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If you want objective and thoughtful insights into reports of an online sexual relationship between Republican Rep. Mark Foley of Florida and a former congressional page, don't spend your time on political blogs.

But if you want to see just how differently folks in red and blue America see the world, the blogs that are chattering about the sex scandal are a great place to start. You also may be impressed by the amazing talent of bloggers to spin the news to their own advantage and to connect totally unrelated events. I know I was.

Here's the way Democratic bloggers see the scandal:

-- Americablog: "When Rep. Rodney Alexander, R-La., first learned about the Foley e-mails, he went to Rep. Tom Reynolds, the chair of the GOP House campaign committee. Not the Ethics Committee. Not the Speaker. Not the Capitol Police. He went to the top GOP House political operative."

-- Balloon Juice: "That is the kind of committment and dedication to duty that we have grown to expect from this corrupt Congress and loathesome administration. And you wonder why the war in Iraq is such a mess- these are the do-nothing fools providing the oversight.'"

-- Crooks and Liars: "The clerk reads the resolution calling for an ethics investigation into Foley. Republicans boo [Minority Leader] Nancy [Pelosi] when she asks for a recorded vote. With a huge sex scandal brewing, they boo Nancy. I think they should take a long look in the mirror."

-- The Huffington Post: "What's illuminating is the congressman's behavior. Sending text messages and e-mails? As if he could never be caught; as if he was invulnerable. And it's exactly the kind of arrogance and poor judgment that has come to dominate the Republican Party."

-- MyDD: "This is getting good. The Republican leadership is starting to feed on itself."

-- Talking Points Memo: "I don't think cover-up is too strong a word since there was apparently an active effort to keep the allegations from the only Democrat who serves on the Page Board. That decision, I think, speaks volumes."

And here's the way Republican bloggers see it:

-- Captain's Quarters: "Democratic protestations on this matter seem rather hypocritical, given the history of their party and page scandals. ... I agree that the Republicans have some 'splaining to do. However, Democrats hardly covered themselves in glory when running the show for the last decade they controlled Congress in a situation that was objectively more serious than Foley's pathetic cyber-sex efforts."

-- GOP Bloggers: "I can't help but think that if Foley was a Democrat, Rahm Emanuel would be talking to reporters about a 'Republican smear campaign,' and his fellow Democrats would be rallying in his defense, the same way they do with Bill Clinton, who has been accused of everything from sexual harassment to rape."

-- GOPProgress: "I have no doubt that Foley's behavior, over the next few days and weeks, will become hotly politicized -- used by hothead liberals to bash Republicans and make us all look like perverted sickos, used by dimwitted conservatives to argue that many moderates are lacking in moral values. All such claims will be baseless and fatuous. "

-- Wizbang: "Twenty-odd years ago, members of Congress boinking underage pages was worth a censure, and barely worth running them out of office over. Nowadays, just talking dirty to them is enough to get you ridden out of town on a rail. Well done, Congress."

Michelle Malkin wrote the best post I have seen on the subject -- about the only one that didn't try to cast political blame but that instead focused the blame squarely on Foley and sympathy on the page and his parents.

"Rep. Foley's apparent abuse of office and lecherous communications with a 16-year-old boy -- during what should have been one of the best times in his life as a page in Washington -- is every parent's worst nightmare," she wrote. "It happens to both boys and girls, and all parents must be vigilant and immunize their children against predators early and often."

This bit of outrage from Mike Krempasky of RedState was refreshing, too. "There is no more place for Mr. Foley in our party than there was for David Duke. And our party's leaders ought to make it clear -- don't take one red cent from Foley's warchest. Refund it to his donors. Give it away. Burn it. Whatever. Just don't use it to elect Republicans."

Posted by Danny at 08:20 PM | Comments (3)

It's a shame that so many people who troll the blogosphere need admonitions like this one today at Daily Kos:

If you can help us bring polite pressure to bear on Sen. Lott's office, we can get something good done today. (But seriously? It has to be polite and respectful -- if you cannot be professional in doing this, don't. It may backfire.)

The subject: a mandate that campaign finance data of Senate candidates be made available online.

Oh, and does anyone actually believe that Daily Kos or other Democratic blogs would have let die the story about Sen. George Allen, R-Va., allegedly using the "n-word" if he had admitted doing so and calling it a mistake? This from the same blog that is now spreading stories about Allen spitting on women?

Posted by Danny at 06:53 PM | Comments (0)

As noted in Technology Daily:

The sponsor of a House bill to target operators of child pornography Web sites said he would resign Friday after questions arose about e-mails that he sent to a former male congressional page.

Florida Republican Mark Foley also is a co-chairman of the Congressional Missing and Exploited Children's Caucus. He introduced the bill, H.R. 5749, in July.

AP reports that Foley asked in the e-mail to the page how old the boy was and what he wanted for his birthday. Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics posted the e-mails on its site after ABC News disclosed their existence.

Foley's election opponent, Democrat Tim Mahoney, called for an investigation. Foley has said there was nothing inapppropriate about the exchange.

Posted by Danny at 04:03 PM | Comments (0)

Patrick Hynes, who made a name with himself online with the Crush Kerry blog in 2004 and at Ankle Biting Pundits after that, has had a rough couple of months in the blogosphere.

First he was exposed as a hypocrite in July when he insinuated unethical behavior by Democratic political bloggers even as he was engaged in some questionable actions of his own in his undisclosed role as a blog adviser for the political action committee of Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. Now Hynes is under fire again by a blogger upset over his connection to The Channel Changer blog, which is focused on telecommunications reform efforts.

