« May 2006 | Main | July 2006 »

Rep. Jack Kingston of Georgia is working hard to show the Republican Party the technological way to electoral and governing success, but he opened himself to some high-tech jabs from usually friendly quarters with his latest innovation.

This week, Kingston added a feature called MailTube to his congressional Web site. The service lets his constituents record video questions for the congressman, upload them to the Internet using services like YouTube and Google Video, and then wait for Kingston's video reply.

The very first question -- from Jason Pye, the newly elected chairman of the Libertarian Party of Georgia -- put Kingston on the conservative spot: "Congressman Kingston, why haven't you joined other Georgia Republican congressmen and the Club for Growth in cutting government spending?"

Pye was just grateful that Kingston took the time to answer, and another poster on his blog added, " hope Kingston becomes Speaker of the House one of these days." But by invoking the Club for Growth name, Pye perhaps unwittingly invited a third party into the conversation: the group's blogger, Andy Roth. A fourth party, Dave Holman of AmSpecBlog, added his critical voice, too.

"Kingston’s answer is typical of the big-spending attitudes that pervade the Republican Party in Washington these days," Roth wrote. "He essentially argued that in order to pass appropriations bills, you need to convince members of both parties to vote 'yes.' How do you do that? You buy them off with pork projects."

Holman described Kingston's answer as "a bumbling journey through the sausage making of the Appropriations Committee" and added, "Sometimes our representatives are wise to shun sunlight's disinfecting rays."

Unlike most lawmakers in Congress, even those who have blogs or occasionally post blog entries elsewhere, Kingston truly appreciates the interactive medium. He knows that the smart thing for a politician to do when caught in the blog's-eye is to engage his critics. And so he did, through "spokesblogger" David All.

All listed Kingston's fiscally conservative credentials on the lawmaker's blog and insisted that the House Appropriations Committee is making progress both in cutting "pork" from the federal budget and in terminating federal programs -- 95 in the last round. He urged conservative bloggers to work with Kingston.

"The bad news is that those programs are not officially 'dead,'" All wrote. "The spending bills are now on their way (or will be on their way) to the Senate for their consideration. And you know what that means. I’m hopeful that our allies in this fight are continuing to closely monitor and watch these 95 wasteful programs to ensure that they never see the light of a taxpayer dollar again."

UPDATE: Kingston's blogger critics offered more analysis of his record and technological innovation after seeing All's response. The debate continues at AmSpecBlog (here, here and here) and the Club for Growth. Robert Bluey has more at Human Events Online.

Posted by Danny at 10:05 PM | Comments (1)

It seems like only a short time ago that blog conference calls, "blog rows" and other attempts at connecting official Washington with the blogosphere were new. That's because it was only a short time ago.

The first Republican Party conference call with bloggers was held last October as a bid to win support for failed Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers. Shortly after that came the first "blog row" on Capitol Hill." In January, Republicans courted a few bloggers to cover the confirmation hearings of now-Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito in person. And February marked the first live-blogged congressional hearing.

Democrats have engaged in similar outreach, though not quite as openly -- at least not until the YearlyKos convention in Las Vegas last month.

These days, however, attempts to court bloggers and/or welcome them into the media fold are not nearly as newsworthy, simply because they are not "new." They are so Web 1.0.

The evidence: Republican lawmakers held both a bloggers' conference call and a blog row on Capitol Hill this week, and few people noticed. The Health and Human Services Department also held a call with bloggers about welfare regulations. Mindshare hosted an event on blogging, too, and while ShopFloor took note of it and posted multiple entries on the blog row, it was the exception to the rule.

My point is that blogging inside the Beltway has quickly gone mainstream. Now we'll just have to wait and see what that means for the medium.

Just something to think about before sharing this week's blog bits:

-- The Air Force Office of Scientific Research is conducting a study on blogs.

-- Mark Nickolas of Bluegrass Report continued to accuse Kentucky Gov. Ernie Fletcher of censorship for preventing state employees from reading blogs, including Bluegrass Report. Nickolas, who once worked for a political opponent of Fletcher's, repeated the charges on his blog and in his weekly newspaper column. The Cincinnati Post defended the governor's attempt to block blogs and other Web content on state computers but said his approach is flawed.

-- A Minnesota blogger noted that Republican Senate candidate Mark Kennedy scrubbed references to President Bush from his Web site. The state's Republican Party responded.

-- The Examiner published commentary from three more of its "blog board" members this week. Ironically, all three of them -- Robert Cox, Bruce Kesler and Dan Riehl -- used a mainstream media outlet to criticize the media. Blogger Jim Geraghty of National Review Online also announced that he has joined the board.

-- At Townhall.com, blogger Tim Chapman used part of his column to credit bloggers with prompting some quick action in Congress. He said bloggers were a key force behind a resolution chastising the media for disclosing secret surveillance programs. John Aravosis of Americablog and other liberal bloggers argued that it's time for the media to "stop treating this attack on [the media] like it's some normal story where both sides deserve a fair hearing. It's not."

-- Confirm Them invited judicial "nominations" for a potential opening in a federal circuit court.

-- Ed Morrisey of Captain's Quarters continued his role as citizen journalist by reporting more details from captured documents in Iraq that are still being translated by people independent of the government.

-- Daily Kos created a page to recognize and reward lawmakers who show a commitment to the blogosphere. The first three beneficiaries: Democratic Reps. John Conyers of Michigan, Brad Miller of North Carolina and Louise Slaughter of New York. Daily Kos and other blogs in the netroots community also introduced new favorite candidates for this fall.

