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No Love For Bloggers From Rep. Blunt

"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 | 04:09 PM

Comments

Check out Congressman Blunt's timeline for action on the Grants & Contracts database bill:

http://majoritywhip.house.gov/Media/Rel-Grant.doc

Lots of credit where credit is due the blogosphere.

Burson Snyder | 09.26.06 01:12 PM

Senator Frist gave credit to the blogosphere in his post this morning on the bill signing:

http://www.volpac.org/index.cfm?FuseAction=Blogs.View&Blog_id=473

"Without the hard work of men and women like Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit, Mark Tapscott of the Examiner Editorial Board, Ed Morrissey of Captain's Quarters, NZ Bear of Truth Laid Bear, Robert Bluey on Human Events, Liz Mair of GOP Progress, and Paul Kiel of TPM Muckraker (to name but a few), this legislation would likely never have received the President's signature. And, with their continued efforts, I'm confident that the database created today will help keep Washington's addiction to wasteful spending in check."

Stephen Smith, VOLPAC | 09.26.06 02:21 PM

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