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-- The 2006 election is yesterday's news. For a look at what may be to come in 2008, check out the 2008 Race Tracker, a collaborative "wiki" community where bloggers and other can share their insights into House, Senate and gubernatorial races. The effort is sponsored by the liberal blog Swing State Project.

-- When outgoing Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., decided not to run for president in 2008, he announced it first on the blog of his political action committee, Volunteer PAC. He also posted a similar entry at Congress Blog.

-- From Hotline TV: Who Will The Netroots Back in '08?. Plus reaction from Matt Stoller of MyDD.

-- Stoller will be among the high-profile bloggers attending RootsCamp DC this weekend. The event is sponsored by Issue Dynamics Inc., a Democratic public affairs group that has a "blogger relations" department and blog. IDI also hosted a Beltway Blogger Boot Camp at the National Press Club earlier this month.

-- If that's not enough to whet your appetite for blogging and elections, check out the webcast from a New York event on the same topic held earlier this week. It's available on the home page of the Museum of Television and Radio.

-- Ed Kilgore has reduced his committment to the Democratic Leadership Council to part-time work. As a result, he will take his New Donkey blog solo.

-- Stoller and other writers at MyDD were the news peg for a NewAssignment.Net blog post about reader-funded journalism.

-- Any bloggers hoping to embed with U.S. troops in Iraq (or elsewhere) might want to follow the example of Bill Roggio of The Fourth Rail: Establish a nonprofit and apply for credentials under it.

-- The Washington-based trade group for alternative newsweeklies like Village Voice is seeking a blogger/editor/reporter. The job pays $40,000 to $45,000.

-- House Speaker-elect Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., is no friend of the Club For Growth, and that means its members may have trouble grasping the free-market impact of her lingo. Never fear, club blogger Andy Roth is here with the just launched Pelosi Translator.

-- From Ezra Klein: "One interesting element of the blogspheric, YouTube age is the reordering of incentives for television appearances. ... Suddenly, picking the fight has become a surer way to notoriety and name recognition than playing nice in hopes of an invitation back. And that's been a decidedly healthy shift."

Is this really a good development for the political world? Might this desire to pick a fight as the path to notoriety and name recognition explain why The Moderate Voice isn't sounding all that moderate to some folks anymore?

Posted by Danny at 11:53 AM | Comments (8)

Microsoft's Windows Live Spaces recently released a report on bloggin in Asia. Here are some of the highlights:

-- After a desire to share photographs and news with family and friends, the growth of blogging in Asia is driven by a desire for "self-expression," Fifty percent of those surveyed cited their desires to have a platform for airing their views on socio-economic trends, culture and world events as the motivation for starting their blogs.

-- That is especially true in Singapore, where 81 percent of bloggers use the medium to express themselves and 47 percent write about their thoughts on the world.

-- "The long tail that currently characterizes the blogosphere creates a new dynamic and gives countless solitary voices on the Internet influence in a way they never had before. Already, we have seen, from Taiwan to India, the local blogosphere is starting to occupy a more influential role. As this trend continues, bloggers will become a more powerful voice and play an increasingly important part in shaping opinions in Asia."

-- In India, 11 percent of bloggers are attracted to the blogosphere because they want to be "citizen journalists" who cover public affairs. That figure compares with 2 percent to 3 percent for the rest of Asia.

-- Koreans have more trust in the blogosphere than people in other Asian nations. Nearly 80 percent of the population falls into either the categories of those who "moderately trust" or "totally trust" blogs.

Posted by Danny at 11:30 AM | Comments (0)

As noted this morning in National Journal's Technology Daily:

A prosecutor in Virginia has decided not to bring charges against supporters of Sen. George Allen who wrestled a Democratic activist to the ground at one of Allen's campaign events last month.

The Washington Post reports that Commonwealth's Attorney Warner Chapman recommended on Tuesday that police take no further action in the case.

Mike Stark, a liberal blogger and activist, was shoved to the ground last month by Allen supporters after he aggressively approached the Republican senator and screamed questions about his first wife.

Stark said after the incident that he intended to press assault charges. In a statement, Chapman said "the balance of evidence reflects that no one sought to hurt anyone."

Stark acknowledged the news at his blog Calling All Wingnuts. He did not comment on the decision there but offered this take on his diary at Daily Kos: "I've got to believe that the detective interviewed witnesses. Ask yourself: Who were these witnesses? Well, the answer, of course, is that almost every one of them were the type of person that would take time off work to attend a George Allen campaign event."

One reader at Calling All Wingnuts said: "Looks like your 15 minutes [in the spotlight] are up, Mike. What's next on the agenda?" But another noted that regardless of whether charges were filed, the episode was politically significant in exposing Allen as "a guy that culivates thuggery."

"In general, Virginians don't like such unpleasantry, but in this case, your heat brought much light. Well done."

Posted by Danny at 10:18 AM | Comments (0)

From an e-mail alert just sent by CongressDaily:

After meeting with House Speaker-elect Nancy Pelosi this afternoon, Rep. Alcee Hastings, D-Fla., issued a statement confirming he will not serve as chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.

"I have been informed by the Speaker-elect that I will not serve as the chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence in the 110th Congress," he said. "I am obviously disappointed with this decision."

Hastings won election to Congress in 1992, after having been impeached and removed from office as a federal judge. He concluded his statement by saying, "Sorry, haters, God is not finished with me yet."

Bloggers who opposed his ascendancy to the chairmanship no doubt will be pleased.

