Bloggers as... Posted by: Jon Henke
on Friday, July 27, 2007
There is an objection, apparently, to bloggers holding a conference call with the White House - "their weekly ration of talking points", says FireDogLake - about which Balloon Juice says "people are no longer pretending to have a shred of integrity and independence." I'm not sure why allowing the White House to make their case requires loss of integrity or independence - I'd ask, only I value my independence and integrity too much to listen to the answer - but let's assume that the critics have some psychic insight that makes up for their poor logic.
However, this, may be the least self-aware criticism of all time.
WH gives talking points to right-wing bloggers.
You see, the Center for American Progress objects to that. Only...
Democrats led by Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi plan even more Iraq votes, a strategy reinforced during daily conference calls, first reported in The New York Times, with a coalition of labor and anti-war groups. Every morning at 10:30, staff from the Democratic leadership offices is on the line with representatives of nearly a dozen groups, including powerful moveon.org, that make up the Americans Against Escalation in Iraq.
The congressional officials disclose their strategy, while the groups plot ad campaigns, community protests and other activities in the field, participants say.
Tangentially: It's time we stopped thinking of bloggers as a subset of opinion-journalists. Some may pursue that role, but the majority of political bloggers are just people with an interest in politics. Sometimes they will be journalists, sometimes they will be pundits, and sometimes they will be activists. When they believe in the cause, there's nothing necessarily compromising about any of those approaches.
The moonbats have apparently ingested some mania-manna on the Beauchamp story. These comments by lefties clearly indicate that the leftie echo chamber has built itself into a frenzy – no other word for it. Check out this Crazed ranting on a leftie blog:
”...now that they have bullied TNR to expose their writer, and they find that he is in fact a REAL SOLDIER serving in Iraq, do they take their hate-toys and go home? Never. Not for these people who will continue to feed so long as there is a single soul out their who can be defamed, attacked, smeared, and threatened. And now I can no longer ignore this bunch of thugs and bullies, who think that waving our flag gives them the right to act in ways that violate our principles, and in some cases our laws. TNR acted unethically in caving to the pressure of the Rove-brand of distraction-defamation. No sooner had this soldier been exposed as real and named, Scott Thomas Beauchamp, the savages attacked with glee, skinning this poor kid alive, dissecting his life, and even proclaiming a FATWA against him for daring... daring to be a human being stuck in the most horrific of circumstances .”
And that is only the semi-lucid foundation of the crazed part of the rant!
Mr. Henke’s direct hit on the Center for their blatant hypocrisy (they are shocked, shocked to find that people in Washington are engaged in getting their story out) reinforces the recently discussed point that lefties sanctimoniously believe that their bias is being “well informed” versus the “false” information that forms the bias of the right.
You’re missing a fine distinction, Jon. Right-wing is bad, left-wing is good. Therefore, it stands to reason that getting your weekly ration of right-wing talking points is bad, while getting your weekly ration of left-wing talking points is good, and getting your daily ration is even better. Get with the program!
I was the target of the same criticism for taking part in the Pentagon blogger conference calls with military officers in Iraq and Afghanistan. See BlackFive and Danger Room. Noah Schachtman invited some anti-war bloggers to join. We’ll see how that answers the criticism. I suggest that a certain jealousy may be a part of the current Firedoglake complaints. Regardless, I value the opportunity to ask questions of top administration and Pentagon leaders, and write up or podcast the results.
