. Contractors acting as agents of government should come under the same scrutiny as government."
-- Center for Citizen Media: "[W]hat if this case is, as many suspect, an example of a deep-pocketed plaintiff trying to shut someone up -- someone who can't afford a long legal defense? ... The situation points up the need for bloggers to realize their speech is subject to such actions. We get no pass when it comes to defaming people, and we shouldn't. But it also points up the need for sanctions, ones that hurt, against the plaintiffs when they file suits on specious grounds with the obvious goal of shutting people up or punishing them for telling the truth."
-- Bill Hobbs: "I spoke to Dutson by phone Thursday for more than half an hour. He struck me as an intelligent and careful citizen journalist who just wants to tell the truth about the things he writes about. That makes him a good journalist -- and because he likes to examine and write about his government, that's good for the citizens and taxpayers of Maine."
-- Know It All: "Let's be serious: There will be successful suits against bloggers who violate copyright laws, or commit libel, or do other bad things. Being a blogger doesn't give you magic protection powers. ... But the lesson is still clear: Bully bloggers at your own risk. They have rights, and they are networked, and the big media pay attention to them."
Posted by Danny at 10:12 AM
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CapitolLink: A Bad Sunday For Rep. Conyers
Rep. John Conyers came under attack on two talk shows today and took to The Huffington Post to defend himself against the apparently uncoordinated barrage.
Both attacks -- one by former House Majority Leader Tom Delay, R-Texas, and the other by NBC's Tim Russert -- focused on the qualifications of Conyers, D-Mich., to lead the Judiciary Committee if Democrats were to retake the House. DeLay warned on ABC's "This Week" that Conyers "is to the left of your next guest, Howard Dean," and Russert suggested that some of the information on Conyers' congressional Web site might not be appropriate for a major committee chairman.
Conyers' response:
I have a record of trying to expose government waste, fraud and abuse. That was back when Congress did something called "oversight." You know, in our tri-partite system of government, when Congress actually acted like a co-equal branch. The Republican Congress decided to be a rubber stamp for President Bush instead.Perhaps, if we had a little oversight, we wouldn't be mired in a war based on false pretenses in which we have lost thousands of our brave men and women in uniform and tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis.
Perhaps we would not have had an energy policy drawn up in secret with oil company executives that has led to gas prices of more than three dollars per gallon.
Perhaps, if we had a little oversight, we wouldn't have a prescription drug plan written by the pharmaceutical companies, that prohibits the government from negotiating for lower prices with the same drug companies, and that no one really understands.
Perhaps, if we had a little oversight, we would know the extent to which our own government is spying on our phone calls, emails and other communications, contrary to the law of the land.
Posted by Danny at 08:32 PM
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A Shield For Connecticut Bloggers
A bill to grant journalists (and maybe bloggers) the right to keep their sources anonymous appears to be going nowhere within Congress, but lawmakers in Connecticut quickly cleared a similar bill this week.
The News-Times in Danbury reports that both the state Senate and House passed the bill Wednesday. Senate passage was unanimous, and the House vote was 136-11.
Gov. M. Jodi Rell said she will sign the measure into law.
Under the legislation, reporters would not have to disclose sources to government authorities. That protection would apply to both traditional and electronic media. While the Senate considered excluding blog authors and people without journalism degrees from the legislation, it ultimately dropped those provisions.
"People rely on the Drudge Report for information, and there are blogs with unknown authors," Republican Rep. Robert Farr complained. "We are creating a privileged class and this class is poorly defined."
Posted by Danny at 04:11 PM
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After a long wait, I received word last week that I have been accepted as a member of the Media Bloggers Association. I was among dozens of new members whose acceptances were announced at one time.
As a condition of membership, I am now displaying the MBA logo to your left. You can click on that logo at any time to visit the group's site, and I encourage you to do so.
The MBA's mission (as condensed from the site) consists of three elements: promoting its members and their work, protecting members by defending the rights of bloggers and citizen journalists, and educating members by offering mutual support and robust internal discussion.
The second element of that mission has put the MBA in the news lately. One of my fellow members, Lance Dutson of the Maine Web Report, was sued by an advertising agency for reporting and commentary on his blog. Another case pits some bloggers against Apple Computer.
