Here are two more: Senator. Staffer.

In Mr. Lott’s case, people commented on the Senator’s own words. In the more recent dustup, people used the words of a hired staffer to try to malign somebody else.

Now if one of Lott’s aides had made the remark and everybody went nuts, you’d have a point.

His comments at Strom’s birthday party were ignored and he most likely thought they would never see the light of day. After all, who cares about a birthday party for Strom Thurmond? The mainstream media didn’t report on it.

Ah, but the blogosphere, which by that point had exploded, spread the word about Lott’s comments. The story which wasn’t a story 24-48 hours earlier, was now a front page story. If this happened 2-3 years earlier, it would have been a blip on a few forum sites and that’s about it.

That’s why your comparison between Marcotte and this guy Quinn is not applicable.

No, I’ll stick to what is observable and leave you in charge of seeing the future.

Well, this was in 2000 and that makes it an apples and oranges comparison. This was before Web 2.0 and when the exchange of information through the web was still playing second fiddle in terms of content to the dot-com bust. Blogger was in its infancy (created only the year before). There was no Youtube, no Movable Type blogs, etc.

Are you going to tell me that if McCain did the same thing this election cycle, nobody would notice? Not a chance and you know it.

Exactly my point. Quinn is a far shadier and more objectionable character than either of the bloggers Edwards has hired. When he was hired by a Republican candidate, almost nobody–liberals included–took notice.

Meanwhile, John McCain was being advised by Richard Quinn, Southern Partisan editor. Indeed, Quinn was running McCain’s effort in South Carolina, a crucial early stop on the tour. And what was Richard Quinn all about? In the New Republic, Benjamin Soskis described Southern Partisan as “the leading journal of the neo-Confederacy movement.” It was “to the right of National Review but to the left of the Klan,” Soskis said, quoting a reviewer:

SOSKIS: Indeed, scan the last 20 years of Southern Partisan, and…you’ll find a gumbo of racist apologias. From a 1996 article comes the claim that “slave owners … did not have a practice of breaking up slave families. If anything, they encouraged strong slave families to further the slaves’ peace and happiness.” In 1987 the magazine offered a vision of South African history straight from the apartheid-era textbooks: “God led Afrikaners into the Transvaal, it was with God that they made their prayerful covenant when they were besieged by bloodthirsty savages on all sides.” And in 1990 the journal celebrated David Duke as “a candidate concerned about ‘affirmative’ discrimination, welfare prolifigacy [sic], the taxation holocaust…a Populist spokesperson for a recapturing of the American ideal.”

Consider one of Southern Partisan’s most frequent contributors: Reid Buckley, William F.’s cantankerous and race-baiting brother, whose favorite themes include the dilution of America’s Anglo-Christian heritage and the perversity of homosexuality. Here’s a snippet from a 1984 Buckley column: “Negroes, Asians, and Orientals (is Japan the exception?); Hispanics, Latins, and Eastern Europeans; have no temperament for democracy, never had, and probably never will…It may be impolite and unpolitic to bring the subject up, but can our democratic system endure unless we close up the frontiers to peoples who are not…predisposed to honor its assumptions?” And, in a 1986 article entitled “Rock Hudson,” Buckley suggests that “the terrible swift sword of the dread AIDS disease is surely what in other ages would be acknowledged as a sign of God’s wrath,” a just punishment of homosexuals for committing “the most repulsive desecration in the sexual order.”

Also, I’d _love_ to see Donohue and his hate-mongering try to build a coalition aginst Edwards – it’d be the best free publicity the campaign could get…

BlogPac

OW, in case you haven’t heard, Bowers is in…Edwards’ camp.

Who the hell is Richard Quinn?

I already said the mainstream media is hostile to blogs, so I’m not sure what our point is there. There have been a lot of blogger related embarrassments for the mainstream press and as a consequence I think many journalists are more than a little eager to get the odd shot in.

But you are sidestepping my original point. The right uses these types of incidents to frame the left as the domain of radical secular socialists who want to ruin America. By being aggressive and dominating the media coverage, they control the story and can decide how to spin it, regardless of any apparent hypocrisy (i.e. the Pelosi jet “controversy”). What’s more, they can intimidate office holders (or seekers) into withdrawing their commitments to certain groups, or in this case, the “netroots.” So pumping this story up has numerous benefits for the right, namely undermining liberal blogger credibility, intimidating and weakening a potentially strong Dem presidential candidate (and possibly boosting the chances of a more controversial one that would motivate more of the base to vote in ’08), and perpetuating the stereotype that liberals hate religion and Christians in particular. Had Edwards caved, he would have handed them the ammunition to undercut any candidate with a staffer who ever operated a personal blog.

Sure.

I remember how everybody went nuts when John McCain put Southern Partisan editor Richard Quinn on his payroll.

A practice we know liberals never engage in. Oh excuse me for a second, my eyeballs just rolled out of my head.

As for Rathergate, you either have a bad memory or you’re purposely being deceitful. The story made waves through the mainstream press after conservative blogs determined the story was complete bullshit. The story then was credited where it was deserved and that was the bloggers who picked up on and ran with it.

