Hard to explain. One of the top bloggers in the world is Beppe Grillo, an Italian comedian turned political activist who held a day last year called Vaffanculo Day (or F--- Off Day). I'm still trying to get my head around what exactly the day is about, but I think it's partly (or a lot) about Freedom of Information. Grillo, understandably, is a bit concerned about the Italian media, which is controled by a few companies (run by, gee, the guy who is against Prime Minister). You think the US is getting bad? Italy is our future. Anyway, Grillo has been using the Net to raise hell on this issue, and it's been quite interesting. Again, I'm only beginning to understand what this is all about, and hope that next time I get to Italy I can meet the man. You can read more about Grillo and V2-Day here.
I personally don't really care what imagery Clinton chooses to use in her campaign ad. But some conservatives seem pretty convinced you could just cut off the "I approved this message" part and replace it with the same from McCain and have a Republican spot good to go for the general:
First the 3 a.m. ad, now this: It’s awfully sporting of her to keep making the case for John McCain.
That can't be good.
NOTE FROM JOHN: Democrats never learn that when you give the voters the choice between a real Republican and a fake Republican, they choose the real one every time.
I'm no strategist, but it seems that if you're aiming for the Democratic nomination, offending MoveOn and the Netroots is a first class disaster.
I mean, if by some chance you beat Obama, you're going to want MoveOn and the Netroots to help you beat McCain, right? Especially after you've already admitted that they're some of the biggest fundraisers the party's got.
And then there's the youth vote. Let's say you beat Obama, and they're a little angry. The Netroots could be great help in winning them back.
The "activist base" might have been willing to come around in time. They might have been willing to support you for the good of the party.
The Huffington Post has uncovered a tape of Hillary telling some fundraisers at a private meeting that she hates the Netroots and Democratic activists, especially MoveOn. Ironically, it was also the Huffington Post that revealed Obama's private meeting with fundraisers that led to the entire "bitter" debacle.
(Funny, Hillary spoke to MoveOn just last year, and praised their work (listen to the audio, it's good). She "personally welcomes" MoveOn's work and says "I am grateful for your work." And let's not forget why and how MoveOn started. They wanted Congress to MoveOn from impeaching Bill Clinton over Monica Lewinksy. This is yet another example of the Clinton's throwing a key ally, a key defender, under the bus when it's expedient.)
You see, MoveOn and the rest of the Netroots is made up of people who aren't very American or patriotic. They didn't even support the war in Afghanistan, Hillary claims, so these are the kind of people she has to deal with. They're also the reason that Hillary didn't win the caucuses, because of those crazy MoveOn people - I hear they would even threaten Hillary's poor caucus-going supporters. And what's more, those MoveOn people raised a ton of money for Obama, Hillary claims, so in reality, Obama didn't raise that much money from real Americans. So Hillary's entire argument, as always, is that everyone really loves her, nobody really likes Obama, but somehow the system is screwing her and making it look like she's losing, when she's really not. She's winning. Sure, she's not winning in delegates, or popular vote, or number of states won, or in donations, but she's winning in the area that really matters: Excuses.
Here is what Hillary had to say:
"Moveon.org endorsed [Sen. Barack Obama] -- which is like a gusher of money that never seems to slow down," Clinton said to a meeting of donors. "We have been less successful in caucuses because it brings out the activist base of the Democratic Party. MoveOn didn't even want us to go into Afghanistan. I mean, that's what we're dealing with. And you know they turn out in great numbers. And they are very driven by their view of our positions, and It's primarily national security and foreign policy that drives them. I don't agree with them. They know I don't agree with them. So they flood into these caucuses and dominate them and really intimidate people who actually show up to support me."
Oh, and guess what? Hillary lied. MoveOn's Executive Director Eli Pariser just gave the following statement to the Huffington Post:
"Senator Clinton has her facts wrong again. MoveOn never opposed the war in Afghanistan, and we set the record straight years ago when Karl Rove made the same claim.
The larger irony is that Obama never did a lot of outreach to the Netroots. His outreach was actually the worst of any of the big campaigns (Edwards was the best, and Hillary's was still better than Obama's, which didn't really exist at all). Yet, somehow, the Netroots still ended up supporting Obama over Hillary, even though they didn't know his people, but they sure knew hers. Just food for thought.