Posted by Danny at 03:43 PM | Comments (3)

The Project for Excellence in Journalism yesterday released a report that recaps the coverage of Election Night 2006 by various media outlets, and bloggers merited some attention. The project reviewed the coverage of six stand-alone blogs, among other media, for the study.

The lead sentence encompasses the gist of the analysis: "For the blogosphere, a fairly smooth Election Night made things something of a disappointment."

Here are the other blog-related excerpts from the report:

-- "[A]fter emerging in 2004, the blogosphere represented a cohort of the media spectrum this year significant enough that one of the cable channels [CNN] gathered up a group of bloggers to put on TV -- a plan that would prove vulnerable to technical failure."

-- "When the system works -- voting occurs without widespread problems and the media establishment isn’t faltering -- citizen sentinels, bloggers and other observers, while potentially important watchdogs, have a more restricted role."

-- "Despite the intrigue they brought to the problems and media mishaps of the 2004 election, bloggers were caught somewhat empty-handed by the relatively error-free election of 2006. Some, such as Wonkette, got downright cranky that no one was leaking examples of fraud and abuse. Others just got nasty about who was winning and losing. The blogs, in the end, leaned toward opinion this night [rather] than information."

Posted by Danny at 09:15 AM | Comments (0)

The United States is about to embark on another run of circulating commemorative coinage.

As the run of the 50-state quarters program nears its end in 2008, the U.S. Mint this week gave consumers a glimpse of the similarly rotating $1 coins that will start appearing in banks (and hopefully in people's change) in February. Each coin will feature a U.S. president.

You might not think that kind of news would grab the attention of political bloggers. But America's storied history with dollar coins, especially the Dwight D. Eisenhower, Susan B. Anthony and Sacagawea issues of the modern era, apparently is worthy of the kind of ridicule that so many bloggers love.

Here's what three of them had to say:

-- Eschaton: "I don't care how many hot and sexy ex-presidents they put on the dollar coin, people will still think they're post office tokens until you get rid of the bill. Oh, and what's up with the penny? Get rid of that, too."

-- Political Animal: "I can hardly wait for 2012, which will feature the dynamic quartet of Chester Alan Arthur, Grover Cleveland, Benjamin Harrison, and then a reprise of Grover Cleveland. Good times!"

-- The Reality-Based Community: "The whole story reminds me a little of the joke about the British plan to switch to righthand traffic, under which the new rules would only apply to professional drivers (buses and trucks) for the first week, while cars would make the changeover later."

And if you want to know why it's a bad idea, economically speaking to keep the penny in circulation (and the nickel, too, at least for the time being), check out Coinflation. The site tracks the value of the metals used to create U.S. coinage, and both the penny and the nickel currently cost more to manufacuture than they are worth in face value.

On the upside, the Benjamin Franklin half-dollar I recently found in circulation is worth nearly $4.75 because of the silver used to make it. Woo hoo!

UPDATE: Kim Priestap of Wizbang is bothered by the forthcoming $1 coins, too, but for a different reason than the aforementioned Democratic bloggers. She cited the decision to move the phrase "In God We Trust" to the side of the coins as evidence that "the secular-progressives are gaining more inroads into eliminating God from our country's history."

Posted by Danny at 01:30 PM | Comments (0)

To voters in Florida's 23rd District, Democrat Alcee Hastings is their representative in the House. They first elected him by 59 percent of the vote in 1992 and subsequently have returned him to Congress by margins ranging from 73 percent to 100 percent. He was just re-elected to an eighth term without opposition.

But to much of the rest of the world, and especially to bloggers, Hastings is, as the lead sentence of his biography says in the "Almanac of American Politics," "the only member of Congress ever to have been impeached and removed from office as a federal judge."

The Almanac goes on to say this about his past: "Hastings was charged with conspiring with a friend to take a $150,000 bribe and give two convicted swindlers light sentences. A Miami jury acquitted Hastings in 1983, but the friend was convicted. The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals called for impeachment in 1987 and referred the case to Congress. Hastings was impeached by the House by a vote of 413-3 and convicted by the Senate, 69-26."

Hastings' history as a judge is significant now because he is being considered for the chairmanship of the House Intelligence Committee. Jane Harman of California has been the top Democrat on that panel in recent years, but Democrats regained control of the chamber in the Nov. 7 election and later elected Nancy Pelosi as the next House Speaker.

Pelosi reportedly is not fond of Harman, even though both are from California, and is not eager to elevate her to the Intelligence chairmanship. Despite his impeachment and removal from the judgeship, Hastings has the important backing of the Congressional Black Caucus to be named chairman instead.

The prospect of Hastings becoming chairman has prompted plenty of complaints in the blogosphere, even among Democrats. Stephen Kaus proclaimed Hastings "Guilty! Guilty! Guilty!" at The Huffington Post, and Justin Rood of TPMMuckraker did some thorough background reporting on the Hastings bribery case (go here, here and here).

Rood's employer, Joshua Micah Marshall of Talking Points Memo, had this to say about the issue as well: "Given the centrality of intelligence work in our national policy debates today, the importance of secrecy in handling classified information, and how politicized and contentious intel debates have become, I don't see how you can have the chairman of the intel committee be someone about whom there is any serious question whether or not they accepted bribes as judges to subvert justice."

Marshall also suggested Rush Holt, D-N.J., as an alternative to both Harman and Hastings.

Blog criticism of Hastings has been persistent and harsh enough that he responded Nov. 20 by blasting "anonymous bloggers" in general and conservative Michelle Malkin in particular. "I hope that my fate is not determined by Newt Gingrich, Sean Hannity, Ann Coulter, Michelle Malkin, Michael Barone, [Matt] Drudge, anonymous bloggers, and other assorted misinformed fools," he wrote in a five-page letter to House Democratic colleagues.