MBA also encourages the following standards for citizen journalism:
-- Honesty, fairness and accuracy: State what you know and how you know it. Use links to supporting documents on the Web wherever possible; credit sources and link to other bloggers. Distinguish fact from rumor and speculation. Be intellectually honest when expressing opinion. Don't plagiarize or pass off others' work as your own. Act responsibly and with personal integrity.-- Transparency: Clearly disclose conflicts of interest, including personal relationships, financial considerations or anything else that might influence or appear to influence your independence and integrity. If you accept payments from advertisers or sponsors, clearly demarcate advertorial from editorial content.
-- Accountability and trust: Use your own name and offer a means for readers to communicate with you. Engage your readers and trust them to form their own judgments and conclusions. Correct your mistakes promptly using strikethroughs or editor's notes.
-- Respect for the privacy of private citizens: Private individuals may not want photographs, videos or information about them made available to a global audience, even if they're in a public space. Use your judgment, and use special sensitivity when dealing with children and inexperienced sources or subjects.
Your feedback on the association, on its mission and standards, and on my decision to join MBA are most welcome. You can e-mail me at dglover@nationaljournal.com.
Posted by Danny at 11:18 AM
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The Speaker's Vehicle(s) Of Choice
Bloggers had some fun at the expense of House Speaker Dennis Hastert last week after the Illinois Republican was caught on film making a vehicle switch on Capitol Hill.
In the photo, Hastert exited the hydrogen-powered car that had driven him away from a press conference about high gasoline prices, and he entered his more typical gas-powered sport-utility vehicle. Blogger Andrew Sullivan dubbed it "a picture in hypocrisy."
Now the nation hears directly from Hastert, who blogged about gas prices and alternative energies yesterday, that he actually has another preference when it comes to cars. He may well buy one powered by E85, a mix of ethanol and gasoline. It's the perfect political choice for someone from the Midwest, where corn, the key ingredient in ethanol, is plentiful.
"I rode in a hydrogen car recently," Hastert wrote of his much-ridiculed trip on the Hill to tout alternatives to gasoline. "In fact, I'm such a proponent of renewable fuels, I have plans to soon buy my own flex-fuel car that can run on E85. ... They're good cars, and we all need to do whatever we can to ease America's energy problems."
Posted by at 12:01 PM
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The prescription-drug scandal that has engulfed conservative radio talker Rush Limbaugh prompted some unsolicited advice from a congressman yesterday.
Rep. Major Owens, D-N.Y., took to The Huffington Post to tell Limbaugh the four steps he should take to "cleanse himself" from the controversy.
The first step, Owens said, is for Limbaugh to "voluntary ignore" his new agreement to random drug tests and continued treatment for addiction to painkillers, and instead accept some jail time. Limbaugh also should apologize for "gross misinterpretations" of the frailties of others like him who have struggled with human weaknesses, Owens said.
The other two steps: "dedicate his exceptional intellectual powers to a thorough public examination of the phenomenon of human addiction;" and donate millions of dollars to addiction treatment programs and to exposing the money laundering associated with drug deals.
"For a brief moment Limbaugh has an opportunity to follow in the hallowed footsteps of the apostle Paul," Owens wrote. "The fanatic persecutor of addicts could become a great crusader for the salvation of addicts."
Posted by at 07:04 AM
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Toward A Blogosphere With Integrity
Blogs have a bad reputation in some corners, and bloggers who appreciate that perception sometimes is reality are out to change that negative perception by endorsing principles of online integrity.
The principles were posted at a new blog Tuesday and primarily draw a distinction between the privacy rights of ordinary folks and public officials. They are in part the outcome of a recent episode where blogger Michelle Malkin posted the contact information of student protestors in California. The information was on a press release issued by the students, but when some of Malkin's readers reportedly reacted by e-mailing death threats and other insults to the students, a nasty debate about the appropriateness of posting contact information ensued among bloggers.
Josh Trevino, one of the central players in the drafting of the principles, also said in an e-mail circulated to various bloggers that the family members of two of his close friends (Ben Domenech being one of them) recently had been "verbally assaulted -- and threatened with far worse -- by persons angry with their online activities."