Hynes was actively posting at The Channel Changer earlier this year. In fact, that is the forum he used to suggest impropriety by blogger Matt Stoller of MyDD in relation to the debate over "network neutrality" on the Internet.

After his troubles in the summer, however, Hynes apparently quit blogging at The Channel Changer and let someone else take over for him. Now a blog called Borderline has discovered The Channel Changer and has made all manner of accusations against Hynes. The Consumerist, Craig Newmark of the online classifieds site Craigslist, and Universal Hub have commented as well.

Hynes responded with a post of his own at The Channel Changer. "Well, I've pretty much quit blogging and I haven't posted here for almost two months. ... But the idea that I am 'secretly' behind this blog is absurd, as I have never presented this blog as anything but my own," he wrote. "The bottom line is, I've got too much going on -- business to run, a book to sell, baby coming in two weeks -- so I'm basically taking a break from blogging."

Here are the rest of this week's blog bits:

-- Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., met with a few bloggers. You can get the scoop at The Ballot Box, ShopFloor and TimChapman.com (here and here).

Various House Republicans, including Speaker Dennis Hastert of Illinois, also held a session with bloggers later in the week, as did Michigan Senate candidate Mike Bouchard, a Republican. Tim Chapman of the Heritage Foundation was at the House event, and The Ballot Box has a report on the Bouchard meeting.

-- New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson began a guest-blogging stint at MyDD this week and will post there periodically between now and the Nov. 7 election to draw attention to various electoral contests. "Democrats and the netroots can win in 2006 and build a track record of success for years to come," Richardson wrote. "That's why I'm committed to supporting and building the progressive online infrastructure we need to win now."

-- When looking at recent poll numbers that seem to conflict, Chris Bowers of MyDD came away thinking that there are two Americas. "Our work over the next six weeks will determine which nation we will live in for years to come: the nation with the huge Democratic sweep or the nation with the extremely narrow Republican majority?"

Later in the week, he suggested one way to achieve that Democratic sweep: "Google-Bombing The Election" by creating new Web sites that are critical of candidates the netroots oppose. "If the blogosphere were to work together to Google-bomb, say, 30 key Republican districts and direct people searching for a given Republican candidate to a good Web site, blog, article or advertisement that tells the truth about that candidate," he wrote, "we could make a huge impact on the flow of information on key congressional races to voters."

-- Two local bloggers in Howard County, Md., are conducting an online candidate forum.

-- A Connecticut television station reported on mud-slinging bloggers in the House race between Republican Rep. Rob Simmons and Democratic challenger Joe Courtney. The station reported that one of the bloggers in question, Tom Misenti, is a campaign volunteer for Simmons.

-- Markos Moulitsas Zuniga of Daily Kos wants people to believe that he's not the leader of any movement, that the netroots are all about the people. But for a guy who says the movement isn't about him, he loves to play the role of the general rallying his troops when they sound defeatist. The latest example is a post titled "There's A Reason This Is A 'Long-Term Movement.'"

-- The Canadian military is not too keen on blogging by soldiers. "The country's top soldier, Chief of Defense Staff Gen. Rick Hillier, has ordered ordinary Joes in uniform to check with their superiors before posting information on the Internet," according to the Globe and Mail.

-- From a Financial Times article headlined "Apostles Of The Blogosphere": Many politicians in America and elsewhere clearly feel the need to pay their respects to the blogosphere -- if only as a precaution. It is not self-evident, however, that the blogosphere's influence on politics is all for the good. A political consultant once complained that his bosses' reliance on focus groups handed power to people who were prepared to sit around for hours talking about politics with strangers, in return for a free sandwich. Similarly, if politics is increasingly shaped by the blogosphere, it will mean more power and influence for a subsection of the population willing to waste hours trawling through dross on the Internet."

-- Jim Geraghty took a critical look at the win-loss political record of the netroots in a column for The Washington Times. David Sirota, who works for netroots favorite Ned Lamont, the Democratic Senate nominee in Connecticut, was unimpressed by Geraghty's logic.

-- Bull Moose invented a holiday: "Hug A Nutrooter Day." The occasion: Sen. Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut has a 10-point edge over Lamont, according to a new poll, and the bull thinks the netroots are sure to be downtrodden by the news.

-- Pajamas Media hosted a discussion about partisanship at the National Press Club on Tuesday, and a few bloggers were on the panel. Paul Mirengoff of Power Line and Tom Bevan of Real Clear Politics shared their thoughts online after the roundtable. See more post-event thoughts at Hit and Run, INDCJournal, OxBlog and Townhall.

-- The question at the Pajamas Media session was "How partisan is too partisan?" Maybe when two guys in the same party -- Democrats Dan Gerstein and David Sirota, a blogger -- behave like children toward each other.

-- RedState co-founder Mike Krempasky, who does blog outreach work for Edelman, and Ben Popken of The Consumerist also have been bickering. The subject: Krempasky's "off the record" work for Wal-Mart. Potamac Flacks has the story. Wal-Mart's outreach to bloggers has sparked controversy before.

-- In the summer, Sen. George Allen, R-Va., had the "macaca" problem; last week, he had the Jewish heritage problem; this week, he has the n-word problem (see the Allen campaign's response here). Slate pulls all the controversies together (and perhaps ones yet to come) in the new "George Allen Insult Generator."

-- Allen might have avoided much of the controversy plaguing his campaign had he not uttered the word "macaca" in response to a volunteer for his opponent who was videotaping Allen's events. Robert Bluey of The Ballot Box thinks Allen could have benefited from a few enterprising college Republicans to handle that whole situation instead.