It's funny. Hillary was a big fan of the online grassroots (or Netroots, as we call it) when ABC was defaming her husband in its fictional account of September 11, "The Path to 9/11." At that time, we led a ferocious counterattack that put ABC in its place by exposing the serious errors in ABC's bizarrely inaccurate account of that day's fateful events. The Clintons didn't seem to have much of a problem with the Netroots when we came to their rescue. But now that we're defending Obama against the same biased attacks from ABC, Hillary dismisses us with a wave of her regal palm.
To paraphrase Rev. Martin Niemöller, Hillary has embraced so many right-wing talking points in her campaign, and bashed so many core Democratic constituencies (blacks, gays, gun control advocates, and now the Netroots), that pretty soon she'll have no more Democrats left to blame. Nor will she have any Democrats left to support what has become a truly pathetic caricature of what was once a great Democratic family.
NBC's Chuck Todd is one of the more astute political observers out there (we thought this before he penned this morning's post, below).
Curious of what the bitterness and anger could look like if Obama is somehow denied the Democratic nomination? Check out the reaction from the ObamaNation over Wednesday’s debate. To put it simply, ABC was under siege yesterday. This may only be a taste of how the ObamaNation would react to a Clinton nomination. If MoveOn is motivated to do a petition campaign against the media over a debate, imagine what Clinton delegates and undecided superdelegates would face this summer if there is doubt. And as the Politico’s Ben Smith pointed out yesterday, it’s also what the GOP would face in the general election, especially if Obama is nominee. The level of devotion among Obama's supporters rivals what Bush had with his flock in 2004. The left-wing blogosphere is MUCH more powerful than what you see on the right this cycle and it reminds us of the advantage Bush had in '04. While we all know about that so-called right-wing voice machine, don’t forget that there is now a left-wing noise machine (on the internet) as well. And it has found its voice.
The ABC debate, according to the network, got 10.7 million viewers.
It also triggered the most furious outrage I've seen from the huge, and growing, Obama activist base, which in this case merged with the liberal Netroots -- which aren't always on the same page -- to generate a volume of complaints about the first 45-minutes of questioning that are pretty impossible to miss.
It's just a small glimpse, I think, of the level of heat the media is going to take in the general election, and John McCain doesn't seem to have any equivalent.
Well, let's not get ahead of ourselves. The Republicans have an amazing ability to turn defeat into victory (and Democrats, the opposite), and they've been playing the media refs for going on 3 decades now. But I've been telling people for a while that the right-wing blogosphere is next to non-existent in power as compared to the left. In a future post, I'll try to analyze why this is. But for now, suffice it to say, there's a reason we bloggers do what we do. You, and we, together make up a rather relevant and powerful force in Democratic, and overall US, politics. Be proud. Be vigilant. And be active. It matters.
Yesterday I wrote about a few issues of mobility and meritocracy, specifically regarding education. The general ideas are similar in a wide variety of areas, though, and one of those areas that doesn't get mentioned much by highly-trafficked blogs is ... the blogosphere. There's sometimes a sense that the internet is this magic zone of meritocracy wherein all other factors are wiped away by electrons, but that's not quite right. There is, of course, a lot about blogging that levels the playing field; if a writer chooses, he or she can be anonymous -- no labels, no boxes -- and anybody can set up a site, so the barriers to entry are relatively minimal. But to be successful, to have your voice heard, is another story.
The most obvious advantage is simply timing -- most of the high-traffic sites have been around for a long time. I don't think readership is inelastic or zero sum, but it's clearly much harder to build an audience now than it might have been even a few years ago. Further, all of the most popular liberal blogs have writers who are, for various reasons, able to spend a lot of time doing this. Obviously having the resources to make it possible to spend eight, ten, twelve hours a day writing about current events isn't something that applies to everybody. Some full-time bloggers are funded by organizations or are hosted by a think tank or progressive groups, and others started out in a position of financial stability allowing for that kind of time commitment. And that's good and important -- we need people to be part of this broad community, and this is in no way a criticism; it's also worth noting that virtually every "high profile" liberal blogger could be making wayyyy more money doing something else, so it's not like this is a lucrative lifestyle or anything like that. But these elements matter.
Another big factor, as with everything in life, is personal relationships. Some of that is related to finances too (have enough money to go to conferences? to travel to meetings and events?) and some is just random connections, but it matters what email lists you're on, who you can get to link to your stuff, and who has you on their RSS feed. Some of that is about the writing, and some of it isn't.
