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Note To Capitol Flacks: Don't Gripe To Bloggers

Last year amid the blog swarm against the "secret hold" on a budget transparency bill in the Senate, I offered a friendly warning to congressional staffers about e-mailing bloggers. It's time for a refresher course.

Why? Because Eric Carbone, the flack for Sen. Joseph Biden Jr. goofed big time yesterday in firing off an e-mail to Markos Moulitsas Zuniga of Daily Kos and no doubt is regretting the decision now. Carbone has learned a bit about the blogosphere by living; his colleagues in Capitol flackery can learn by reading what happened to him.

The back story: Biden, D-Del., officially announced yesterday that he is running for president in 2008. On the same day, he talked about the "articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy" that is Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois, himself a likely Democratic presidential candidate. All that sounds flattering until you put in front of it the part where Biden said Obama is "the first mainstream African-American" running for high office to fit that description.

Moulitsas was among the bloggers to pounce on that remark, calling Biden a vulgar name for his racial insensitivity (Biden has now apologized for the remark).

As flacks are wont to do, Carbone tried to run interference for his boss. He e-mailed Moulitsas and griped that Kos, a blogger of all people, was giving a "one-sided impression" of Biden. That was not a smart move because it only invited Moulitsas to attack again. Here's the result:

"Aside from the fact that this poor guy (Eric Carbone) thinks blogs are supposed to be 'fair and balanced', it's true, I've completely forgotten to write about the other side of the story -- how Biden is a bought and paid for subsidiary of MBNA. When Bank of America acquired MBNA, Biden was likely part of the package deal."

So instead of Biden catching just a little bit of grief for an insensitive racial comment, thanks to Carbone's e-mail, Biden got slammed with the longstanding allegation that he is in the hip pocket of the financial industry that is such a big presence in his home state.

The lesson for flacks: Think before you click.

You're much better off griping to me about bloggers on background than you are going on the record and taking your complaints directly to the source. Odds are good that the blogger you criticize is going to react just as Kos did -- by mocking you and attacking your boss with even more ferocity.

Posted by Danny | 09:15 AM

Comments

Because Danny will type up any smear you care to share.

Max Renn | 02.05.07 01:52 PM

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