The letter may have done more harm than good to Hastings' cause, however, because Malkin answered in kind with a post that labeled Hastings a "fool" and his letter to colleagues an "unhinged rant." She included plenty of background links on the Hastings bribery case and current criticisms of his leadership bid.

"It isn't just right-wingers objecting to the possibility of a convicted judge for sale chairing the House Intelligence Committee," she wrote. "In peacetime, Washington can chalk up Hastings' resurrection to business as usual. In wartime, Washington has no business doing business as usual."

Posted by Danny at 12:10 PM | Comments (8)

When it comes to photography, I'm a bit old-fashioned. I like my Minolta X-370, the 35mm SLR I've been using since I bought it after high-school graduation. I've gotten nearly 20 good years out of that camera and had to repair it only once, and I expect to get many more years of use from it.

I used it as a freelance photographer at West Virginia University football games in the late 1980s. I've snapped photos of presidents (Ronald Reagan), vice presidents (George H.W. Bush, Dan Quayle) and governors (West Virginia's Gaston Caperton, even while skiing). I've also hauled the camera safely to and from three foreign countries -- Canada (it counts as a foreign country 'cause I went to Quebec), Guatemala and Russia. And I've burned through rolls of film to capture memories of vacations, nature, and family and friends, especially our three beautiful children.

Now that I'm the editor of Technology Daily, though, I suppose it's about time I move into the digital era. After all, my father already is on his second digital camera -- and because it's more convenient to use, he takes a lot more pictures of our children than we do.

But when my wife, Kimberly, suggested that we take the digital plunge in time for this year's holiday season, I was a bit intimidated. I know zilch about digital cameras, and the abundance of options made me wary of buying anything for fear that I would buy the worst of the bunch.

Then I remembered: The blogosphere is the answer to everything -- and in the case of digital cameras, Instapundit Glenn Reynolds is the man. I shot him an e-mail a few days ago to ask his advice. In true Instapundit fashion, he answered me online with a "carnival" of digital cameras.

I'm now a much better informed consumer, and you can be, too, if you read his entry and follow the many helpful links he included. Thanks for the guidance, Glenn.

The downside is that now Kimberly is so eager to get a camera that it looks like I'll have to do something I managed to avoid the first 40 years of my life -- shop on the day after Thanksgiving, the busiest day of the year!

By the way, happy Thanksgiving to all!

UPDATE: We braved the "Black Friday" swarm at Best Buy and bought a Canon Powershot A630. A shopping tip when shopping for cameras (and other goods) Best Buy: Check the company's Web site for discounts first and then go to an actual store if you want to see how the cameras feel before picking one. Our local store matched the online sales price, saving us 15 percent on the camera.

Posted by Danny at 08:25 PM | Comments (0)

No one on the Internet was more loyal to Sen. Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut in his bitter re-election fight this year that Marshall Wittmann, and now Lieberman has returned the favor by hiring the Bull Moose as his communications director.

The formalizing of the relationship between Lieberman and Wittmann is not surprising. Wittmann hinted in a final post at his blog last week that he would re-emerge in a way that would not comfort the Democratic bloggers who had worked so hard to unseat Lieberman, a member of their own party until Ned Lamont defeated him in a primary.

But the fact that Wittmann killed his blog as a result of the move confirms what I suspected all along: that Lieberman's late-campaign blog launch was merely a superficial defensive move.

If Wittmann really wanted to embrace the interactive, transparent spirit of the blogosphere, he would have made Wittmann's continued blogging a condition of his employment. He also wouldn't have yanked his campaign blog and deleted the archives days after the race ended. I will be surprised if Wittmann or anyone else on Lieberman's staff starts a blog at his Senate Web site, but I suppose anything is possible.

Also not surprising is that lots of bloggers, especially the ones who hate both Lieberman and Wittmann, remarked on Wittmann's hiring. So did Mark Liebovich of The New York Times. Little of the commentary is flattering toward the two.

"Mr. Lieberman, a longtime Democrat of Connecticut who was re-elected as an independent and calls himself an 'Independent Democrat,' has not ruled out becoming a Republican," Liebovich wrote. "Mr. Wittmann, meanwhile, is a Trotskyite turned Zionist turned Reaganite turned bipartisan irritant turned pretty much everything in between -- including chief lobbyist for the Christian Coalition, the only Jew who has ever held that position."

Writing at The Huffington Post, Steve Clemons of The Washington Note sees in Wittmann's hiring the makings of a bipartisan presidential ticket featuring Lieberman and Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. Both men have run for president -- McCain in 2000 and Lieberman in 2004, not to mention Lieberman's 2000 vice-presidential candidacy -- and Wittmann has worked for both.

"Wittman is smart, and he will possibly be the midwife of a McCain-Lieberman campaign -- and rather than railing against Wittman, people need to get smart and outmaneuver those who want to steal the center away from Democrats in the next big political race," Clemons wrote.

Matt Stoller of MyDD seconded Clemons with this warning: "If we don't learn the lesson of Connecticut, which is that we must have all hands on deck to change voter impressions about a charismatic media darling with a long relationship to the electorate, then we may find ourselves with President John McCain and a new conservative Republican 'reformer' majority in the House and Senate in 2008."

But liberal bloggers, including Ezra Klein, Mark Schmitt and Matthew Yglesias, rejected the notion that Lieberman and McCain represent the center.