More broadly, there's how the blogosphere works at a macro level. The most popular sites are general political blogs, and most react to the news or try to drive particular narratives; for all of the ostensible animosity between blogs and the mainstream media, the two really feed off each other and, to a large degree, bolster each other. And again, that's often a good thing -- there's no rule that blogs have to change the structure, and certainly there's no consensus on what good structural changes would even look like. There is, though, a lot of reinforcement of, say, the horse-race aspect of political coverage, and despite some challenges to the status quo, I think blogs end up reflecting pretty closely existing states of affairs. The debate over the diversity of people -- and the defense that popular writers are a diverse bunch is indeed true; Markos is latino, Jane is a woman, John is gay, and on and on -- is in many ways a distraction from this fact, not a recognition of it, and minority voices are often understandably annoyed by being marginalized by the narrative that the blogs are the domain of white dudes. That debate, though, can sometimes mask the fact that other kinds of diversity haven't shined through in high profile ways. The blogger "elite" remains largely a crew of people who still fit a certain demographic: highly educated, financially secure, coastal, connected. There are always exceptions, of course, but generally speaking. And it's *especially* true of the younger generation of full-time bloggers.
The market is a major factor, obviously -- niche subjects produce niche audiences, and vice versa. Some topics or sites or writers don't have huge readership because the writing is infrequent, or narrow, or just bad. But there's also plenty about blogs that's dismissive of the same voices that get dismissed offline, and that reinforces status quo, and, to bring it back to yesterday's post, reflects something other than pure meritocracy. As with so many other areas, there's a huge motivation to rationalize and validate success as completely a product of hard work and determination. And much of it is . . . but much of it isn't. Even those who become successful through hard work, determination, and talent almost certainly had some built-in advantages -- including me, of course -- and I don't think it diminishes anybody's accomplishments or efforts to acknowledge that.
As with yesterday's discussion, it's a lot easier to identify this stuff than to know what the end result is (or should be). And nothing is more annoying than telling people how to write or think, so this isn't an exhortation or anything. But like I said, it doesn't get discussed much, and it warrants mentioning.
I vaguely remembered having made some joke about being shocked that women are allowed to vote, and I wanted to reference it in this post, so I googled it. Turns out, I said it while writing about the very same organization I was planning to write about now! Either I'm running out of material, or I was never that funny in the first place. Maybe both.
In any case, yes, women were disastrously given the right to vote, and along with that came all sorts of other "special rights" like having jobs and being allowed to use computers, which has led us to the horrible current scenario wherein they get to be part of the public discourse online. In celebration of this monstrosity, WVWV, a fantastic organization, is "honoring those women that have utilized the internet to amplify their voices" by recognizing female bloggers. I nominated my favorite, and you should too, but just for fun, and in the spirit of Women's History Month, here's are some female bloggers (and respective -- albeit admittedly reductive -- general focuses) I think are teh awesome. It's by no means an exhaustive list, and Lord knows I don't always agree with them, but they're all worth reading:
Ezra Klein moves his blog over to the American Prospect website today, and he's wasting no time being . . . well, his usual smart self.
Head over there to wish him well, reset your bookmark/RSS, and read this post, which points out the fact that we're spending *more than double* the per person GDP of the country. Why not, he muses, just buy off every single citizen (via jobs programs of some variety or whatever) -- who's up for a Basra Valley Authority?
Fascinating article from Reuters about political (and other) blogging in Cuba. In spite of severe government restrictions on Internet access, Cuba appears to have a real political blog culture where they trade in real criticisms of the government:
...the reaction to television programs in December that honored notorious censors from the early 1970s - when Cuba adopted Soviet policies and cracked down on writers, artists and homosexuals - showed the potential of the Internet to effect change.
There was such a flood of e-mail messages from Cuban intellectuals, academics and others with Internet access that the government was obliged to meet with them and issue an apology for the program.
Here are a few of the blogs mentioned in the story:
My colleague Ilan Goldenberg pushes back against what has, I think, moved from an understandable critique of right wing foreign policy establishment crazies and a certain group of Democrats who enable them -- almost exclusively members of Clinton's second term security staff -- to a condemnation of everybody who works on foreign policy for a living.
