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'Red Cards' In The Blogosphere

French soccer superstar Zinedine Zidane ended his career in pathetic fashinon on Sunday, with a now-infamous head-butt of Italian player Marco Materazzi in the World Cup finale. Zidane received a "red card" penalty for the confrontation and was ejected from the game.

The ensuing debate overseas prompted Arianna Huffington to dream of "how great it would be if we had the political equivalent of a red card -- something we could flash for campaign fouls and astonishing acts of bad political behavior that would immediately remove the perpetrators from the political pitch."

If she were the referee, folks like Sen. Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, White House adviser Karl Rove and the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth would be ejected from political life. "The problem is we'd need a political referee willing to step up and pull the red card out of his pocket, even for a political superstar and even in the 110th minute of a political final," Huffington wrote.

Her post got me to dreaming about red cards for the blogosphere.

As Joe Gandelman noted at The Moderate Voice today, bloggers have a penchant for overstepping the rhetorical bounds of common decency, particularly by launching personal attacks. "It's a form of intellectual hysteria which ends in an attempt to commit rhetorical murder," Gandelman said. "And it says something about the soul (or lack of it) of the person or persons doing it. Whether on the right or on the left."

Wouldn't it be nice to boot such people from the blogosphere so they don't ruin the game for the rest of us?

UPDATE: Huffington Post blogger Mo Rocca said the political game need more head-butts, not red cards. Not so in the blogosphere. It has enough head-butts already, thank you.

Posted by Danny | 04:00 PM

Comments

Enough head-butts, and enough butt-heads, too. Not that I'm naming any names, but the two tend to go together.

Dr. Weevil | 07.12.06 08:45 AM

Somehow I don't see that banning people from politics is the answer to anything. Does anybody remember history? The American Revolution came about because the Colonists were ignored. I'd rather see this fight remain verbal, unpleasant and incoherent as some bloggers are notwithstanding.

MarkD | 07.12.06 08:47 AM

By the examples she's chosen, Huffington envisions red cards not as a way to eject 'headbutters' (Lieberman?) but as a way to silence political enemies or those she disagrees with -- much like a struggle session during the Cultural Revolution. Figures.

Vinny Vidivici | 07.12.06 10:14 AM

The blogosphere and politics have enough head-butts, and enough folks with their heads in their butts. Adding a referee would only make things worse.

nerdbert | 07.12.06 11:53 AM

Arianna should have been red carded long ago. Isn't it amazing how she would only eliminate those with whom she disagrees. Not uncommon anywhere in the political spectrum. Maybe that's why there's a first amendment.

Ken Hahn | 07.12.06 11:59 AM

I might pay attention if Arianna had red-carded someone on her team. (Boxer doesn't count because she got it for an own goal.)

As it is, it's just fantasy suppression of dissent.

Bob Hawkins | 07.12.06 01:48 PM

There already is an equivalent of Red Cards in the blogosphere: it's called other blogs. Calling people out for bad behavior is a common practice among those who understand how blogs actually work. If things get so bad that you can't stand to read them anymore, removing the offenders from your blogroll is also an option.

The analogy to sports is a bad one. Participation in a sporting event is by mutual consent, including the consent to be regulated by the decision of the referee. But in politics (and blogging) such regulation is neither required nor desirable and may infringe on the rights of free expression.

Jack of Clubs | 07.12.06 03:08 PM

Typical loser attitude: "The American People are listening to others, not me, so lets shut those others up."

The Swift Boat Vets said several things about Kerry that were proved to be true (Christmas in Cambodia, claiming credit for another Captain's fight, come immediately to mind), and nothing that's been proved false ("claimed" does not equal "proved"). Her desire to shurt them up reveals her for what she really is, just another extremist censor.

Greg D | 07.12.06 05:32 PM

I disagree with your premise that Zidane's red card was pathetic. On the contrary, there is something rather heroic about him being prepared to risk his continued participation in a World Cup final in order to put a nasty racist in his place.

If Zidane had not done this, then nobody would have been clamoring today to hear on French TV what exactly had been said to him.

Furthermore, anybody that has played a physical sport understands that the referee cannot catch every infraction and that occassionally players have to take the law into their own hands.

I like your point; it's just that you picked the wrong example.

gazzer | 07.12.06 10:37 PM

I know Ari is just kidding around, but as Freud said, jokes reveal the subconscious. I've always wondered why I've had such a visceral reaction against her, and this explains it. This is not someone who respects the notion of being in a politically pluralistic society. She's more than a bit of an aristocrat, who's grown bored those who disagree with her, and fantasizes about simply removing them from the public square. On "Left Right and Center," her primary response to those she disagrees with is, "How can you say that?" It's just too hard to make an actual argument, so she impugns motives. Arriana won't be happy until the only response she gets to her prattlings is a roomful of nodding heads -- or salutes.

John S. | 07.13.06 12:50 AM

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