"In McCain's case it's clear that he's the furthest right Republican on defense and use of force issues," Yglesias said, "And as best I can tell, Lieberman holds ... the same views. ... [J]ust because mainstream Republicans and mainstream Democrats both reject something doesn't make it centrist; it could just be fringey and foolish."

Ed Kilgore of New Donkey, who has worked with Wittmann in his latest incarnation at the moderate Democratic Leadership Council, bucked the critical trend and penned some kind words about Wittmann, including these: "It's obviously the perfect gig for Marshall, and he's the perfect spokesman for Lieberman."

Meanwhile, a rather downtrodden David Sirota, who blogged for Lamont, is looking for his next job and invited readers at The Huffington Post to share their suggestions.

Posted by Danny at 02:54 PM | Comments (0)

The blogosphere would not exist as we know it if people didn't reprint and link to the words of others. But when those others say defamatory things, should bloggers be held legally accountable for spreading bad information?

The California Supreme Court says "no." In a decision announced Monday, the court ruled that Internet service providers cannot be held liable for defamatory content posted by third parties.

The case in question was not related to blogs; rather, a woman who ran an e-mail list and newsgroup about breast cancer was sued for posting a man's letter that was critical of a doctor. But MSNBC reports that free-speech advocates had warned that a ruling against the e-mail and newsgroup publisher could have impacted blogs and other online forums, too.

The court ruled unananimously that current federal law gives broad protection to online publishers. "Congress contemplated self-regulation, rather than regulation compelled at the sword point of tort liability," the judges said in overturning a 2003 decision against the publisher. "It chose to protect even the most active Internet publishers, those who take an aggressive role in republishing third party content."

The court hinted that perhaps the governing federal law should be changed. "We acknowledge that recognizing broad immunity for defamatory republications on the Internet has some troubling consequences." But the judges added that Congress will have to intervene, and until then, "plaintiffs who contend they were defamed in an Internet posting may only seek recovery from the original source of the statement."

Blogger Dan Gillmor of the Center for Citizen Media praised the ruling. "This is an absolutely crucial decision," he wrote, "and it will reverberate for years to come."

The San Francisco Chronicle also reported on the decision, and Deep Links, the blog of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, praised the ruling.

UPDATE: The list of blogs that have praised the California court's ruling include Crooks and Liars, Instapundit, Patterico's Pontifications, TalkLeft and Wizbang. But Michelle Malkin offered a dissenting voice.

"Perhaps because I have a foot in both the MSM and blog worlds and have been the target of defamation, I don't see the ruling in quite the same positive light," she wrote. "Why should online speech be held to a different standard than other speech? ... But aren't bloggers the ones arguing that we should be treated like MSM journalists? Isn't that what the Apple vs. bloggers case was all about? Remember? Seems to me that some bloggers want to enjoy the benefits of MSM status (fighting for the same coverage as traditional journalists under shield laws, as in the Apple case), but avoid the consequences (getting sued if they republish defamatory material online)."

The decision also prompted Nichole Altmix to blog about "The Legal Dos and Do Nots Of Networked Journalism" at NewAssignment, a citizen media site, and The Volokh Conspiracy offered a legal analysis.

Posted by Danny at 02:31 PM | Comments (2)

The YouTube video-sharing site has "permanently closed" the account of John Aravosis, who writes at Americablog. It took the action because of content Aravosis had posted from Comedy Central.

Aravosis blasted the decision as misguided, even if YouTube and its new parent company, Google, have legal standing to take such actions. YouTube rose to the kind of prominence that prompted Google to buy it in part because bloggers like Aravosis have been using the service in ways that have tested the bounds of copyright law -- and the willingness of content owners to allow it to happen.

"Google and YouTube may -- and I say 'may' -- have a valid legal argument about anyone posting videos that are longer than, say, 30 seconds," he wrote. "But Google and YouTube need to think about the service they are and the service they will be after they institute this new draconian clamp-down."

YouTube's decision clearly incited Aravosis' wrath. In a subsequent post, he suggested that his readers try other video-sharing sites. He also vowed to play watchdog by checking for copyright violations at YouTube and suggested that about 50 percent of the content on the service fits into that category.

Aravosis isn't the first blogger to get on YouTube's bad side. On the right side of the blogosphere, Michelle Malkin had a video banned at YouTube for alleged "inappropriate content." She's now leading a "Banned by YouTube" counter movement, logo and all.

Prominent technology blogger Michael Arrington of TechCrunch also received a cease-and-desist letter from YouTube earlier this month for allegedly violating YouTube's intellectual property rights. Malkin's response to YouTube: "Pot. Kettle. Black."

Posted by Danny at 10:19 PM | Comments (0)

That's the gist of the conversation I just heard on the CBS drama "NCIS."

A young woman in the episode complained about being trashed on a blog, and Leroy Jethro Gibbs, the unhip and uninformed lead character played by Mark Harmon, responded quizically. "Blog? What's a blog?"

Her answer: "It’s something losers put online so that everyone can read."

There you have it.

Posted by Danny at 09:01 PM | Comments (0)

Democrat Ned Lamont lost his Senate bid in Connecticut two weeks ago, and now the bloggers who helped lead him to defeat are bickering over who deserves the most credit. You gotta love the blogosphere.

The Lamont Internet team chose as their online battleground the comments section of Daily Kos, and the post that started it all had nothing to do with Lamont. It was a guest entry by former Sen. John Edwards, D-N.C., and his wife, Elizabeth, who decided to spend some time on the site to answer questions from readers and "to thank you for everything you did to make Election Day a historic victory for Democrats all across the country."