-- Blog adviser: the job of the future?

-- What do the netroots and the John Birch Society have in common? If you're in the mood for a long read, Josh Trevino has the answer.

-- Jerome Armstrong of MyDD also has a long essay about his work on the 2004 presidential campaign of Democrat Howard Dean. There are no astrological references. And in case you're wondering after all the controversy surrounding Armstrong last week, it looks like he'll be keeping his current political consulting job.

-- The quest for online integrity, which encompasses not posting personal information online, suffered another blow this week. RedState has the details. (UPDATE: Make that two blows, according to The American Spectator, RedState and Michelle Malkin.)

-- The Chamber of Commerce tested the waters of the blogosphere with a post at Congress Blog.

-- Late last week, Concurring Opinions offered a tongue-in-cheek template for stories that disclose information about secret surveillance programs.

-- Our basement, like many others in the Washington area, flooded this week. Insurance doesn't cover the damage. I'm not a happy camper. But the pun-filled look at the "extreme weather" that Howard Mortman penned made me laugh. Check it out.

Posted by Danny at 12:17 PM | Comments (0)

Imagine landing a dream advisory job with a candidate who could become the first female president of the United States. Now imagine sharing your excitement with your friends, only to have them wonder aloud whether you've sold out to "the man" -- er, the woman.

That's exactly what happened to former Salon blogger Peter Daou this week. He announced that he is the new blog adviser to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, the wife of former President Clinton and herself a likely Democratic contender for the White House in 2008.

Daou's goal is "to facilitate and expand her relationship with the netroots" -- no small task considering her unpopularity among many Democrats active in the Internet grassroots. The enormity of his task became glaringly apparent soon after he announced the job change.

The commenters at Daou Report were the first to question his decision. "So you've joined the dark side too, Peter," one of them wrote. "Sigh. I [hope] you got a good price in exchange for selling your soul to Queen B." Another said he is "troubled by the idea of [Daou Report] being edited by a partisan working on the team of a declared senatorial candidate and an undeclared presidential candidate."

Perhaps far worse, though, were the people who professed to be Daou's friends (at least in the netroots sense) yet chose to publicly warn or chastise him about working with Clinton. Two such entries appeared at The Huffington Post.

Under the header "Friends Don't Let Friends Work For Hillary," R.J. Eskow warned that Clinton's outreach to bloggers won't work because her philosophy and theirs do not mesh.

"I would be insulted at the idea that the substantive differences that I (and many others) have with Hillary can be resolved through some sort of outreach program," Eskow said. "This member of the 'online community' is not going to be persuaded by some 'Internet game plan' that her stand on Iraq, and defense issues in general, is anything but a) unprincipled, and b) poor political strategy."

Cenk Uygur put his commentary at The Huffington Post in this context: "Peter Daou is one of the most astute and aggressive bloggers in the country. Senator Hillary Clinton is the poster child for equivocation and triangulation."

Uygur then listed three possible outcomes to a Daou-Clinton relationship that he compared with former President Richard Nixon visiting China in 1972: Clinton will heed Daou's advice and "adjust her views and actions;" Daou eventually will leave the job because of frustration; or Daou "will become an apologist" for the "hideous and morally repugnant" views of Clinton.

With friends like that ...

UPDATE: Daou has a friend on the right in Patrick Hynes of Ankle Biting Pundits, and Hynes both praised Daou and congratulated him on his new job earlier this week -- with one caveat. "We wish Peter Daou all the best ... well, almost all the best. We would be thrilled if he came in, say, second place in November of 2008."

Posted by Danny at 07:59 AM | Comments (2)

The Senate Commerce Committee on Wednesday approved a major overhaul of nearly all sectors of the communications industry on a 15-7 vote, Technology Daily reports. But the defeat of a so-called network neutrality amendment may bode ill for Senate passage of the bill this year.

That amendment was defeated on an 11-11 tie vote after an extensive debate. Olympia Snowe of Maine was the only Republican to vote for the amendment, and her vote produced the tie.

The overall measure addresses issues like the ability of the Bell telecommunications companies to rapidly enter the market for pay video services. Senate Commerce Chairman Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, said after the vote that he would seek support from 60 senators -- the number needed to prevent a filibuster -- by potentially deleting portions of the bill. He acknowledged earlier in the week that he does not have 60 votes for the measure "right now."

Ron Wyden, D-Ore., went to the Senate floor to announce a procedural "hold" on the legislation because it lacks strong network neutrality language.

Matt Stoller continues to dedicate much of his time to the issue, with his work now falling under the rubrick of BlogPac. Stoller posted an entry yesterday as the committee action unfolded. After the vote, he analyzed the vote and the path forward.

This morning, he offered praise for Democrats who are fighting for net neutrality and making it a campaign issue.

Daily Kos, meanwhile, posted the text of Wyden's floor speech and explained the "hold" concept. And more coverage is available at the blogs of Net Competition and Save the Internet.

Posted by Danny at 09:45 AM | Comments (0)

Matt Stoller of MyDD has made no secret of his dislike for Democratic Sen. Barack Obama, and when the freshman Democrat from Illinois dared to chastise his party for not acknowledging "the power of faith," Stoller pounced again.

"It's totally true. You can't swing a dead cat in this country without hitting a generic secularist who's all like 'Stop praying, weirdo', before handing out a Democratic voter registration card," Stoller mocked. "Thank you, Obama, for taking on this critical yet vulnerable stereotype and reinforcing it with moral security measures."

