April 23, 2006
Posted by dglover | 04:28 PM
Arizona Republican Rick Renzi apparently loves what he has seen at The Counterrorism Blog so much that he is willing to back that work from his own wallet.
Andrew Cochran, founder and co-editor of the blog, revealed yesterday that Renzi was one of the first contributors to the new Counterterrorism Foundation. That body accepts donations online to support the work done at the blog, including the embedding of writers like new blog co-editor Bill Roggio. He leaves for Afghanistan soon for another non-military stint with U.S. troops in that country.
"Rep. Renzi was inspired to run for Congress after personally witnessing the terrorist attack on the Pentagon on September 11, 2001, from his car as he was driving toward Washington," Cochran wrote. "He serves on the U.S. House Intelligence Committee and is the author of language included in the House-passed immigration bill [that] would use state-of-the-art technologies to protect our borders. We deeply appreciate Rep. Renzi's contribution and his support of the Counterterrorism Foundation."
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Posted by dglover | 04:01 PM
Last year about this time, Tennessee blogger Bill Hobbs had a grand idea in legislative blogging.
His vision prompted him to created a Web site called VolPols, a place where every member of his home state's legislature could blog for free. To sweeten the pot, Hobbs offered his services as a blog consultant on the side to train any takers.
Sadly, no one in the Volunteer State accepted the offer, so now Hobbs is halting the project, at least temporarily. "Although I made the offer repeatedly to all members of the legislature, and specifically asked several Democratic and Republican members to start blogs on the site," Hobbs lamented, "none did. Today, there are no more blogging Tennessee legislators than there were a year ago."
While Hobbs has not abandoned the project, his note about it sounds a bit defeatist. That might have something to do with the controversy that has swirled around Hobbs the past several days over an unflattering cartoon depicting the Islamic prophet Mohammed that Hobbs briefly put online.
His idea about a portal for legislative blogs is a good one, though, and I hope he finds a way to resurrect it -- and perhaps duplicate it in all 50 states.
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Posted by dglover | 03:49 PM
Sen. John Kerry on Saturday marked the 35th anniversary of his congressional testimony about the Vietnam War by urging readers of The Huffington Post to follow his example and challenge the Bush administration's actions in the war in Iraq.
Here's an excerpt from the Massachusetts Democrat's blog entry:
I felt compelled to speak out about what was happening in Vietnam, where the children of America were pulled from front porches and living rooms and plunged almost overnight into a world of sniper fire, ambushes, rockets, booby traps, body bags, explosions, sleeplessness, and the confusion created by an enemy who was sometimes invisible and firing at us, and sometimes right next to us and smiling. It was clear that thousands of Americans were losing their lives in Vietnam while politicians in Washington schemed to save their political reputations.Thirty-five years later, in another war gone off course, I see history repeating itself. It is both a right and an obligation for Americans today to disagree with a president who is wrong, a policy that is wrong, and a course in Iraq that weakens the nation. Again, we must refuse to sit quietly and watch our troops sacrificed for a policy that isn't working while Americans who dissent and ask tough questions are branded unpatriotic.
Kerry's entry sounds like the kind that could spark a rise out of conservative bloggers. But Kerry also made an appearance on ABC's "This Week that is giving bloggers like Ed Morrissey of Captain's Quarters plenty to say about Kerry.
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April 22, 2006
Posted by dglover | 11:40 PM
Soldiers, their family members and others who are part of the military blogging community (or fans of such "milbloggers") gathered in Washington today for the first annual Milblog Conference.
I was at the event and will provide a full report in my bi-weekly Beltway Blogroll column that goes online here Tuesday. I'll also post some other entries with insights that I cannot fit into the space constraints of the column. (That's one reason I love blogging instead!)
For now, here are some links to live-blog posts and other coverage of the event:
-- Argghhh
-- The Counterterrorism Blog
-- Crazy Politico's Rantings
-- Dadmanly
-- Euphoric Reality (separate entries for panels 1, 2 and 3)
-- The Gunn Nutt (panels 1, 2 and 3)
-- La Shawn Barber's Corner
-- Media Lies (here, here and here)
-- Milblogging
-- OPFOR
-- Pajamas Media
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April 21, 2006
Posted by dglover | 07:15 AM
The directors of RedState opened the week with a powerful endorsement of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
"Secretary Rumsfeld has been a solid and committed leader during a time of great trial," they wrote in one of their occasional attempts at playing the role of information age editorial board. "If irritated [Defense Department] professionals and former members of the Pentagon bureaucracy is all it takes to oust a Defense secretary -- with an assist from grandstanding journalists, peaceniks in the streets and ill-informed conservatives on the op-ed pages -- then Washington is truly gone haywire. Our armed forces deserve better, and Donald Rumsfeld deserves our support."