The Blogometer has a full report on that underlying conversation, but the inside-the-blogosphere spat was far more entertaining. It offered a rare and unflattering glimpse into the online players of one of this year's most high-profile campaigns -- a glimpse that one Daily Kos commenter lamented as "an unedifying display of unpleasantness and rampant egomania."

The main characters in that parade of egomania were: Aldon Hynes, the former technology coordinator to Lamont; Charles Monaco, who wrote the independent LamontBlog much of the year and officially joining Lamont's campaign in September; Matt Stoller of MyDD, who made trips to Connecticut on Lamont's behalf at various points this year; and Tim Tagaris, Lamont's Internet director. (Stoller introduced Lamont to Tagaris, according to an article at The Nation.)

Hynes triggered the verbal warfare by daring to thank Edwards for his participation in the Lamont campaign. Monaco and Stoller challenged Hynes' perception about Edwards, and then, as often happens in the comment sections of blogs like Daily Kos, the conversation quickly deteriorated into personal attacks by the principals and observers of the battle.

Here's a sample of the back-and-forth for your reading pleasure:

Hynes: "I think a bigger issue is the lack of respect and gratitude that some Lamont supporters have shown to other Lamont supporters for not supporting Lamont 'their way'."

Stoller: "All I can say is that the blogger side of the operation that you were in charge of just wasn't working until Tim took over for you. The difference between you and someone who is credible is that you were in Connecticut for a magical moment, where Tim actually helped create that magical moment."

Hynes: "Matt, stop the personal attacks, especially since they don't bear correspondence to what what was going on."

Tagaris: "I just want people who don't speak for the campaign to stop doing so. And no, Aldon does not speak for the campaign. His attempts to do so here, all over the Internet, and classrooms across CT are demeaning to those of you who busted your asses for nine months straight."

CTcrescent: "Unlike Aldon, Tim Tagaris is not a shameless self-promoter who takes credit for other people's work. Tagaris is a thousand times more talented than Aldon. ... Aldon just likes brag and hear himself talk while others do the hard work."

Philgoblue: "Did you read the infamous Tagaris 'What Really Happened' diary? He didn't even have a disclaimer that he wasn't speaking for the campaign."

Monaco: "It's obvious you have an interest in making your opinion the one most closely associated with the Lamont campaign in the blogosphere, even though it's a lonely one. Otherwise, you would have just signed your post 'Aldon,' the way you seem to usually do."

Kim Hynes (Aldon's wife): "Aldon was not as high profile as the campaign bloggers, but you might ask Ned, or Annie, or the finance team, or anyone with a reconfigured laptop, or any of the offices, or ... They would have a decidedly different view."

NewDem: "Stoller's jumped the shark on this Lieberman thing. Get over it. It sucks that Lamont lost, but you need to pull yourself together and stop with the constant recrimations."

Posted by Danny at 07:01 PM | Comments (0)

Sharon McLoone, my boss for the past six years and the last original staff member of the Technology Daily team here at National Journal, has decided not to return to work after her recent maternity leave. As a result, I have been promoted to the editorship of Tech Daily.

The promotion will have some impact on Beltway Blogroll, just because of the time demands of the new job. I won't be giving up the blog -- as if I could! -- but I will be curtailing some of the regular content.

As much as I like writing the Friday Festival Of Blog Bits to recap the week's highlights from the blogosphere, it has to go. The weekly roundup just takes too much of my time from the family on Thursday evenings. I'll probably still write occasional link-heavy roundup entries, and perhaps more of them during the week, but the weekly format just proved to be too demanding.

I also have discontinued the column about the policy and political impact of blogs that I have written every other week for more than a year. I have done that work on weekends, and I'm determined to give my wife and children more attention when I'm not at the office. My children deserve more time sitting in my lap than some machine built by Dell.

Yes, that's right ... wait for it ... here it comes ... I want to spend more time with my family.

I still enjoy the work I do here. The time I spend in the blogosphere and writing about it also generates regular story ideas for Tech Daily, so it has become an extension of my full-time job to some extent. I may even be blogging more because I'll be doing less of the formal writing that has consumed so much of my free time.

All of which is to say, please keep Beltway Blogroll on your reading list.

Posted by Danny at 10:03 AM | Comments (0)

Thanks to an e-mail forwarded by a colleague last week, I just learned that Consumers Union has a series of issue-focused blogs.

The watchdog group has put online the following blogs: Financial Privacy Now; Not In My Food, which is part of an educational campaign about food safety risks; Now Hear This, a forum for airing ideas about media and telecommunications reform; and Prescription For Change, whose goal is safe, effective and affordable medicines.

Prescription For Change was first out of the gate in September. The other blogs have been in the game since last month. I'll add all of them to the blogroll shortly.

Posted by Danny at 11:42 AM | Comments (0)

Plans to change the rules governing legal advertising in New York could hinder the online free speech of lawyers on blogs and other outlets, according to advocacy groups opposed to the changes.

The American Civil Liberties Union, its New York branch and Public Citizen last week filed comments in opposition to the proposed rules. The goal of the rules is to protect citizens from false and misleading lawyer ads, but the groups said the planned changes, including the demand for paper records, are too broad.

"Given the broad definition of advertising and solicitation," the comments said, "these requirements would apply to the Web pages of nonprofit organizations employing attorneys, legal blogs, and even an attorney's personal home page." The groups added that because blawgs "are typically updated multiple times every day and, in some cases, multiple times every hour," the record-keeping requirements would impose a needless paper burden and "undermine one of the key advantages of the Web -- the ease of updating information."