Of course, the mainstream media wanted nothing to do with it and the Washington Post, only after enough prodding admitted that some of the information they had was initially found on blogs like LGF and Powerline and confirmed independently. They were never going to credit them. In addition, Corey Pein’s 3300 word screed in Columbia Journalism Review basically waved the bloggers as nothing but an angry mob and not deserving of any of the credit.

As for the Orcinus post, so what? I mean, do you really think that this would be any different were the tables turned? How fast would people trot out Glenn Reynolds entry where he talked about rabid anti-war types being “objectively pro-Saddam” were he to be hired by McCain or Mitt Romney or somebody else as an official blogger. Are you going to tell me that those on the left would sit idly by and say, “Oh this is no big deal. That was just his personal blog. Let’s talk about more important issues like health care!”

Anybody who believes that crap would happen will never be able to remove their head from their ass. Liberals would be in full on apoplectic mode and you know it.

I’m not going to hijack this thread with a prolonged discussion about right wing framing devices like the constant association of a particular term or phrase with a litany of talking points. Suffice to say that everyone here is familiar with the decades long effort to reduce all arguments to variations on “liberal” or “leftist.” Creating convenient stereotypes that can be trotted out for a period and then tossed aside until needed is what the right does. When the right breaks a story via the blogs, i.e. the overblown “Rathergate,” they bring in the Malkins, Coulters, Savages, Donohues and so on (not bloggers, but “online pundits”) to provide support and amplify the story. All of these clowns come with mountains of baggage yet their word is consistently taken seriously and elevated to the national stage with network broadcast appearances. The current effort to undermine the net community behind many Dem candidates is playing out the same way.
From the Orcinus post you so blithely dismiss:

But, at its core, this battle is about who gets access to the public soapbox. If Edwards cans Amanda and Shakes, he’ll be setting a precedent that cuts all liberal bloggers off at the knees, perpetuating the Uncouth Blogger image that renders us permanent second-class media citizens. In fact, it’s just a short hop and a jump from here to a place where any liberal, anywhere, who’s ever been cranky or a potty-mouth on Usenet or Yahoogroups or some blog’s comments thread will be effectively eliminated from participating in our public conversations. If the likes of Donohue can dig up a decade-old shit, hell, or fuck with your name attached — or a comment that was insufficiently reverent toward your right-wing betters — then you and your lowlife netroot opinions will not be welcome in our new, oh-so-civil public discourse. That fastidious snobbery, if allowed to stand, is going to effectively shut up a whole lot of the progressive movement’s best and brightest.

“The tone and the sentiment of some of Amanda Marcotte’s and Melissa McEwen’s posts personally offended me. It’s not how I talk to people, and it’s not how I expect the people who work for me to talk
to people. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but that kind of intolerant language will not be ermitted from anyone on my campaign,
whether it’s intended as satire, humor, or anything else. But I also believe in giving everyone a fair shake. I’ve talked to Amanda and
Melissa; they have both assured me that it was never their intention to malign anyone’s faith, and I take them at their word. We’re
beginning a great debate about the future of our country, and we can’t let it be hijacked. It will take discipline, focus, and courage
to build the America we believe in.”

Amanda Marcotte:

“My writings on my personal blog, Pandagon on the issue of religion are generally satirical in nature and always intended strictly as a
criticism of public policies and politics. My intention is never to offend anyone for his or her personal beliefs, and I am sorry if anyone was personally offended by writings meant only as criticisms of public politics. Freedom of religion and freedom of expression are central rights, and the sum of my personal writings is a
testament to this fact.”

Melissa McEwen:

“Shakespeare’s Sister is my personal blog, and I certainly don’texpect Senator Edwards to agree with everything I’ve posted. We do,however, share many views -including an unwavering support of religious freedom and a deep respect for diverse beliefs. It has never been my intention to disparage people’s individual faith, and I’m sorry if my words were taken in that way.”

Edwards was wise to wait until he had some time to converse with him. He was in two different cities yesterday, and is on the road 21 out of 28 this month.

Now, can we talk about education and health care for a change?

That was stupid.

Deal with it.

Then you must not read your own stuff.

I’d smack you down myself, but it’s already been done.

This is one of the stupidest things I have ever read. Know why? Because you’re saying it as though no conservative bloggers or blogs exist. Why would the right attempt to make blogs and bloggers into something bad considering the success blogs have had in battling mainstream media nonsense like the Rather fake memo story?

And guess what? The moment Amanda Marcotte signed on to be an official blogger for John Edwards, she ceased being part of the netroots and became part of the mainstream. Grassroots and netroots are part of a system wherein people work on getting people elected from the outside and not in any official capacity.

Once she crossed over that line that separates the netroots from the mainstream, her previous writings became relevant. You can complain about Bill Donohue all you want, but he didn’t write Marcotte’s stuff. She did.

And like I said in another post, if it was one of the GOP candidates who hired somebody like Charles Johnson to be an official blogger for their campaign, the left would be all over it like flies on shit, so all of this self-righteousness is really bogus.

Neither gives me any real confidence in the man.