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July 20, 2006BELTWAY BLOGROLL
Candidate And Lawmaker Interviews, Round III
This entry is bumped to the top of the blog every time new interview links are added. Click to the extended entry for the latest. Links to earlier blog interviews with lawmakers and candidates are available here and here.
Blogs bring much-needed passion to the political arena, but bloggers must be careful to keep their passions in check so as not to cross into destructive character assassination that further polarizes the atmosphere, Sen. John McCain said yesterday.
"Look, everybody's free to blog, but sometimes some of the stuff that comes across [is], I don't think, terribly helpful in maintaining the discussion, the dialogue and the debate," McCain, R-Ariz., said in his first-ever podcast with "The Glenn And Helen Show." McCain added, however, that blogs are "a very important way for us to passionately defend the views and positions we hold." (Hat tip to Tim Chapman.)
McCain mentioned as an example some of the attacks being leveled against Connecticut Sen. Joseph Lieberman by liberal bloggers who support businessman Ned Lamont in his Democratic primary race against Lieberman. He said Lieberman's support for the Iraq war is fair game for bloggers to challenge, "but I don't think that makes him a lesser man."
Such attacks are not exclusive to the blogosphere, McCain acknowledged, saying that he has erred in the past by getting too personal with some political opponents. But he said bloggers could learn from his mistakes. "If you get personal with them," he said of his colleagues in the Senate, "then ... they never forget it, and that's human nature. And we don't need it."
McCain posted his first blog entry last month at the Porkbusters site dedicated to fighting special-interest earmarks in government spending bills. He mentioned that post and praised the Porkbusters effort in the podcast, which is the work of Instapundit Glenn Reynolds and his wife, Helen Smith.
"In politics and life there are tipping points, and the bridge to nowhere ... I think was a tipping point," he said in reference to a spending earmark for a bridge in Alaska that became a rallying cry against pork-barrel spending last year.
McCain also praised the work of Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., in fighting the Porkbusters cause. Coburn even has the Porkbusters logo on his congressional Web site. His latest battle was yesterday, and it produced some wins, as reported by Mark Tapscott.
"I admire him tremendously for the courage he's shown," McCain said of Coburn, adding that "he's stolen the title of 'Miss Congeniality' from me."
McCain also said the Federal Election Commission made the right decision earlier this year when it exempted bloggers from campaign finance rules, just as traditional media are exempt. "They're going to play a much bigger role" in politics as a result, he said of blogs.
McCain further noted the impact for good that blogs have had on the media. And he said they are changing Americans' media appetite from one based on television news to instantaneous online news marked by unvarnished commentary. "They not only want the facts; they want to know people's opinions on it," he said.
McCain opened the podcast with a comment about the influence of one blog in particular: Instapundit. Asked why he had consented to give his first podcast, McCain quipped, "Because Glenn is such a powerful and influential American, I thought that this would sow up any ambitions that I might have for the presidency."
That won McCain some laughs from the co-hosts -- but something tells me the senior senator from Arizona was only half-joking.
UPDATE: Jim Geraghty of National Review Online and Michelle Malkin also noted McCain's thoughts on blogs. Malkin's post highlighted some blog-related comments I did not mention, like McCain's belief that "bad bloggers die on the vine."
Over at Townhall, meanwhile, McCain came under fire from another prominent blogger over some recent comments the senator made in Esquire magazine. "You are a great American, a lousy senator, and a terrible Republican," Hugh Hewitt said in resurrecting a criticism he has leveled against McCain on his radio show.
UPDATE, 7/20: A former porn star named Mimi Miyagi wants to be the next governor of Nevada. She's the longest of longshots, but John Hawkins of Right Wing News thought it would be fun to interview Miyagi.
UPDATE, 7/19: MyDD interviewed Democratic Senate candidate Claire McCaskill of Missouri.
Posted by Danny | 12:13 PM