"A literal reading of these rules would classify legal blogs and magazine articles as lawyer advertisements," Greg Beck, an attorney for Public Citizen, said in a statement. "Even if these changes are not enforced, they would have a chilling effect on Internet free speech as lawyers decide not to risk running afoul of the rules and facing disciplinary proceedings."

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

"Make no mistake, without the netroots, Webb would not have won. He may not even have been close."

Believe it or not, those are the words of Jon Henke, the QandO blogger hired as the new media adviser and campaign blogger to Sen. George Allen, R-Va. Unfortunately for Allen, that move came too late to matter in the freshman senator's failed re-election campaign against Democrat James Webb, and Henke's nod to the other side of the blogosphere is significant.

Most political bloggers are loathe to say anything the least bit flattering about their online enemies, and Republican bloggers in particular have gleefully ridiculed the netroots for always backing losers and doing more to hurt the Democratic Party than help it. But this year, Henke is willing to give the netroots credit where due.

"In an opportunity cost sense, the leftosphere was very effective in this election cycle," Henke wrote after seeing a blurb in Time about the netroots.

"They didn't win every race, but they made significant contributions to individual races (Webb in Virginia, Tester in Montana), to the national anti-Republican mood, and to the media climate. Most of their successes won't be readily apparent to the general public (that was certainly true in my own campaign experience), while other successes are subtle and loosely connected -- e.g., the media is frequently captured by narratives established in the blogs."

Specifically, Henke praised the Virginia blogs Not Larry Sabato and Raising Kaine. "Though there were aspects of their efforts with which I had real problems, there is no denying that their efforts to (a) generate local and national attention, (b) develop the narratives early and (c) sell Webb carefully were tremendously effective."

So have Republicans learned from that example. Not yet, Henke said, but like John Hawkins of Right Wing News, Henke sees an opportunity for the GOP now that it is out of power.

"The leftosphere has been effective because of Democratic engagement (both official and surrogate) and the unifying effect of minority status. Republicans have a similar chance now," Henke said. "If they accept the existence of the new media and develop a holistic, long-term strategy, they can still retake the battlefield."

UPDATE: Henke's post prompted a response from Ed Morrissey at Captain's Quarters. "One point cannot be easily dismissed, and that was the power of the blogs on the left to organize," he wrote. "We tried something similar on the right, but we started too late to have much of an impact. I think many of us felt more comfortable in providing analysis rather than engaging in a more participatory fashion."

Other Republican bloggers also are tipping their hats to the netroots. The Blogometer has more coverage.

And if you're really into the whole netroots phenomenon, check out the "On Language" column by William Safire in The New York Times over the weekend. He explains the origins of the word.

Posted by Danny at 01:00 AM | Comments (0)

Candidates for congressional leadership positions spent more time than usual in the blogosphere this week as they trolled for support in their intraparty battles. Now that the contests have been decided, the winners are taking victory laps in the blogosphere.

House Speaker-elect Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., has posted entries at Congress Blog and The Huffington Post over the past two days.

Her Congress Blog post focused on Democratic Party unity in the House after she endorsed John Murtha of Pennsylvania for majority leader and his opponent, Steny Hoyer of Maryland, ended up winning. "We've had our differences in our party. We have now come together," Pelosi wrote. At HuffPo, she emphasized her top priority: ending the war in Iraq.

Back at Congress Blog, Minority Whip-elect Roy Blunt, R-Mo., went online soon after his victory over John Shadegg of Arizona to warn Democrats that Republicans will hold the new majority accountable. "For twelve years," he wrote, "the Democrats have gotten away without leading, without offering an agenda, and without saying what they're actually for. Now they will be forced to govern."

Some losers in the leadership races, meanwhile, are making concession appearances online. Indianan Mike Pence, who lost the race for House Republican leader to John Boehner of Ohio, posted a short note at Congress Blog.

Bloggers themselves did not have much influence in this week's leadership races, as evidenced by the outcomes for House majority leader, the House minority offices and Senate majority leader. But the fact that the leaders of the 110th Congress spent so much time online before the vote and have continued their presence since is a testament to just how much influence lawmakers think bloggers have.

Posted by Danny at 09:22 PM | Comments (0)

The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation has awarded a $50,000 grant to graduate journalism school at City University of New York for a project designed to keep bloggers out of court.

The school will use the money to develop an online guide for educating bloggers about issues like libel, privacy and copyright law. The guide will encompass a top 10 list of rules for avoiding legal trouble, with in-depth material buttressing each basic rule.

"If this grant helps keep just one blogger out of court for reporting the news," said Gary Kebbel, the foundation's journalism program officer, "it served its purpose."

The grant was awarded two days after a federal appeals court in California rejected a blogger's request for a rehearing of the decision to put him in jail for refusing to share a video of protestors with police. The blogger, Josh Wolf, has been in jail for three months and could stay there until next July.

The guide might not be too useful in that kind of free-speech case, which has more to do with the government's ignorance of new media than bloggers' ignorance of the law. But bloggers have found themselves in legal trouble for other reasons this year.

Last month, a Florida court awarded $11.3 million to a woman over defamatory blog posts about her, and another defamation case in Florida pits a blogger against a religious publisher. And an advertising firm dropped a lawsuit against a Maine blogger that it had targeted because of his critical comments about the company.