The problem is not that Democrats don't have anybody good working on foreign policy, it's that the good ones are consistently overlooked for the likes of O'Hanlon, Pollack, Beinart, etc. The fact that those guys keep showing up on your teevee is a *media* problem, not a policy one. Would I like for some of these guys -- especially many of the Republicans; the Kagan family, anybody? -- to be banished from the realm of respectability, the best way to effect that is to elevate better people. People like a Rand Beers (who resigned on the eve of the Iraq war after 35 years of government service and now runs a think tank) or Brian Katulis (a Middle East expert at CAP who actually speaks the language and has spent time in the region -- crazy, I know) or Steve Simon (of the Council on Foreign relations -- the horror!).
Established institutions such as New America Foundation and newer ones including the Center for American Progress and (I'm biased on this one, but still) the National Security Network do great things. Just Wednesday, after Bush's horrifying speech on Wednesday, NSN immediately got dozens of reporters on a conference call with a who's who of military and security people to push back against the president's absurd conclusions, which helped establish a better media narrative.
I've mostly avoided the blogosphere debate over Very Serious People and the Foreign Policy Establishment, but I should say that I think many of the criticisms are insightful and legitimate. That doesn't mean, however, that good people, pieces, and actions should be ignored.
That's pretty much what he said this morning on Faux News when talking about DailyKos founder Markos Molitsas. Kristol said that Markos was not a respectable person prior to founding DailyKos 3 or 4 years ago.
With all due respect, Mr. Kristol, prior to founding DailyKos, Markos was serving in the US military and voting for Ronald Reagan.
Then again, they don't call it Faux News for nothing.
It's understandable that Susan Collins is lashing out via her campaign staff, she is after all in increasing danger of losing her job because of her staunch support for George Bush and the war in Iraq. Susan Collins represents everything that is wrong with the Republican party today - it's people like her who forced me to leave the GOP over a decade ago. She thinks her only job is to be a rubber stamp for George Bush's failed war and failed administration. So, yes, Susan now thinks that anyone who disagrees with her about the war is a hate-filled, quasi-violent extremist (sounding a bit like Bush and Cheney, demonizing anyone who disagrees with you, eh Susan?). Also, note her staffer's use of the word "quasi-violent". Classic Susan Collins. She simply can't take a clear position on anything. Always trying to split the baby in half. So it's not "violent," it's "quasi" violent, whatever the heck that wishy-washy word means. It will be nice next November when Maine replaces Susan with a real Senator.
UPDATE: Please let JetBlue know that you appreciate their sponsorship of the YearlyKos conference, and that you realize that they are an equal-opportunity airline, welcoming all customers, liberal and conservative, since they show FOX News in-flight. corporatecommunications@jetblue.com
Jet Blue? Try Jet Red.
FOX News and some of the more fringe elements on the right are attacking Jet Blue for being a sponsor of the YearlyKos annual blogger conference, when in fact we now find out that Jet Blue has done a hell of a lot more for Republicans. Jet Blue's CEO has given money to candidates on the right and the left, but he only gave to one presidential candidate, Mitt Romney, a far-right Republican.
Now, should JetBlue have sponsored the conference? Of course. Companies sponsor conferences on the left and right all the time. Basically, they give some free tickets, or special fares on flights or rooms for conference attendees. It's done all the time and it's good business. It's also good for both the left and right sides of the blogosphere. It means the blogosphere is maturing, it's being taken seriously. Why anyone on the right or left would want to scare corporations away from supporting blogs on the right or left is beyond. I may think Michelle Malkin is a nut for still supporting the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II, but I'm certainly not going to challenge her advertisers, lest she challenge mine. There's a certain beauty to mutual assured destruction. And it benefits the blogosphere-at-large for us to all grow up a little and recognize that we may have our differences, but trying to outright destroy each other is not beneficial for anyone.
But the question is not whether you like the Daily Kos or Pajamas Media. It’s whether you respect JetBlue’s – or any other corporation’s – right to make its own business decisions. JetBlue’s leadership has determined that associating themselves with the Kos Convention will sell tickets for them. You may differ in that analysis, but I would imagine they have done market research.
Those of us who value open discussion on Internet sites – for general reasons of speech and more specific ones of advertising support – should be happy that JetBlue has seen fit to sponsor a site as extreme as the Daily Kos. It’s good for all of us. (O’Reilly, of all people, should be applauding this.) What comes around goes around – as the cliché goes.
Before you start to throw bricks at me, obviously there are limits to this. Advertising on Jihadist or Nazi sites or the like should not be countenanced. But, whatever you feel about it, the Daily Kos does not fit in this category. This is a democracy. They are people with whom you or I may disagree. We should say so and denounce their views as vigorously as possible. But we should not attempt to restrict their speech in any way - or their sponsorship.