-- Reporter/blogger Will Bunch let his one-time role model David Broder of The Washington Post know that he isn't too thrilled by Broder's recent columns that dismissively lumped millions of angry Americans into the same category as bloggers.

-- Have you ever wondered what members of Congress do all day? Keep wondering -- but do it on videotape and you might just win $5,000 courtesy of the Sunlight Network. All you have to do is enter the "Congress In 30 Seconds" contest that is running for the next few weeks.

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

Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney may be regretting his decision to grant an interview to RedState. Shortly after the audio went online, a separate front-page post at RedState blasted the fellow Republican as a liar about his views on abortion.

The entry contrasted Romney's past statements for abortion rights with his contention in the RedState interview that "I've never called myself pro-choice." "There is no substantive difference between the position labeled 'pro-choice' and declaring your support for 'the right to choose,'" Ben wrote. "And that is something that Mitt Romney has done repeatedly over the course of his political career. To say otherwise is to tell a lie."

Jim Geraghty of National Review Online noted the smackdown. He chastised fellow Republicans who want to declare Romney "unacceptable" as the 2008 GOP presidential nominee over one issue --and well before the race has begun or Romney has officially declared.

"If the GOP base wants a pro-life candidate in 2008, fine; they are, definitively, the pro-life party," Geraghty wrote. "But if the litmus test was that the candidate had never wavered on the issue at any point in their career, neither [Ronald] Reagan nor the first President Bush would have made the cut."

At least as interesting to me is the fact that a blog would post an interview with someone only to then quickly attack that person for something said in the interview. (Geraghty mentioned that, too.) That may come across as a set-up, especially since the criticism was given the same prominent treatment as the interview.

It reminds me of the tendency of some bloggers to accept advertisements with viewpoints they oppose, only to then question or ridicule the content or to even tell their readers to ignore the ads.

Posted by Danny at 01:11 PM | Comments (0)

Early this year, John Aravosis of Americablog created a stir when he bought the cellular telephone records of 2004 Democratic presidential candidate Wesley Clark to make a point about how easy it is get such records.

His attention grabbing stunt helped spur quick congressional action on bills to curtail the practice, which is known as "pretexting," or obtaining information under false pretenses. The House passed one measure on the issue in late April and another in early May. The Senate Judiciary Committee also approved a bill in March.

The legislation appeared to be on the fast track toward passage but then stalled. Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., blamed the "mysterious disappearance" of the bill from the House's agenda on an objection from the Intelligence Committee over concerns that the measure could hinder intelligence-gathering activities.

But now, with lawmakers nearly ready to adjourn until after the November election, the subject is suddenly back on the radar. The reason: a scandal involving the computer company Hewlett-Packard, which allegedly hired private investigators to engage in pretexting aimed at board members, employees and journalists. The goal was to uncover internal sources suspected of leaking company information to the media.

The House Energy and Commerce Committee begins a two-day hearing today into the HP scandal. In the background, lawmakers who want to stop pretexting are working feverishly to move the legislation.

Andrew Noyes at Technology Daily has been covering the story for us this week and had two stories on the behind the scenes maneuvering over the bills. I thought bloggers might be interested since one of their own helped push the topic onto the congressional radar. Here are excerpts:

Lawmakers Seek Deal On Protecting Phone Records

The chairmen of two powerful Senate committees have been working closely with Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., to finalize a consensus bill to curtail "pretexting," a practice in which online brokers fraudulently obtain and sell telephone records for a fee.

Alaska Republican Ted Stevens, chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, and Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa., reportedly are "very close" to a compromise, Republican sources said. ...

Senate Judiciary staffers have negotiated changes to their bill to mesh with the House language "so if that goes through it can be signed right into law," a source close to the process said. But compromise might not come that easily. "Word is [that] Stevens is saying his way or the highway" when it comes to pretexting legislation, the source said.

State Pre-Emption Is Obstacle In Phone Privacy Debate

Differences over whether to pre-empt existing state laws reportedly is the sticking point to a Senate consensus on a federal bill against "pretexting," a practice in which Internet-based brokers fraudulently obtain and sell telephone records, sources said late Tuesday.

Several Capitol Hill sources and consumer watchdogs said that Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Ted Stevens, R-Alaska, is insisting that language negotiated with the Senate Judiciary Committee pre-empt state laws on the subject.

Stevens' measure, S. 2389, would override state mandates that require telecommunications carriers or Internet-enabled voice services to "develop, implement or maintain procedures for protecting confidentiality of customer proprietary network information," according to a staff working draft. ...

If a pretexting bill with state pre-emption is enacted, it could halt state investigations by utility commissions into the lawfulness of electronic surveillance by the National Security Agency, the American Civil Liberties Union argues.

ACLU Legislative Counsel Tim Sparapani said his group supports a crackdown on pretexting but not when paired with potentially damaging provisions that could hinder state efforts to examine NSA spying without warrants. Five states have probes pending, and five others have requested investigations, the ACLU said.

Jeannine Kenney, a senior policy analyst at Consumers Union, also said the bill would not "do much to prevent the breach of privacy from occurring in the first place."

Posted by Danny at 07:10 AM | Comments (0)

As noted in Technology Daily this morning

A top aide for Rep. Charles Bass resigned yesterday after disclosures that he posed as a supporter of the lawmaker's political opponent in messages on a blog intended to convince people the race was not competitive.

AP reports that operators of two liberal blogs traced the postings to the House's Internet server. The office for Bass, R-N.H., traced the messages to his policy director, Tad Furtado, and issued a statement announcing Furtado's resignation.