The list of cases keeps growing. Jeff Jarvis of BuzzMachine, a teacher at CUNY who will contribute to the online guide, pointed his readers to a summary of blog-related cases kept by the Media Research Center.

Jarvis also praised the involvement of the Media Bloggers Association (of which I am a member) and the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University. "We need all the help we can get to assure not only that bloggers stay out of court but that we all maintain our free speech, free of suit and harassment," Jarvis said.

Posted by Danny at 08:29 PM | Comments (0)

From a Time magazine piece on five myths about last week's election results:

MYTH: Joe Lieberman's victory proves the netroots don't matter. REALITY: The netroots had some key victories.

Liberal bloggers and their readers helped to swing the Connecticut Democratic Senate primary to anti-war candidate Ned Lamont, raising expectations that the midterms would turn this new generation of online activists into kingmakers. Yet in the midst of a Democratic wave, the netroots candidates failed to sweep, causing some pundits to claim that the netroots' influence continues to be overstated.

... What's the real takeaway? Of the 19 candidates that three of the biggest liberal blogs (Daily Kos, MyDD and Swing State Project) raised money for, eight of the candidates won. This improves on the blogs' record from 2004, when Daily Kos picked out 16 campaigns to strongly support and raise money for, all of which lost.

This cycle, bloggers may have been most strongly linked to Lamont, but they actually donated more money to Jim Webb of Virginia. Bloggers also made 'macaca' into a scandal that helped sink Webb's opponent, George Allen.

The netroots' record is probably too short to be judged definitively, but instead of looking at pure win/loss records, an examination of where the netroots put their emphasis suggests that the online community is either becoming more sophisticated in picking its candidates or is helping push longshots over the top.

Posted by Danny at 12:56 PM | Comments (0)

The netroots won't have Bull Moose Marshall Wittmann to kick around any more. Wittmann announced in an entry this morning that he is leaving cyberspace while savoring the sweet taste of political victory.

"The Moose is leaving the blogosphere with the deep satisfaction that in a small way he was part of this historic and monumental victory for the vital center," Wittmann wrote of his online cheerleading for Sen. Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut over the past year. "The Moose has attempted to give voice to the immoderate moderates that are often not represented by either the donkey or by the elephant. In the proud tradition of [Theodore Roosevelt], the Moose has defied the reigning orthodoxies of the two parties."

As chronicled here periodically, leading liberal bloggers have shown great contempt for the politics of moderation that Wittmann preaches, and he has been just as antagonistic toward the netroots. But Wittmann apparently has had his fill of the battles in blog land.

He hinted, however, that his offline wanderings may be temporary. "[T]he nutroots and their ilk should not take solace in the departure of the Moose," Wittmann wrote. "The Moose will surely re-emerge again. When and where will the Moose be spotted? The Moose works in mysterious ways."

On the other hand, the whereabouts of Tim Tagaris, one of Wittmann's blog enemies in Lieberman's successful race against fellow Democrat Ned Lamont, are not at all mysterious. He is in Louisiana playing the role of reporter/activist for the next few weeks.

His mission, funded by contributors to MyDD, is to cover the run-off election between Rep. William Jefferson and fellow Democrat Karen Carter. MyDD has endorsed Carter. "[T]here are two other important themes that Tim is going to cover when he's down there," MyDD's Matt Stoller wrote. "One is race, which is inescapable in Louisiana and in this election. The second is [Hurricane] Katrina, which is also inescapable in this election."

Before he made the trek to New Orleans, Tagaris, who worked as Lamont's Internet director, shared his insights on the Connecticut Senate race in a diary entry at Daily Kos. His inside look at the campaign followed by a few days the one penned by blogger David Sirota, who officially joined Lamont's team late in the battle.

Posted by Danny at 11:06 AM | Comments (0)

This was a busy week for bloggers and the potential leaders of the new Republican minority in Congress. Lawmakers in search of online support in House leadership elections that go to a vote today held conference calls with bloggers beforehand, and at least one senator held a call after he was elected.

Who participated and what did they have to say? The Truth Laid Bear has the answer in a roundup of transcripts and audio, and here are more links:

-- Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, a candidate for House GOP Conference chair (a report at Extreme Mortman).

-- Roy Blunt of Missouri, a candidate for House minority whip (reports at Extreme Mortman, My Vast Right Wing Conspiracy, The Right Angle and Townhall.

-- Mike Pence, a candidate for House majority leader (reports at Extreme Mortman, My Vast Right Wing Conspiracy, RedState and Right Wing News.

-- John Shadegg, a candidate for House minority whip (a report at Extreme Mortman)

-- New Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky (reports at Captain's Quarters and TimChapman.com)

The conference calls were just one example of the blog activity spurred by the Republican leadership races. AmSpec Blog also has a list of bloggers who endorsed Pence's candidacy, and Rep. Jack Kingston of Georgia generated plenty of buzz with a YouTube video that outlined his candidacy for GOP Conference chair.

"I'm sure this is the first leadership campaign to take to YouTube," said Kingston spokesblogger David All, who just returned to Washington after a stint on the unsuccessful Senate campaign of Republican Mike Bouchard in Michigan.

All of the online fuss was for naught, though. Hotline On Call is reporting that John Boehner of Ohio trounced Pence in the race for majority leader. The vote was 168-27, according to a GOP source cited by Hotline.

As I noted in a column early this year during another race for House majority leader, bloggers have a limited ability to influence leadership elections.

That truth was evident in yesterday's Democratic vote for House majority leader in the 110th Congress. Not even lawmakers who blogged about that race could convince their colleagues for vote for John Murtha of Pennsylvania over Steny Hoyer of Maryland.