In a later post that acknowledged the "The Pro-Obama Case" made by another blogger, Stoller explained his contempt for Obama like this: "I'm no fan of Barack Obama, and I don't think he really won his race so much as fell into the Senate through the mishaps of his opponents. And I bristle at the cult of personality around him that obscures our ability to discuss his work without bringing in a whole lot of unnecessary hot air."

Stoller also called Obama's decision "to repeat falsehoods about liberals disrespecting faith" an example of "DC-hackery."

On that particular issue, if not a broader blogger discontent over Obama, Stoller was not alone. Others who took Obama to task for his religious-oriented speech included Stoller's fellow MyDD blogger Chris Bowers, Ezra Klein and at least one diarist at Daily Kos.

John Aravosis of Americablog agreed that Democrats should court evangelicals -- but by focusing on issues like the death penalty and poverty. "What Democrats need to remember is that they should find the God in their own values, not change their values ... to embrace someone else's warped hatred masquerading as piety."

Over at TPMCafe, Nathan Newman said he doesn't understand the harsh reaction to the speech. "If you read the whole speech, the almost knee-jerk response to Obama pretty much illustrates his point of the discomfort by some progressives in any discussion of religion in the public square," Newman said.

And TPMCafe contributor Matthew Yglesias (who curiously describes himself as an athiest and practicing Jew) added this:

To a lot of people, it's quite important that we allow more official acknowledgment of religion in this country. ... I don't honestly see a major cost to giving way on this point. If it's really important to the majority of people in School District X that they hold some kind of prayer before high-school football games -- let them.

... More publicly funded nativity scenes and allowing "voluntary student prayer groups use school property to meet" (as Obama proposed) isn't going to put us on a slippery slope to a theocratic dystopia. Some concessions need to be made to public opinion, and it's smart to make them on basically symbolic issues.

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

Rep. J.D. Hayworth scored some press coverage yesterday for his suggestion to revoke the congressional press credentials of The New York Times. The Arizona Republican, who is a former journalist, said the paper abused its privileges by disclosing the details of an anti-terrorism surveillance program.

Today, Hayworth took his unfiltered complaint about the Times online at Congress Blog. "Let’s not forget that The New York Times is our guest at the Capitol," he wrote. "The paper has no right, constitutional or otherwise, to have a presence here. The paper has worn out its welcome and its time for them to go."

Posted by Danny at 04:46 PM | Comments (0)

The left wing of the blogosphere has taken a verbal beating over the past several days, so it was a bit refreshing to click over to Balloon Juice today and see a rant against bloggers on the right -- whether warranted or not.

John Cole penned the diatribe as a long preface into an entry that actually said conservative bloggers may be right for a change. The issue: their criticism of The New York Times for publishing a story about an anti-terrorism surveillance program.

But before giving the conservative bloggers some credit on that topic, he had this to say about them in general:

[C]ertain wings of the blogosphere are angry about something every 2-3 days anyway, and the right wing is always eager to attack the N.Y. Times. ... As far as I am concerned, collectively, the right wing of the blogosphere is the ‘boy who called traitor.’ Not a week goes by when I hear that so-and-so should be ostracized because they are a treasonous rat, they are a commie symp, whatever. I am jaded, and the pile-ons are old.

In addition to those feelings, I have also watched the same wing of the blogosphere defend away any and every excess committed by this administration. “Just a few bad apples” is a term that is forever soiled, and whenever I hear it from here on out, I will instantly suspect something worse than it appears is going on. This gang has also seemed rather blase about individual liberty and individual rights, and simultaneously cheered almost every intrusion by the government into my personal matters, phone records, etc., because, you know, THE TERRORISTS WANT TO KILL US ALL.

Cole closed by saying that he's still undecided on the merits of the spying program, but it's obvious that any hesitation on his part is not the result of a reluctance to speak his mind.

Posted by Danny at 04:11 PM | Comments (0)

Sen. John McCain was a porkbuster before Porkbusters were cool in the conservative blogosphere. The Arizona Republican has been irritating his colleagues by fighting earmarks in the federal budget for years.

I featured McCain's efforts in a March 2004 special report on technology-related pork for National Journal's Technology Daily. His efforts were the focus of my lead, which read like this:

When John McCain went on the Senate floor in January for one of his regular rants against "pork barrel" spending, the Arizona Republican focused his ire on the types of special-interest earmarks that have outraged budget watchers for decades. He decried the $1 million for the Mormon cricket infestation in Utah, $238,000 for the National Wild Turkey Federation and $200,000 to North Pole, Alaska, for what McCain called "elves and others."

But crickets, turkeys and imaginary elves aside, much of the money that lawmakers earmark for their states and districts these days goes toward technology-related projects. The projects that McCain did not specifically mention include $3 million for the Center for Criminal Justice Technology in Maryland, $2.75 million for the Nogales CyberPort Project in McCain's home state, and $2 million for computer training of at-risk youth at the Boys and Girls Clubs of America in Atlanta.

National Journal's Technology Daily reviewed the spending bills and conference reports for fiscal 2004 and identified hundreds of such earmarks involving information technology, telecommunications and related fields. The projects range in value from as little as $16,000 for interactive displays at the National Distance Running Hall of Fame to $9.4 million for an information-sharing database in the South Carolina Judicial Department, and many of them have multimillion-dollar price tags.

All told, the value approaches the $1 billion mark -- and could exceed it if vague earmarks for "equipment," "upgrades," "research" and the like were counted.