Posting as "IndyNH" and "IndieNH," Furtado professed support for Democrat Paul Hodes but suggested that Democrats should invest their time and money elsewhere.

UPDATE: Political consultant Kari Chisholm of Politics and Technology has been tracking some of the online tomfoolery this campaign season.

Here's what Chisholm had to say after the New Hampshire scandal: "One more time: It ain't worth it, people. Don't be stupid. You're professionals. Let the high-school kids run around town stealing lawn signs; let the high-school kids screw around on the blogs."

Swing State Project and Wizbang also have posts on the scandal.

From Wizbang: "The guy might know all the ins and outs of the legislative process and how the House works, but he's a moron when it comes to blogging. ... Bass needs someone on his team who has a fairly good grasp of how blogs work, how bloggers think, and just what they do -- and don't do."

Posted by Danny at 12:10 PM | Comments (0)

Bloggers who attended a bill-signing ceremony yesterday were invited to chat with White House budget officials afterward. The budget officials, including Deputy Director Clay Johnson, were so impressed with the impact of bloggers in pushing the bill in question into law that they want to work with bloggers toward common goals in the future.

Tom Shoop at GovExec.com, a publication here at National Journal, has a full report. Here is the meat of the story:

The Office of Management and Budget has launched a back-channel effort to reach out to political bloggers for their help in pushing the Bush administration's management agenda on Capitol Hill, OMB officials said Tuesday.

... At a luncheon sponsored by the IBM Center for the Business of Government in Washington later on Tuesday, OMB Director Robert Portman said that in Johnson's meeting with bloggers after the event, the deputy director told them, "You're so good at this. Can you help us with some of our other initiatives?"

Later at the luncheon, Johnson hinted at what some of those initiatives might be. He noted that Sen. George Voinovich, R-Ohio, had introduced a bill aimed at strengthening federal performance evaluations and linking annual pay raises to minimally successful job ratings, but the legislation had failed to attract a single co-sponsor.

"If the American people knew that," Johnson said, "they would go as nuts as they did" when they learned that senators had placed holds on the spending transparency bill [just signed into law].

Later, when asked about how the administration's effort to put federal jobs up for competition from private firms is playing out on Capitol Hill, Johnson said, "One thing we just heard this past week was to let bloggers know that there are certain members of Congress who don't think that we should be trying to spend their money effectively. And then maybe mention a few of them."

Posted by Danny at 09:13 AM | Comments (0)

"The bloggers mobilized Congress. Congress did not mobilize bloggers."

That's what John Hart, the Senate spokesman for Oklahoma Republican Tom Coburn, told The Washington Times yesterday when describing how the mandate for a publicly searchable database on federal spending came to be. The hat tip certainly was in order considering that some bloggers were even invited to today's bill-signing ceremony that paves the way for the database.

But Coburn's House counterparts aren't so willing to give public credit where arguably due to the blogosphere. After the ceremony today, the office of House Majority Whip Roy Blunt, R-Mo., didn't even acknowledge the role that bloggers played in forcing Congress' hand on the issue earlier this month. The office also barely acknowledged the work of Coburn and co-sponsor Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill.

"BLUNT-DAVIS BUDGET TRANSPARENCY BILL SIGNED INTO LAW," blared the headline in an e-mail from the majority whip's office.

The publicity-grabbing headline is wrong both technically and substantively -- technically because the bill that President Bush signed bears the number (S. 2590) of the Coburn-Obama measure, and substantively because Coburn's work on the issue in August and September made it one of the hottest items on the congressional agenda.

It all makes perfect sense inside the Beltway, though. Conservative bloggers were a key factor in Blunt's failed attempt to ascend to House majority leader early this year, so he's probably not too eager to pat them on the back for anything. And what lawmaker in his right mind would give top billing to the guys from the other chamber?

In fairness to Blunt, Bush didn't acknowledge the bloggers, either, even though they were at the White House. His comments included praise for Coburn, Obama, Blunt, House co-sponsor Tom Davis, R-Va., and other lawmakers. He also called attention to the White House's own efforts to make government more transparent via the Web site ExpectMore.

And so ends the bloggers' 15 minutes of fame in Washington -- at least until they swarm again.

UPDATE: Instapundit has a firsthand report from the White House. I'll add links below from other bloggers as I see them:

-- Ace of Spades HQ
-- Americans for Prosperity
-- Tim Chapman: "Apparently a tip of the hat to the bloggers did not make the cut ... but that’s OK. At least they were invited."
-- Mary Katherine Ham: "The president didn't mention bloggers or Internets or even people power in his remarks, which I thought was silly. One sentence and he would have been talked about all day."
-- Hot Air
-- Porkbusters
-- The Right Angle: "The fact that Clay Johnson [of the White House Office of Management and Budget] was willing to spend an hour with us afterward illustrated the growing importance bloggers are playing not only on a political level -- as is often reported -- but also in terms of influencing policy on Capitol Hill."
-- Tapscott's Copy Desk
-- Under The Influence

UPDATE II: Burson Taylor Snyder, Blunt's communications director, noted in the comments that Blunt recognized bloggers in a timeline about the bill. Instapundit Glenn Reynolds picked up on that and said my critique "may be unfair."

Point taken. But I see a difference between publicly praising bloggers as Coburn's spokesman did -- and as Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist has done repeatedly (see the comment below as an example) -- and acknowledging the work of bloggers in a timeline that is buried on the House majority whip's Web site.

UPDATE III: John Hawkins of Right Wing News was invited but unable to attend.