"This is a reaction to recent events in which personal privacy and familial sanctity have been violated by dint of unscrupulous persons online," he said of the push for a voluntary statement about online integrity. Trevino added that "good people are being dissuaded from participation online, and the virtues of Internet-based activism -- its democratic nature, its equalization of voices and its empowerment of the otherwise obscure -- are increasingly vices in the thrall of the unscrupulous and ill-intended."
The principles call for respecting both the privacy of "private" people regardless of their online activities and the personal contact information of public people. They also say that people who seek anonymity online should be allowed to maintain it "as much as is reasonable." Finally, the principles urge "a lack of positive publicity and [Internet] traffic" as punishment for violations.
"This statement is nonpartisan and nonideological," the introductory entry at Online Integrity said. "It is open to participants and adherents left, right and center."
So far, 42 bloggers across the political spectrum have endorsed the statement of principles.
Trouble already may be brewing, however. One of the signers of the principles, Max Sawicky, complained when he saw Malkin's name on the initial list. "Malkin's excuse -- that the students had already made their phone numbers public -- doesn't fly," he wrote. "Individuals are entitled to control the circulation of their information; choosing to put it on a leaflet or a limited-traffic web page is not the same as having it posted on a high-traffic site that invites harrassment."
In an update to that post, Sawicky reported that the inclusion of Malkin's name was a mistake, and indeed, it has been removed. Malkin does not yet appear to have mentioned the issue at her site.
Posted by at 04:30 PM
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The push to protect the privacy of telephone consumers, particularly those who use cellular phones, is back on the House agenda today. The chamber is set to consider a second bill on the topic.
A week ago, the House passed a bill, H.R. 4709, inspired in part by blogger John Aravosis of Americablog. That measure went through the Judiciary Committee.
The legislation on the floor today, H.R. 4943, covers the same topic but went through the Energy and Commerce Committee. If a roll-call tally is requested, the bill would go to a floor vote this evening, after it and multiple unrelated measures are debated.
Both proposals would tackle different aspects of the same problem -- the accessing of customer phone records under false pretenses in order to sell them to third parties.
The Energy and Commerce bill would require the Federal Communications Commission to issue new rules designed to prevent such activity and would give both the FCC and Federal Trade Commission the right to seek penalties against violators. The penalties that the FCC could impose would be tripled. The measure also would prevent phone companies from revealing data to certain parties without prior authorization from their customers.
The Judiciary bill, which was passed by a vote of 409-0, focuses on criminal penalties. The measure would impose prison sentences of up to 20 years, as well as fines, on individuals who obtain phone numbers under false pretenses. Extra prison time could be added for using such information against federal officials, law enforcers or victims of domestic violence.
An Energy and Commerce Committee spokesman said the two bills can move separately because of their different goals. A spokesman for the House majority leader was not available to answer whether a merger of the bills is planned after the separate floor debates.
In the Senate, meanwhile, Americablog reports that Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., has asked Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., to put a Senate measure on cell privacy on the floor schedule. Reid made the request in a Friday letter that Aravosis posted at his blog.
Reid cited the House's passage of H.R. 4709 last week as an incentive to move the legislation quickly. "Now is a good opportunity for the Seante to complete work on legislation that protects consumers and brings to account fraudulent peddlers of confidential information," he wrote.
Posted by at 11:46 AM
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Blogs And Legal Scholarship: A Recap From Harvard
Harvard University hosted a blog conference at its law school yesterday, with the focus being on how law blogs, or "blawgs," are affecting legal scholarship.
Blawger Daniel Solove of Concurring Opinions has a speaker-by-speaker recap of the event that's concise enough for any blogger to appreciate. "You can get everything you need to know about the conference from this post -- absolutely free of charge," he wrote. "It's as if you had gone to the conference yourself -- only better, because I've saved you hours of time and engaged in extensive analysis to bring you the key points."
Papers related to the conference also are available online.
UPDATE: Solove has a follow-up entry on a discussion about the merits of blogs that mix legal discussions with personal hobbies. And 3L Epiphany has an exhaustive roundup of post-conference blog links.
Posted by at 02:08 PM
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