Since then, the Porkbusters have stormed onto the scene to annoy lawmakers like Sens. Trent Lott, R-Miss., and Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, perhaps more than McCain ever could. Now McCain has joined forces with the blogosphere's budget hawks in a guest post at the Porkbusters site.

"The total number of earmarks in spending bills has grown from 4,126 in 1994, the last year of Democratic control, to 14,404 in 2004," McCain wrote. "That's a 240 percent increase in ten years time. In dollars, the cost borne by taxpayers for earmarks has nearly doubled. That's not a record Ronald Reagan would have been proud of. And it's not a record Reagan Republicans should be proud of today. We need to stop this ... now."

The entry has generated several comments -- apparently a practice that worried McCain, who irked bloggers not long ago with an ill-received joke.

"I have never blogged before," he wrote. "But I understand readers can leave comments on each post and that these comments can be rather, ahem, blunt. So I am happy to entertain any questions, comments or insults you might have for me at this time."

Hopefully, that joke will not be over the bloggers' heads like his last one.

Posted by Danny at 01:11 PM | Comments (1)

Get the scoop on how the three intersect at PRWeek. The article, dubbed "Candidate 2.0," includes a few thoughts from me.

And here's an excerpt about David Schlosser of Advanced Micro Devices, a Libertarian Senate candidate in Arizona who blogs and sees blogs as a great tool for third-party candidates.

“The best thing about blogs, which is particularly true in the early stages in a campaign, is they expand your reach beyond your geography,” Schlosser says.

He counts readers in countries such as Russia, Korea, and the United Kingdom; while they are unlikely to provide funds and very unlikely to provide votes, Schlosser says that, by tracking stats, he can find people out of state directing Arizona citizens to his blog.

“The great thing about it is that anyone can read a blog, and then send it to someone in Arizona,” Schlosser says.

Posted by Danny at 12:58 PM | Comments (0)

As I noted several weeks ago after writing a column on "network neutrality," the issue of whether to offer a statutory guarantee of equal treament for similar high-speed Internet content has posed a conundrum for free-market bloggers who also are fans of a free Internet. That conflict is at least one factor in a stalemate on the issue among the directors of RedState, one of the right's most prominent blogs.

With the Senate Commerce Committee set to debate network neutrality tomorrow or later this week, however, the issue made its way onto RedState another way today. The site is now running competing blog advertisements.

Mike Krempasky, one of RedState's directors, pointed readers to the ads and said the site will address its own internal division on network neutrality by rotating the two ads into and out of the top slot. He then encouraged readers to see what both advertisers -- It's Our Net and The Future ... Faster -- have to say about the topic.

If nothing else, that approach is unique. Other bloggers who support net neutrality but have accepted ads arguing against the concept have gone out of their way to either ridicule their buyers or at least publicly question their views.

Posted by Danny at 08:52 PM | Comments (0)

The netroots trump the emerging "GOProots" when it comes to online activism. But even netroots leader Markos Moulitsas Zuniga of Daily Kos agrees that the Republican Party is superior in its understanding and application of technology in the political realm.

He made that point in his book "Crashing The Gate" and restated it today after reading a Los Angeles Times commentary on how the GOP used technology to its advantage in a recent California special election -- a contest that had been of keen interest to liberal bloggers.

"Just about everyone in Silicon Valley is a Democrat," Moulitsas wrote, "yet the Beltway [Democratic] Mafia has allowed Republicans to take a huge lead over us in technology."

Posted by Danny at 08:43 PM | Comments (0)

Leading bloggers on the left have been under fire the past several days, in part because their critics think those bloggers should be more transparent about their business and political dealings. Bloggers pride themselves on transparency, after all.

Perhaps that explains today's burst of transparency -- and talk about the need for more of it.

The talk, curiously enough, came at the liberal blog EzraKlein.com. A pseudononymous blogger there suggested that Markos Moulitsas Zuniga of Daily Kos has not been forthright enough about his relationship with MyDD founder and political consultant Jerome Armstrong, and Armstrong's most prominent client, former Virginia Gov. Mark Warner.

After noting that in a previous career life Armstrong gave some pretty sorry stock advice, Neil the Ethical Werewolf wondered aloud whether Armstrong's political advice is any more trustworthy. Likewise, he said Moulitsas' decision to tout the potential presidential candidacy of Warner is just as suspect.

"I'm not saying that Kos is getting paid off by the Warner campaign. ... There's a simpler explanation," Neil wrote. "Maybe Kos is just another gullible Bluepoint investor who trusts and admires Jerome, and is buying an Internet stock for a lot more than it's worth, on Jerome's recommendation. We ought to be suspicious of pro-Warner comments Kos makes in the future. You don't just have to beware the guy who's willing to mislead you for financial gain; you have to beware the guy who listens to him."

Neil acknowledged in his entry that he is a supporter of John Edwards, the Democrats' vice-presidential candidate in 2004 and a potential presidential candidate in 2008.

When Neil's post generated some kickback from readers of EzraKlein.com, the Ezra Klein jumped to his defense. "Markos is a good guy and a powerfully positive force, but he's as subjective and biased as anyone," Klein wrote. "Neil, an Edwards supporter, is arguing that that's led him to support a candidate ideologically unsuited to the netroots. That strikes me as a fair point, and one that should be seen as coming from the subjective prism of an Edwards supporter."