And apparently the White House only reached out to the center-right side of the blogosphere that started the blog swarm on the Coburn-Obama bill. TPMMuckraker and its readers did much of the heavy lifting to put Democratic senators on the record about the measure but did not get an invite.

That is par for the course in Washington's approach to the blogosphere. Both Republicans and Democrats predictably only invite friendly blogs to their insider bashes. They'll have none of that "love your enemies" stuff.

UPDATE IV: GOPProgress also took note of the bill's enactment. That blog, too, was directly involved in the swarm for the bill but apparently was not represented at the White House.

Posted by Danny at 04:09 PM | Comments (2)

As noted in Technology Daily this morning:

The authors of several prominent blogs will join President Bush today for the signing of a bill to create a database of federal spending.

The Washington Times reports that the bloggers will be recognized for their role in forcing the measure through Congress.

"The bloggers mobilized Congress," said John Hart, a spokesman for Senate bill sponsor Tom Coburn, R-Okla. "Congress did not mobilize bloggers."

Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit and Porkbusters said the passage of the bill demonstrates the role bloggers can play in forcing responsible government.

"That's sort of the big news here," Reynolds said. "What blogs make it hard for people to do in a whole lot of different ways is tell one group of people one thing and tell another group something different, and hope nobody noticed."

Posted by Danny at 09:08 AM | Comments (0)

As reported by CongressDaily last week:

The Senate Judiciary Committee has approved legislation designed to give the public better access to government records and prod federal agencies into responding more quickly to Freedom of Information Act requests.

The measure would grant bloggers the same reduced processing fees for FOIA requests now enjoyed by journalists. The panel approved the bill, S. 394, by voice vote.

It is designed primarily to reduce the current massive backlog of unprocessed FOIA cases. The bill calls for stricter enforcement of the current 20-day deadline for providing some kind of response to FOIA and for the creation of a FOIA ombudsman to mediate disputes between the government and the public on information requests.

The legislation also would let the public track the status of FOIA requests online and via a telephone hotline.

Mark Tapscott of The Washington Examiner, who is a leading advocate for FOIA, took note of the panel vote in a blog entry this morning.

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

The battle for the Senate seat in Michigan now will be waged in part in the blogosphere, as both the Democratic and Republican candidates have launched blogs this month. That is as it should be in what top political observers now consider one of the most competitive races of this fall.

I've noted the new blog of Republican Mike Bouchard a couple of times this month. But the last time I checked earlier this month, Democratic Sen. Debbie Stabenow did not yet have a blog.

Now she does. Laura Packard, Stabenow's Internet communications director, pointed me to the blog this afternoon. It has been online since Sept. 12.

If you want to know why all candidates (and especially those in competitive races) should have blogs, just look at what has transpired in Virginia over the past two days, where Republican Sen. George Allen and Democrat James Webb are doing battle.

Over the past couple of months, the charge that Allen is a racist, or at least was in earlier years, has taken firm root in the Democratic blogosphere. On Sunday, Salon fueled that fire with a story that said Allen was a racist in his college days. The article quoted one former football teammate of Allen's on the record and two others off the record.

Democratic blogs immediately called attention to the story. But this time, unlike as happened in August after a politically costly verbal gaffe by Allen, the Allen campaign's own blog answered with a rapid response -- one that featured the contrary views of three other former Allen teammates, and they spoke on the record.

"As journalists accusing Allen of something pretty heinous less than two months before an election," Mary Katherine Ham added at Townhall, "the Salon gang really should have let these guys speak more extensively in the article, even if they wanted to bury it beneath the more newsworthy storyline about Allen being a racist."

Posted by Danny at 01:35 PM | Comments (1)

Like me, Blogometer alum Bill Beutler has been tracking political blog scandals, and he has published a helpful guide to them over at Blog P.I.

In light of how quickly the blog scandals are emerging, Bill's list is amazingly up to date. It includes the latest controversy, the one involving alleged "sock puppet" from the office of Rep. Charlie Bass, R-N.H., who stands accused of posing as a liberal blogger. The subscription-based Roll Call published a story on that episode today, and Daily Kos printed an excerpt. Raw Story is on the case, too.

"For a crowd that claims progressive blogs help them out, they sure spend a lot of time trying to undermine them," Daily Kos founder Markos Moulitsas Zuniga said of the New Hampshire news. Then again, at least the Bass campaign copped to their transgressions, unlike the equally stupid people at the Tom Kean campaign which were busted for denying their own trolling."

Posted by Danny at 01:19 PM | Comments (0)

Time.com has a piece that is sure to spark reactions from Democratic bloggers. "The Netroots Hit Their Limits" argues that liberal bloggers and other online activists can't sway elections.

Here are some excerpts:

-- "Compared with established interest groups like organized labor and conservative Christians, the netroots play a small role in national politics. Even their most ardent players now recognize that you can't create a true movement using nothing but modems and instant messaging."

-- "When it comes to money, the bloggers are still playing with Monopoly dollars compared with groups like Emily's List and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. The top several liberal blogs together have raised about $1.2 million over the past year, which isn't enough in most districts to run a successful congressional campaign."

-- "[T]hey're becoming pragmatic about policy goals. There's little demand from the netroots for Democrats to support gay marriage, for example, even though 91 percent of the people who gave money to or worked on Dean's campaign back it."

-- "The fact is, day-to-day campaigning in 2006 is not very different from how it was in 1996: candidates call a few very rich people to ask them to give money so the campaign can run ads on television and hope soccer moms catch them between cooking dinner and driving to practice. If the Democrats win in the fall elections, the roots of that victory will not be on the Net."