Mike Krempasky, a founder of RedState, another huge blog on the right, agrees:
As a rule, if every corporate advertiser who steps into the blogosphere gets rocks thrown at its head...you're going to see a lot fewer large-scale ad campaigns in the medium. And believe me, if you think the blogosphere can survive (thrive?) on political ads, you should put down the crack pipe.
So, FOX News and some others on the right are attacking a major donor to one of their own presidential candidates as being too much a lefty (of course, we attack Romney as being too much a lefty, but that's for another day). That's rich. And it all too clearly proves my point - when you start to play these political "I gotcha" games, you all too often end up hurting yourself.
To some degree, this is a battle between old Washington and new Washington. Old Washington, and I consider myself a member, understands the value of playing politics a lot like chess: You don't just plan your next move, you plan your next 5 moves. If you simply act instinctively and impulsively, if you only think about the moment, you can very much end up shooting yourself in the foot as the game moves on. Demonizing the blogosphere, demonizing our corporate supporters, ends up demonizing us all.
Oh, and one more thing. JetBlue broadcasts FOX News on a TV screen at the back of every seat. They don't broadcast CNN.
A huge article looking at the impact of liberal blogs on politics. A really well thought out and reasoned piece, I think. Can't even begin to summarize it, it's big. Take a look.
Seriously, at some point the far-right of the GOP needs to stop representing 30% of their party. The GOP is - or at least was - much bigger than the religious right/Pat Buchanan coalition. It would be nice to see some Republican leaders in the blogosphere and the White House and the media (FOX, Washington Times, WSJ) actually represent the 70% of GOPers who aren't Terri Schiavo republicans. More from Raw Story.
A number of the conservative bloggers who attended the CPAC conference, where Ann Coulter spoke, have issued a public letter to the conference organizers. The letter calls on the conference, organized by the very important conservative group American Conservative Union, never to invite Coulter again, and more importantly, the bloggers essentially disinvite Coulter from the conservative movement.
The list of those bloggers who signed the letter is at the bottom of this post. But more interesting than those who signed is those who attended the conference but did not sign on to the letter, starting with the number one conservative blogger, Michelle Malkin.
Conservatism treats humans as they are, as moral creatures possessing rational minds and capable of discerning right from wrong. There comes a time when we must speak out in the defense of the conservative movement, and make a stand for political civility. This is one of those times.
Ann Coulter used to serve the movement well. She was telegenic, intelligent, and witty. She was also fearless: saying provocative things to inspire deeper thought and cutting through the haze of competing information has its uses. But Coulter's fearlessness has become an addiction to shock value. She draws attention to herself, rather than placing the spotlight on conservative ideas.
At the Conservative Political Action Conference in 2006, Coulter referred to Iranians as "ragheads." She is one of the most prominent women in the conservative movement; for her to employ such reckless language reinforces the stereotype that conservatives are racists.
At CPAC 2007 Coulter decided to turn up the volume by referring to John Edwards, a former U.S. Senator and current Presidential candidate, as a "faggot." Such offensive language--and the cavalier attitude that lies behind it--is intolerable to us. It may be tolerated on liberal websites but not at the nation's premier conservative gathering....
Coulter's vicious word choice tells the world she care little about the feelings of a large group that often feels marginalized and despised. Her word choice forces conservatives to waste time defending themselves against charges of homophobia rather than advancing conservative ideas....
Denouncing Coulter is not enough. After her "raghead" remark in 2006 she took some heat. Yet she did not grow and learn. We should have been more forceful. This year she used a gay slur. What is next? If Senator Barack Obama is the de facto Democratic Presidential nominee next year, will Coulter feel free to use a racial slur? How does that help conservatism?
....CPAC sponsors, the Age of Ann has passed. We, the undersigned, request that CPAC speaking invitations no longer be extended to Ann Coulter. Her words and attitude simply do too much damage.
Credentialed CPAC 2007 Bloggers
Sean Hackbarth, The American Mind James Joyner, Outside the Beltway Scott Schmidt, Boi From Troy Joy McCann, Little Miss Attila Kevin McCullough, Musclehead Revolution Fausta Werz, Fausta's blog Patrick Hynes, Ankle Biting Pundits Ed Morrissey, Captain's Quarters
Other Conservative Bloggers Owen Robinson, Boots and Sabres N.Z. Bear, The Truth Laid Bear Michael Demmons, Gay Orbit