Klein also made a fresh pitch for more transparency as bloggers start taking sides in campaigns. And in a follow-up entry, he noted his own leanings (subject to change): 1) 2000 Democratic standard-bearer Al Gore; 2) John Edwards; 3) 2004 Democratic candidate Wesley Clark; 4) and former Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle of South Dakota.

At Salon, meanwhile, blogger Peter Daou announced that he has taken a new job as a blog adviser to another potential 2008 Democratic presidential candidate, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York. His mission: Help Clinton, who is unpopular among blog readers, "facilitate and expand her relationship with the netroots."

Said Chris Cillizza of The Fix: "Clinton's decision to bring on Daou -- coupled with the hiring of Jesse Berney, another liberal blogger -- shows a recognition on her behalf that blogs will play a crucial role in choosing the 2008 Democratic nominee and that she has work to do in the courtship of this increasingly important interest group." (I could not find a mention at Berney's blog, now on hiatus, about his work for Clinton.)

Chris Bowers of MyDD also made a disclosure about his new paid consulting gig with Netroots Research, Strategy and Analysis. Two blog diarists -- Hale Stewart at MyDD and David Atkins at Daily Kos -- are the other members of the firm.

"Just so everyone knows," Bowers wrote, "I will disclose every campaign I end up working on."

And a campaign blogger for John Bonifaz, a Democratic candidate for secretary of state in Massachusetts, offered one last bit of disclosure at MyDD today, as he has in previous entries there and at Blue Mass Group.

Posted by Danny at 06:47 PM | Comments (0)

When it comes to organized activism in the blogosphere, Democrats have a clear edge over Republicans.

"Elite blogs" like Daily Kos, Eschaton and MyDD coined the term "netroots." They have worked in unison to promote and raise money for underdog candidates like Howard Dean in the 2004 presidential election, Paul Hackett in an Ohio special election last summer, and Senate candidates like Ned Lamont of Connecticut, Jon Tester of Montana and James Webb of Virginia this year. They even created and continue to financially support an outfit called BlogPac that does polling and pursues pet policy causes like "network neutrality."

By contrast, while Republicans have attempted to court the blogosphere -- and while conservative bloggers have been accused by their Democratic counterparts of taking marching orders from the party powers-that-be -- the GOP approach has been much more ad hoc, to say the least. There is no "GOProots."

All of that may be about to change, however. The latest issue of Newsweek has a story about the ongoing resurrection and rehabilitation of Townhall.com, a conservative Internet site that had its start at the Heritage Foundation. And one goal of the site -- merging conservative media and activism online -- sounds a lot like the mission of Daily Kos, the blog powerhouse of the left.

Radio talk-show host and blogger Hugh Hewitt, author of the 2005 book "Blog," is behind the venture, so the blogosphere is sure to be a key component of whatever emerges in coming weeks. ""We will overwhelm them," Hewitt told Newsweek in a reference to Daily Kos.

Ed Morrissey of Captain's Quarters said the new Townhall probably will skew to the center-right rather than the conservative extreme because of Hewitt and the rest of the line-up at Salem Radio, which purchased Townhall.

As that new effort gets under way, the GOP interest in the blogosphere is evident in other ways, too. Friday's blog workshop for House Republican aides -- a follow-up to the session where I spoke in March -- is the latest example. The Washington Times covered the event.

The White House also apparently hosted a bloggers' conference call about the avian flu late last week. A blog called FluFactor was among the participants.

That bit of news prompted David All, the "spokesblogger" for Rep. Jack Kingston, R-Ga., to dream of bigger things. "I hope that President George W. Bush will take advantage of the opportunity to be the first 'blogging' president," All wrote. "It would not only add some spice and flare to the legacy, but it would also drive the Democrats crazy."

Posted by Danny at 04:20 PM | Comments (0)

Jerome Armstrong used the MyDD forum he created to finally respond to ethics outcry against him and co-author Markos Moulitsas Zuniga of Daily Kos.

"Let me just state for the record that any payola allegations or some quid pro quo deal involving Markos and myself are complete fabrications," wrote Armstrong, whom Moulitsas calls his "blogfather."

Armstrong's comment was posted as an addendum to a post authored by Matt Stoller that was dismissive of the ongoing controversy. "I think these insiders and Republicans are just obsessed with us," wrote Stoller, who has faced criticism himself at The Channel Changer for his "apparent lack of concern about the (Jerome) Armstrong dust-up."

Moulitsas, sounding like the leader of an effort that he alternatively has called both a leaderless movement and an "everybody-who's-part-of-it-is-a-leader" movement, also took to the Internet yesterday afternoon and urged the netroots to stay the course.

"Just a quick reminder as the media nip at our heels: We didn't get here because of them," he wrote. "They can praise us, they can trash us, they can ignore us, and ultimately none of that will matter as long as we keep doing what we've been doing."

Matt Margolis of GOP Bloggers, meanwhile, has some thoughts on Moulitsas as a leader. Commenting on a statement by Moulitsas to Newsweek, Margolis wrote:

The way Markos talks, he clearly thinks he's the messiah of the Democratic Party. ... What Kos fails to understand is that the greater influence he does have in the Democratic Party, the more Republicans are going to win. And if he wants to ignore that fact, by all means, he should continue what he's doing. Kos not only suffers from delusions of grandeur, but he also harbors delusions that he is in the mainstream, and that Republicans and moderate Democrats are not.

UPDATE: Moulitsas' stay-the-course message, apparently written in response to a critical New York Times piece by conservative writer David Brooks (subscription only), was not well-received by one diarist at his site. And her admonition to Moulitsas that "The Cover-Up Is Worse Than The Crime" was not well-received by the Daily Kos community.