(Hat tip Althouse.)

Washington Post columnist David Broder, meanwhile, has taken two potshots at Democratic bloggers in the past four days. He dismissed them as "vituperative" and "foul-mouthed."

The response of Matt Stoller at MyDD: "I don't pay much attention to people like Broder, but even I noticed this rather unhinged attack on bloggers. We're getting to him, I suppose."

UPDATE: I figured it wouldn't be long before the netroots attacked the theme of the Time.com piece, and sure enough, Stirling Newberry verbally ripped Time author Perry Bacon to shreds at TPMCafe. (Duncan Black of Eschaton joined the bashing with a post dubbed "The Stupids" about the media in general.)

"Time has hired someone who is both pervasively dishonest in how he characterizes the people he interviews, ill-informed about the topic that he is writing about, and heavily biased in favor of the right wing. He lies about facts, he misinterprets data, and he mischaracterizes a movement that he is clearly intent on deriding. ... It shows why there is a blogging phenomenon: The editors of major publications are liars, promote lying and are atrociously smarmy while they do it."

Read the whole thing for Newberry's detailed analysis of the flaws he perceived in the article. He made some legitimate points, especially about the quote from MyDD's Stoller. When I read it, it sure sounded to me like it had to be taken out of context based on what Stoller himself has written in the past. I'll be eager to see his response to the article.

On the other hand, Newberry's unrestrained anger got the better of him when he called Bacon "absolutely dishonest" for saying that "the conservative Rightroots movement is only just getting started." That part of the story is absolutely true. "Rightroots" is a proper noun, and Newberry should know the movement began a little more than two months ago because even MyDD commented on the development.

Posted by Danny at 06:34 PM | Comments (1)

Two conflicting opinions are emerging in the blogosphere of a Fox News interview with former President Bill Clinton that is set to air tomorrow. The subject is whether Clinton did enough as president to capture terrorist leader Osama bin Laden.

Clinton took offense at the line of questioning. His critics say he was angry during the interview; his fans argue that he showed "strength of character" in challenging his Fox interrogator, Chris Wallace. Transcripts and video clips are available in advance on the blogs. We link, you decide:

Angry
-- Clinton Flips Out Over Osama Hunt (Hot Air)
-- Clinton, He's Red-Faced And Angry (Althouse)
-- The Fruits Of An Unserious Presidency (Power Line)
-- Clinton Unleashed (Macsmind)
-- Compare And Contrast (Wizbang)

Righteously indignant
-- Strength Through Example (MyDD)
-- President Clinton Blasts Chris Wallace (Crooks and Liars)
-- Clinton Takes On Fox News (Think Progress)
-- Go Big Dog (Firedoglake)
-- The Big Dog Bites (The Mahablog)

As for Ed Morrissey of Captain's Quarters, he's sick of the whole debate about whether Clinton did enough to fight terrorism. Five years and running, with no opinions changed, is more than enough, Morrissey said.

"For five years, we have rehashed this long and embarrassing history of American cluelessness," he wrote. "It is a bipartisan history, with both Republicans and Democrats arguing at various times that administrations used terrorism as an excuse for their political benefit. All it does is poison the atmosphere and allow hyperpartisans to play gotcha games with political opponents. The time has come -- it has long since come -- for that history to become just that: history."

UPDATE: The Clinton footage has been aired, and the final reviews are coming in. Not much has changed from the unofficial assessments of yesterday, but here are some links and excerpts:

-- Althouse: "What Wallace asked just doesn't seem to be enough of a 'hit job' to justify attacking the interviewer like that. ... He lets it show that he thinks about how his enemies are persecuting him. Clinton leans way forward into Wallace's space. He even jabs him in the knee a few times with his finger."

-- Michelle Malkin: "Wallace was terrific. Unflappable. Unrelenting. Unapologetic. Clinton was a basket case. ... The King of Smirk really ought not jab his finger so testily and accuse anyone else of smirking. It's unbecoming."

-- Taylor Marsh: "Chris Wallace was visibly and demonstrably embarrassed. Bill Clinton nailed him to the wall. Wallace was also revealed to be the right-wing hit man that Brit Hume always wanted him to grow up to be on Fox. "

-- MyDD: "I think part of Clinton's brilliant performance here is that he's unafraid to say that Wallace is lying, or that [Fox News owner] Rupert Murdoch's personal behavior and politics is influencing the content of the show. ... Come to the blogs for honest discussion of his legacy, which is mixed on many policies but fairly good on terrorism."

-- Betsy Newmark: "[W]hat Clinton's done here is bring more focus onto what he did or didn't do to get Osama bin Laden. It can't be good for the Democratic Party to have the focus on Clinton again. And what is really irritating is his phony posutre of being all bipartisan and not criticizing the Bush administration when his whole rant is full of paranoiac accusations that Chris Wallace is a tool of Murdoch-motivated right-wing conspirators in asking one question."

-- Sister Toldjah: "Bush has never once blamed Bill Clinton for his failure to get [Osama bin Laden]. Not once. This is an incredible cheap shot on the part of Clinton [to blame the Bush administration]. Not entirely unexpected, but a cheap shot all the same."

-- Talking Points Memo: "Clinton is simply the most gifted politician of our times. ... I sometimes forget not just what a tremendously effective communicator he is but how much he just plain gets it. He intuitively knows the subtext to questions and so not only answers the expressed question but in a very analytical way picks apart the subtext and answers the implied question, too."