It was also apparent in the election of Trent Lott of Mississippi to Senate minority whip. Bloggers across the political spectrum drove him from the Senate's top leadership spot four years ago, but they were helpless to stop him from ascending back into leadership this year. All they could do was gripe after the vote.

Posted by Danny at 09:40 AM | Comments (0)

As reported this week in National Journal's Technology Daily

An international study has found a link between political activism and reading Web logs. The survey of blog readers by Strategy One found that nearly a quarter of the people in the United States, France and the United Kingdom read blogs at least once a week.

The Edelman public relations firm presented the results of the survey at a forum Wednesday hosted by the George Washington University Institute for Politics, Democracy and the Internet. Robert Moran, the research director at Strategy One, said the goal was to determine who reads political blogs and the impact the sites have on opinion leaders.

Moran estimated that 60 million U.S. adults read blogs at least once a week, and he said the perception that they are for young people is not entirely true.

While 18- to 24-year-olds are likely to read blogs more often than 25- to 34-year-olds, popularity increases again with 35- to 44-year-olds. A survey released earlier this month by the institute found that political blogs were most popular with 30- to 50-year-olds and that 9 percent of Americans read political blogs daily.

... Moran said his survey found that 49 percent of those defined as "influentials" took action as a result of something they read on a blog. The most popular actions included signing petitions, attending meetings, or writing or calling politicians.

He said that among all blog readers, 28 percent took some type of action, mostly political action, as a result of a blog posting.

Posted by Danny at 07:00 AM | Comments (0)

Washingtonian columnist Harry Jaffe:

Except in a few races, the outcome of last week’s midterm election was determined in large part by the Mainstream Media. Bloggers and Internet chatters posing as journalists were not in the game.

Look at the stories and issues that shaped the election and moved the American people to cast out Republicans and put Democrats in control of Congress and you will find major news organizations and experienced journalists behind every one. ...

In time, journalists freelancing as bloggers on the Internet might have greater impact on American elections, but if last week’s voting is any indication, the political landscape is still being painted by the reporters working for major media outlets.

Posted by Danny at 06:54 AM | Comments (0)

Back in early October, I mentioned in one edition of the "Friday Festival Of Blog Bits" that Sun Microsystems CEO Jonathan Schwarz thinks public companies should be able to satisfy federal disclosure mandates by putting some information on corporate blogs.

He pitched the idea in a blog entry and in a letter to Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Christopher Cox. "We encourage you to look to the Internet to achieve the commission's objectives of greater investor access to information," Schwarz wrote in the letter.

Cox responded to Schwarz a few days before the Nov. 7 election, and I failed to mention that development.

Cox didn't state a specific position on Schwarz' suggestion, but he did note that his agency "encourages the use of Web sites as a source of information to the market and investors, and we welcome your offer to further discuss with us your views in this area." Cox added that the SEC would need to know "whether there exist effective means to guarantee that a corporation uses its Web site in ways that assure broad non-exclusionary access."

The most interesting part of the story: Cox addressed the issue by posting a comment, with the text of his response letter, to an unrelated entry on Schwarz' blog.

One reader dismissed Cox's comment as a "non-response," and another added, "Let's hope those new plain-English executive compensation disclosures are clearer than" Cox's answer to Schwarz.

But a third reader praised the online interaction between Cox and Schwarz. "It's astounding to read on a blog dialogue between a public company CEO and the chairman of the SEC. ... The American investor really benefits," the reader said. "Transparent and efficient markets and free flowing information."

Posted by Danny at 09:49 PM | Comments (0)

"Thoughtful introspection and determined resolve" -- that's what former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay said the conservative movement needs after the electoral "thumping" Republicans took Nov. 7.

In a guest post at RedState today, DeLay argued that Democrats, who will take control of Congress in January for the first time in 12 years, did not win the election so much as Republicans lost it by failing to be aggressive enough in defending conservative principles. "Order, justice and freedom. These principles are the three legs of the stool upon which our society rests," he wrote. "With anyone of these legs removed the stool, and our society, topples."

He then outlined five areas where the GOP must work toward those principles: 1) promoting security; 2) reducing federal spending; 3) pursuing tax reform; 4) protecting "all innocent human life"; and 5) preventing courts from making laws rather than merely interpreting them.

"So for me, and I hope for many conservatives, this week is a time of reflection and rededication and not one of recrimination and retreat," DeLay wrote. "The 'thumping' I hear is of a conservative movement with a strongly beating heart."

UPDATE: DeLay's post prompted criticisms from some RedState readers who think he wasn't true enough to conservative principles while leading House Republicans. DeLay responded with a follow-up entry defending his record. "Well played," said Tim Chapman of the Heritage Foundation.

Posted by Danny at 08:10 PM | Comments (0)

I wondered how long it would be before some blogger made note of this:

"[I]t was with some suspicion that I watched gas prices inexplicably plummet a national average of 75 cents a gallon during the final two months leading up to the election. ... And now that Election Day has passed? Hmm. Well, I don't know about your neighborhood, but prices here in south Seattle started rising within days, and are already up as much as a dime a gallon at some stations."

Posted by Danny at 07:57 PM | Comments (0)

Several House Democrats took to blogosphere this week to voice their support for Pennsylvanian John Murtha as the next majority leader, but their colleagues didn't heed the message. This morning, the Democratic Caucus voted 149-86 to elect Marylander Steny Hoyer as majority leader instead.

The Democrats who publicly endorsed Murtha at The Huffington Post were: Mike Honda,