The diarist, Karen Collins, just happens to be married to journalist and former America Online editorial director Jesse Kornbluth, who counter-attacked at The Huffington Post. Some excerpts:

For better or worse, Markos is on trial. And this is tragic, for the site is one of the greatest on the Web and Markos, on his worst day, is a zillion times the man and thinker that Brooks is on his best. But in his e-mail, Markos got it exactly backward. If the "news" about Armstrong is indeed nothing, he would have done better to suggest that his friends in the progressive community write about it. ... But there's an easy way out: Markos, do what my wife asked --- give us an explanation. And then promise you'll never send another e-mail that makes you look like Vito Corleone [of "The Godfather" movies] telling the Tattaglias and Barzinis what to do.

Also at The Huffington Post, Marty Kaplan offered a different view of Brooks' column.

UPDATE II: Armstrong now has responded to the astrology angle to the story (same MyDD link as above). "I have done the new-age-type things over the years -- life's never boring that way," he wrote, adding that "it has nothing to do with what I consult with in online political strategy."

Posted by Danny at 04:14 PM | Comments (0)

White House adviser Karl Rove had some unkind words for the liberal blogosphere several days ago. I failed to share his thoughts here earlier, but they still seem newsworthy in light of the ongoing controversy surrounding such blogs.

Rove shared his thoughts in an exclusive interview with VictoryNH.com, New Hampshire's first citizen activist network. Here are the blog-related excerpts:

Among Democrats, my sense is that the blog world has tended to strengthen the far left of the Democratic Party at the expense of liberal, but somewhat less liberal, members of their party. It has tended to sort of drive their party even further to the left rather than focusing on good ideas that would help unite people around common goals and common purposes.

Instead, the Internet for the left of the Democratic Party has served as a way to mobilize hate and anger -- hate and anger, first and foremost, at this president and conservatives, but then also at people within their own party whom they consider to be less than completely loyal to this very narrow, very out-of-the-mainstream, very far left-wing ideology that they tend to represent.

... I think the Democrat focus, or at least the Internet blog world focus, if you will, is, “How can we punish our enemies and express our anger?”

Not suprisingly, Rove also had some words of praise for bloggers who share his political views. As some of those very bloggers regularly do, he compared their work with that of talk radio.

"The growth of talk radio and the Internet means that a lot of our public discourse and our political dialogue takes place outside of the venues controlled by those big institutions," Rove said. "In fact, those big institutions can now be held to account by a Rush Limbaugh radio broadcast or a blogger pointing out difficulties in, say, CBS’s approaches on documents, for example, or in commenting on the editorials found in the pages of The Washington Post or The New York Times. I think that’s healthy."

He added: "The Internet has proven to be a more powerful tool on our side than it has been for the other side. It has proven to be a tool on our side to sort of unite conservatives and have a healthy, intra-movement dialogue. But it’s essentially been something that has helped us gain in influence and broaden our appeal."

Both Rove and President Bush have made similar positive comments before about blogs friendly to their cause, and Rove has done his part to court bloggers.

Posted by Danny at 09:47 PM | Comments (0)

New York has another blogger running for the state Senate.

Last month, I reported that Philip (Flip) Pidot of Suitably Flip is a Republican candidate in the 26th District. This week, Howie Klein reported at The Huffington Post that Brian Keeler is running as a Democrat in the 41st District.

So who is Keeler? Klein has the answer: "People who have been reading Daily Kos and Firedoglake for awhile probably recognize the screen name NYBri as belonging to a well-spoken, forthright, engaging progressive, bursting with positive energy, enthusiasm, great spirit and abundant intelligence."

Keeler and Pidot are among the other blogger candidates I've noted in recent weeks.

Posted by Danny at 09:27 PM | Comments (0)

Right Wing News asked 225 conservative bloggers to rank the "worst people in America." Fifty-one bloggers responded, and several members of Congress made the unflattering cut.

Filmmaker Michael Moore topped the list, but Democratic Sens. Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts and Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York weren't far behind in the second and third slots. Clinton's husband, former President Clinton, finished a distant 12th, showing once again how irrelevant powerbrokers become in the political world when they lose power.

Others in the list of 29:
-- Former Vice President Al Gore (tie for 5th)
-- Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts (5th)
-- Rep. John Murtha of Pennsylvania (tie for 7th)
-- House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of California (7th)
-- Former President Jimmy Carter (tie for 13th)
-- Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean (13th)
-- Rep. Cynthia McKinney of Georgia (16th)
-- Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada (18th)
-- Sen. Barbara Boxer of California (23rd)
-- Sens. Charles Schumer of New York and John McCain of Arizona (honorable mention)

McCain was the only Republican politican to make the list, but television evangelist Pat Robertson, whose outrageous comments regularly make him a target in the blogosphere, did as well.

Interestingly, some of the Democrats who made GOP bloggers' list of "worst Americans" also have generated occasional or even frequent criticism from bloggers on the left. They include Mrs. Clinton, Pelosi and Schumer.

The only prominent blogger to make the list: Markos Moulitsas Zuniga of Daily Kos.

Posted by Danny at 10:26 AM | Comments (0)

Lee Siegel, a blogger for The New Republic, posted a pretty harsh criticism of blogs a couple of days ago, in part as a reaction to the Kos/Armstrong controversy. Siegel's inspiration for the commentary came from a New York Times article about "mixed martial arts."