-- The Washington Note: "Chris Wallace deserved this throttling. Fox News' efforts to market this as 'Clinton losing it' diminishes Fox's credibility even more than the interview did, as Clinton is clearly at the top of his game and did much to set the historical record right."

Posted by Danny at 04:17 PM | Comments (1)

The Senate campaign of Maryland Republican Michael Steele is trying to get as much political mileage as possible from the news that Steele's Democratic opponent, Rep. Ben Cardin, had to fire a campaign staffer over her anonymous blog.

Over the past few days, Steele's campaign has issued a steady stream of e-mail releases that mention the firing. Most of the e-mails promoted stories on the dismissal, like those written by AP, WBAL and The Washington Times and columnist Robert Novak. But the most interesting one, sent yesterday, made a connection between the blog scandal and Cardin's maneuvering over debates with Steele.

"Debates are serious, important conversations with Marylanders," the e-mail said. "Playing typical 'gotcha' Washington politics ... instead of actually returning a phone call to begin the discussion process is a transparent attempt to distract from the congressman's disappointingly narrow win in the primary and the recent discovery of a senior Cardin staffer's racially insulting blog."

The e-mail twice referred to the "racist comments" of Ursula Gruber on the blog and once called her a "senior staffer" -- in contrast to the "junior staffer" label the Cardin campaign used in announcing the firing. Cardin's campaign also has not identified the aide in question. Wizbang, the Republican blog that broke the story, identified Gruber as the aide after some online sleuthing.

Returning calls to negotiate any debates would "provide an opportunity for Congressman Cardin to apologize to Michael Steele personally for Ursula Gruber's racist comments about him on her blog," the e-mail added.

The blog in question, Persuasionatrix, was active only a few weeks, and the content has been deleted since the controversy broke. Wizbang Politics has an archived version, and the home page of Persuasionatrix currently points readers to Wizbang.

The Maryland blog scandal is but one of three to garner attention in mid-Atlantic states over the past few days. The latest occurred yesterday in New Jersey, where a blog called BlueJersey accused the Senate campaign spokeswoman of Republican Thomas Kean Jr. of anonymously posting comments on the blog. The spokeswoman, Jill Hazelbaker, denied having been involved.

The New York Times covered the story today. Top Democratic blogs like Daily Kos and MyDD also noted the revelations.

"If they're willing to lie about simple things like this, what else would they lie about to win?" Matt Stoller wrote at MyDD. "Does Tom Kean Jr. condone this type of unethical behavior in his campaign? And will he fire all those involved?"

On Sunday, meanwhile, The Washington Post reported on questions being raised about the ethics of paid bloggers who are covering the Virginia Senate race. Both candidates have bloggers on their staffs.

UPDATE: Blogs continue to be the subject of controversy in the Virginia Senate race. The Richmond Times-Dispatch ran a piece a couple of days ago about the campaign of Republican Sen. George Allen blaming Democrat James Webb for encouraging anti-Semitism on Democratic blogs in regards to Allen's Jewish ancestry. Allen aide Dick Wadhams in particular criticized bloggers paid by the Webb campaign.

Wadhams' blog attack prompted this retort from Markos Moulitsas Zuniga of Daily Kos: "Some of you will instantly grasp the irony. Remember, Wadhams was John Thune's campaign manager in South Dakota in 2004, the only Republican to oust a sitting Democratic incumbent. And he did so, in huge part, by using 'paid bloggers.' ... They want to dish it out, but they can't take it."

Another irony: Allen's campaign also is paying a blogger, Jon Henke. Salon took him to task this week as well: "Henke ... was regularly advocating on his own blog that there be a Democratic takeover of Congress as a means of restraining unprincipled and corrupt Republicans," Tim Grieve wrote. "Does radically changing one's political views in exchange for some pay by a political candidate forever undermine, or destroy, one's credibility as a political commentator? It ought to)."

Blog scandals aren't exclusive to Virginia or the mid-Atlantic, though. AP reports that the Minnesota Senate campaign of Democrat Amy Klobuchar this week fired chief spokeswoman aide Tara McGuiness. She watched an unreleased television advertisement of Republican Mark Kennedy from a local Democratic blogger who allegedly obtained it illegally.

The blogger in question apologized at Blanked-Out. Kennedy vs. The Machine, MN Publius, Power Line and Minnesota Democrats Exposed, Wizbang have more on the scandal.

Posted by Danny at 10:20 PM | Comments (0)

Democratic bloggers are thrilled by a new poll that shows the Democrat in Ohio's 2nd District race once again within striking distance of Republican Rep. Jean Schmidt. They see it as vindication for targeting that district in particular and for refusing to admit defeat anywhere until votes have been cast and counted.

Ohio's 2nd gained political prominence more than a year ago during a special election that pitted Schmidt against upstart Democrat Paul Hackett. His biography as a former soldier who vigorously opposed the war in Iraq inspired the netroots to raise gobs of money and volunteer for Hackett.

Though the district is heavily Republican and, on paper, should not have been competitive, Schmidt won the special election by only 4 percent.

Hackett's success gave rise to the "fighting Dem" movement within the Democratic Party, and Hackett himself decided to run for the Senate this year (though he eventually withdrew). Schmidt, meanwhile, continued to generate controversy, especially with her maiden House floor speech that critics perceived as a personal attack against Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa.

Schmidt faced a tough primary in May, and her Democratic challenger, Victoria Wulsin, has run strong since then. A July poll put the race at an even 44 percent for each candidate, with 11 percent undecided. The latest poll shows a 45 percent to 42 percent lead for Schmidt, with 12 percent undecided.