"You don't need to have special training or to acquire special skills," Siegel wrote. "You just rush in and fight in no-holds-barred playground style." To him, that sounds an awful lot like the blogosphere. Here's an excerpt:

It is a precise corollary of most blogospheric commentary, which requires no special training or skills, and which attempts to parlay street-fighting skills into fame and riches. But when bloggers do get the MSM to turn its head their way, the training wheels come off and they usually fall flat on their faces.

It's a bizarre phenomenon, the blogosphere. It radiates democracy's dream of full participation but practices democracy's nightmare of populist crudity, character-assassination, and emotional stupefaction. It's hard fascism with a Microsoft face. It puts some people, like me, in the equally bizarre position of wanting desperately for Joe Lieberman to lose the Democratic [Senate] primary [in Connecticut] to Ned Lamont so that true liberal values might, maybe, possibly prevail, yet at the same time wanting Lamont, the hero of the blogosphere, to lose so that the fascistic forces ranged against Lieberman might be defeated.

Posted by Danny at 09:18 AM | Comments (0)

The big news in the blogosphere this week may not be all that newsworthy -- at least not yet -- but bloggers everywhere are talking about it. The issue is the ethics of two of the left's best-known bloggers, Markos Moulitsas Zuniga of Daily Kos and his "blogfather," MyDD founder Jerome Armstrong.

The trouble for Armstrong and Moulitsas actually began a few weeks ago, when Salon published a piece that pegged Armstrong as "just another political consultant." The duo had ridden a wave of positive publicity for weeks after the publication of their book "Crashing The Gates," but the flip side of fame is that it often makes the media cast a more critical eye upon the newly famous. While the Salon piece didn't generate much buzz, it hinted at more scrutiny to come.

Moulitsas and the netroots movement he and Armstrong helped foster enjoyed another burst of mixed publicity earlier this month. The subject was the much-hyped YearlyKos convention in Las Vegas. Moulitsas appeared on NBC's "Meet The Press," but he also found himself and his community as the subjects of numerous critical articles and blog entries.

Armstrong, meanwhile, indirectly became enmeshed in controversy because of the work he is doing as a consultant for Mark Warner. The former Virginia governor threw a lavish party at the convention and openly tried to woo liberal bloggers who fashion themselves kingmakers in the Democratic Party these days. Not everyone in the liberal blogosphere thought that was such a great move, and substantive critiques of Warner on policy issues continue to surface online.

Late last week, The Opinionator, a subscription-based blog of The New York Times, entered the fray as it tried to connect some seemingly unrelated dots: Moulitsas' influence as a publisher; his former political consulting partnership with Armstrong; Armstrong's work as a consultant during and after his business relationship with Moulitsas; and Armstrong's pre-blogfather settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission over his role in touting various stocks in Internet forums.

Then on Sunday, in a story slugged "Shill To Hack: Celebrated Lib Strategist Has Shady Market Past," the New York Post pointedly detailed the allegations about Armstrong in a forum that everyone could read. From there, the story snowballed, and now the controversy has splintered into a whole series of mini-controversies.

Here are some of the bigger, most intriguing and just plain bizarre storylines that have developed, with plenty of links for your reading pleasure (or insomnia treatment):

-- When Armstrong says "Jump!" for the candidates who hire him, Moulitsas says "How high?" RedState dubbed the unspoken (and unproven) arrangement "Hype For Hire." Jim Geragthy of National Review Online pulled together a timeline to make the case. Mickey Kaus of Slate also has been making the claim. Moulitsas proved that he could have a future in politics by offering a non-denial denial.

-- Like all other political machines in American history, the netroots noise machine that Kos celebrates is run with an iron fist. Moulitsas controls the membership of the Liberal Blog Advertising Network, and other bloggers listen when he tells them to stay silent. Liberal bloggers are becoming the monster they are fighting. Not so, Moulitsas said in finally breaking his silence -- at which point other blogs like MaxSpeak, MyDD (here and here), Pandagon and Tapped started talking.

-- The New Republic is a tool of the right. Moulitsas leveled that charge when one of the traditionally liberal magazine's bloggers suggested that Kos is the puppetmaster of the netroots. TNR owner Martin Peretz countered with an attack on Moulitsas. Moderate Democrat Ed Kilgore of New Donkey also challenged Moulitsas' ridiculous argument that just because TNR dared to challenge him, they are part of a right-wing conspiracy.

-- Moulitsas is a hypocrite. That was the conclusion from both the right (Captain's Quarters) and the left (a commenter at Pandagon) after hearing about some of the behind-the-scenes activities of the netroots. Wrote Ed Morrissey: "[I]t's exactly the kind of coordination that the left often tosses out as accusations against their political opponents -- and this shows a significant level of hypocrisy in those accusations."

-- The netroots movement will fall. "[I]t's a myth based upon a lie sitting upon a foundation of fragmented political thought. The genesis for the Netroots movement stems from a fixation on, first the stockmarket, then astrology, and it only found politics, probably, when it was barred from engaging in a previous financial fascination that ultimately led to real trouble with the SEC." Jonah Goldberg offered a slightly different view at National Review Online, arguing that if Democrats regain control of Congress and the White House, the netroots will become irrelevant because they have nothing interesting to say. Instead, they're all about winning.

-- The blog war is a direct reaction to the growing power of the netroots and proof that the gates of the political establishment not only will be crashed but toppled. Yes, Moulitsas managed to turn the controversy into a not-so-subtle plug for his book in an appearance today at NDN, a think tank for "new Democrats." (The Corner has a partial transcript for the preceeding video link from PoliticsTV.)

-- "Elite bloggers" are better than the elites of the political and journalistic establishments. That's what Micah Sifry said at Personal Democracy Forum: "[T]he people who will hold him accountable are his reader-writers, who are hardnly a herd of cattle. That's the blogger creed. It may not work perfectly, but compare that level of accountability to the sort of impunity assumed by elite politicians and elite journalists, and I'll take the blogger creed any day."

-- Armstrong is a fan of astrology -- the implication being that he is not to be taken seriously. This would be one of those bizarre storylines I mentioned, with RedState, Riehl World View and Wizbang on the case. The revelation doesn't seem relevant to anything and sounds like the beginnings of a smear campaign much like the one directed at conservative blogger Ben Domenech earlier this year. Liberal bloggers dug until they found something on Domenech (plagiarism) that stuck. Now some bloggers on the right seem to be on a quest for the smoking gun that will topple Armstrong, Moultisas or both.

Unrelated to the scandal surrounding Moulitsas and his machine, David Broder of The Washington Post picked this week to pen a commentary about the shortcomings of the netroots, as opposed to some new Democratic activism with online connections.

Here's the slam: "[T]he blogs I have scanned are heavier on vituperation of President Bush and other targets than on creative thought. The candidates who have been adopted as heroes by Markos Moulitsas Zuniga, the convention's leader, and his fellow bloggers have mainly imploded in the heat of battle ... or come up short."

Enough About Kos

For folks who want a more balanced Friday blog diet, check out these other stories from the week:

-- The Senate Commerce Committee began its telecommunications debate yesterday, and blogs like Daily Kos, Firedoglake and MyDD that are pushing for "network neutrality" on the high-speed Internet are urging their readers to call the key lawmakers.

-- Americablog resurrected its complaint about the House's sudden and unexplained inaction on legislation designed to ensure the privacy of cellular telephone records. I addressed the subject in a February column.

-- The Theme Team of the House Republican Conference is holding another blog workshop this morning for congressional staffers in the party. It's a follow-up to the session where I spoke in March. The staff of Theme Team Chairman Jack Kingston of Georgia also organized two conference calls with bloggers this week, one on immigration legislation and the other on the Voting Rights Act.

-- What will the House look like if Democrats regain control? Patrick Hynes of Ankle Biting Pundits fearfully noted two possibilities: Howard Berman of California as chairman of the ethics committee and Alcee Hastings of Florida as chairman of the Intelligence Committee.

-- Matt Stoller of MyDD, who wants Democrats to run the House again, had kind words for Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., after Waxman filed a bill to address global warming.

-- Wizbang had the scoop on how the prosecutor in a high-profile rape case in North Carolina condemned bloggers (and the mainstream media) for "speculation" about evidence in the case.

-- Jeralyn Merritt of TalkLeft penned her first column for The Examiner. The topic: "Bloggers, Karl Rove And The Presumption Of Guilt."

-- Mark Tapscott of The Examiner, who tapped Merritt as part of his "blog board of contributors," pointed readers of his blog to an article that touts a "citizen auditor Web service" as a check against government spending. Tapscott also penned a response to my recent entries on the convergence of blogs and the MSM.

-- The brouhaha over blogs being blocked on government-owned computers in Kentucky prompted Copyfight to pose this question: "Is 'Blog-Swarming' A New Journalism?"

-- Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack, a Democrat, won some praise for a recent blog entry at Daily Kos, and John Edwards, a former Democratic senator from North Carolina and 2004 vice presidential candidate, earned kudos for his latest video podcast.

Posted by Danny at 05:30 PM | Comments (0)

Five days ago in Virginia, a Washington Post reporter chastised bloggers for too often making their Web sites "clearinghouses for rumors, innuendo, political attacks, misunderstandings, half-truths and gossip." Yesterday, a blogger in Kentucky proved the reporter's point with an innuendo-laden attack on the governor of his state that worked his fellow bloggers into a conspiratorial frenzy.

The blogger in question was Mark Nickolas of Bluegrass Report, who had a run-in with state government late last year over getting press credentials to cover the legislature. He accused Republican Gov. Ernie Fletcher of vindictively blocking access to Bluegrass Report after it was cited in a New York Times front-page story that was critical of the governor.

Kentucky bloggers and prominent national bloggers pounced on the story once Nickolas took his accusation public Wednesday. The blogs that echoed his charges of censorship motivated by corruption included Daily Kos, MyDD, TPMMuckraker, Talking Points Memo and Think Progress. All of those blogs, like Bluegrass Report, typically support Democrats.

Unforunately, the political bloggers did what they too often do when motivated by partisanship: They reported first and asked questions later. And most never asked questions at all.

Instead, they just ran sensational and unsubstantiated headlines like this:
-- "Kentucky Governor Blocks Popular Blog;"
-- "Kentucky Governor Ernie Fletcher Blocks Blogs;"
-- "Fletcher Flunkies Blocking Liberal Sites;"
-- "Kentucky Government Censors Political Watchdog Site;"
-- "In Soviet Kentucky, The State Blocks You!";
-- "Welcome To The People's Republic Of Kentucky;"
-- And this from a blog called Blast Furnace Canada: "The National Socialist Republic Of Kentucky."

All of the entries linked readers back to the major blogs, only one of which appears to have bothered to contact state officials in Kentucky to ask a few basic ques