Leading netroots blogs, which love to spin every electoral defeat into a moral victory, have seized on Wulsin's competitiveness as reason to celebrate their strategy of targeting longshot races -- even though her standing in the current poll is lower than the one in July.

"I have to believe that one of the main reasons that OH-02 is honestly close in 2006 is because the netroots threw so much into it in 2005," Chris Bowers wrote at MyDD. "We helped bring an anti-Bush message into OH-02, and it is sticking. We helped bring new activist excitement into OH-02, and it is sticking. We helped reveal to voters in OH-02 that Jean Schmidt is an empty suit, and that message is sticking."

Markos Moulitsas Zuniga agreed at Daily Kos. "This is the first time I've felt the 'l'ong-term' effects of what we're all building and it's given me a jolt of extra motivation (not that I needed it)," he wrote. "This is how we'll move our country forward, turning safe red districts into 'lean' red districts into 'toss-up' districts and, eventually, into blue.

"We'll leave no district behind because no district is hopeless. The only thing hopeless is the 'leadership' that politically abandoned so much of our great country for so long."

Posted by Danny at 08:26 PM | Comments (0)

"We're looking at where we can get the biggest bang for the buck."
-- Transportation Security Administration chief Kip Hawley, explaining why the federal government may spend less money on explosive-detection devices and more money on X-rays at airports.

Posted by Danny at 11:55 AM | Comments (0)

That was Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez at the United Nations earlier this week. And I didn't stand with Chavez at a church in Harlem, N.Y., when he called George Bush "an alcoholic and a sick man."

That was Danny Glover the actor. I'm just a lowly journalist who hasn't written word one about Chavez (until now). So please, please, please, stop sending me e-mails that read like this:

-- "I'm very ashamed of you. I have been a great fan of yours. ... Danny, your actions are traderous! (sic) You should be ashamed politically. But on a grander scale the issues are spiritual and you are aligned with the devil and against God because of what, politics? Don't be a fool."

-- "Danny boy. If Chavez is your brother why don't you move to Vennez. Don't crap where you eat."

-- "I am sickened to live in the same country as you. I hope you don't call yourself an American. May God help you."

-- "You, sir, are a piece of trash. Never again will I spend my money or time to patronize any movie or film that you have an active part in. You have sunken to the lowest levels of Americanism possible."

-- "I cannot believe you live in this country and confess to be a communist."

By all means, boycott the movies of Danny Glover if you choose. Or maybe buy your gas somewhere other than Venezuela-backed Citgo, which is what bloggers like Michelle Malkin, Ed Morrissey and Mark Tapscott are doing or discussing. But please don't protest in my in-box.

Posted by Danny at 11:14 AM | Comments (4)

The worst political story of this week, and one that sadly occupied too much time of both sensationalistic bloggers and journalists, was about the Jewish heritage of Virginia Sen. George Allen.

Thanks to Allen's "Macaca moment" this summer, his campaign already believes the media are out to get the Republican incumbent. A television reporter fanned that flame Monday at a debate between Allen and Democratic challenger James Webb. WUSA-TV's Peggy Fox asked Allen "whether your forebears include Jews and, if so, at which point Jewish identity might have ended?"

The debate audience booed the question, and Allen reacted angrily. He argued that neither candidate's religion is relevant. While live-blogging the debate Allen campaign blogger Jon Henke accused the reporter of "baiting" Allen and engaging in "religious McCarthyism." But Allen's answer to the question only made his religion seem relevant to a whole lot more people, especially bloggers and journalists.

The Hotline's Blogometer here at National Journal did a nice roundup of the blog commentary, including multiple critical posts at Daily Kos that are consistent with that site's strategy of "Building A Narrative" against political opponents.

In a series of entries, Hotline alum Howard Mortman also offered his perspective as both a Jew and a former journalist.

The story might have died after one news cycle, but Allen kept it alive, first by acknowledging after the debate that his mother is part Jewish and then by making a wisecrack about how, as a Christian, he "still had a ham sandwich for lunch" and how his mother "made great pork chops." (Jews are not supposed to eat pork.)

That triggered a whole new round of blog outrage among Allen critics like Americablog and Talking Points Memo. Jim Gandelman at The Moderate Voice added, next to a picture of a man with a foot in his mouth, "Let's just say that the way [Allen] responded adds more baggage. ... In all seriousness, Allen's problem seems to be an inability to answer sensibly and thoughtfully when put on the spot."

That analysis may well be on the mark, but I can't help but think that this episode says as much about the political blogosphere as it does about Allen. Which brings me to this powerful question from The Blogometer's Conn Carroll amid the controversy: "Blog supporters claim they offer a great opportunity for nuanced, reasoned debate, but when we look at the races they've actually affected, have blogs elevated or degraded the level of discourse in the race?"

At this point, I would have to say that "degradation" has a huge lead in the polls.

Here are your blog bits for the week:

-- A group called VoteVets, which shares the mission of the blog-backed "fighting Dems" effort, is running attack ads against Republican incumbents. But the ads themselves are under attack now for factual innaccuracies. Democracy Project from the right and TPMMuckraker from the left covered the story. Crooks and Liars and Daily Kos promoted the ads.

-- Chris Bowers at MyDD called attention to the netroots efforts of MyDD diarists in Colorado and western North Carolina as examples of how bloggers can become newshounds. "We are dealing with a near total market failure for local news in the country, which gives local action such as this the potential to weld far, far more influence on a local level than blogs can ever hope to do on a national level," Bowers wrote. "Local progressive blogospheres can become local news, practically."

-- On another topic, Bowers offered two ways of looking at the "diversity problem" o