Two days later, President Bush reiterated his support for Rumsfeld. "I'm the decider, and I decide what is best. And what's best is for Don Rumsfeld to remain as secretary of Defense."
Other blog bits from this week:
-- Hugh Hewitt challenged bloggers to toss some financial support to the Minnesota Senate campaign of Republican Rep. Mark Kennedy. The Republican National Committee echoed the call, as did Captain's Quarters.
-- Hotline On Call noted that former Virginia Gov. Mark Warner, a potential Democratic presidential candidate in 2008, placed a call to Iowa-based blogger Chris Woods (corrected per comment below), a contributor at MyDD. Warner reportedly took that step before contacting Iowa's well-known political writers. Fellow MyDD blogger Matt Stoller proclaimed Bowers a "kingmaker" for his newfound notoriety.
-- A Senate candidate has taken his campaign to the MySpace social-networking service. A mayoral candidate in New Orleans, meanwhile, found herself in trouble over a manufactured photo on her campaign site, according to 13th Floor.
-- Stoller took a half-dozen fellow Democrats to task for voting against what he considers strong language to ensure "network neutrality," a term that refers to equal treatment for content delivered over high-speed Internet services. Those six House members "took a sledgehammer to the Internet," Stoller said. It was the first of his two shots at people in his own party over the issue. The second one blasted former White House press secretary Mike McCurry. Are we seeing the makings of a blog swarm on net neutrality?
-- Michelle Malkin touted the "Send A Brick" to Congress campaign being run by a citizens' group that opposes amnesty for illegal immigrants. Add that to last week's blog bit about a blogger's delivery of "rubber stamps" to a senator, and I'd say lawmakers are getting some strange deliveries these days. I wonder how tough it is to get bricks and rubber stamps through the tighter security on Capitol Hill.
-- Carol Darr of the Institute for Politics, Democracy and the Internet was featured in another article and online chat about new campaign finance rules for the Internet. Neither Duncan Black of Eschaton nor Adam Bonin of Daily Kos were impressed. (I interviewed Darr for my column on the same topic about two weeks ago.)
-- Two House lawmakers who recently returned from a trip to Iraq reported on their journey in a blog call this week. Human Events Online, A Soldier's Perspective and Suitably Flip wrote entries after the call.
-- Steve Clemons of The Washington Note recapped a dinner session with John Bellinger, the lawyer for Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
-- The Counterterrorism Blog has a new look and a new partner. Milblogger Bill Roggio of The Fourth Rail is now a co-editor of the publication. Blog founder Andrew Cochran explained the changes this week.
-- The ever-entrepreneurial Joshua Micah Marshall of Talking Points Memo has a new project in the works: a publication to provide thorough coverage of 30 to 40 congressional races "that seem genuinely in play." What will his fellow Democratic bloggers who believe every district should be considered competitive think about one of their own deeming just a handful of races worthy of attention?
-- Armando, a regular contributor at Daily Kos, doesn't walk in the same circles as Josh Trevino, one of the founders of RedState. But the two have decided to square off at a new blog called Swords Crossed. Armando shared his thoughts on the new venture.
-- The Washington Post published a critical look at liberal bloggers. Liberal bloggers reacted predictably, labeling it a "hit piece" and "payback" for liberal bloggers who criticized the paper.
-- The word from the latest "State Of The Blogosphere" report: There are now 35.3 million blogs, with the number still doubling about every six months.
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April 20, 2006
Posted by dglover | 09:04 AM
If you want to know about the growing influence of legal blogs, third-year Ohio State University law student Ian Best is the man with the answers.
Late last week at his 3L Epiphany blog, he posted an entry that lists court decisions with blog citations. The list encompasses 23 cases from federal and state courts across the country. The states include California, Florida, Indiana, Massachusetts, New York, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio Tennessee, Utah, West Virginia and Wisconsin.
The earliest citation was in a 2003 case before the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of appeals; the rest occurred between 2004 and the present, with the latest being cases in Florida and Ohio this year.
"The blog with the most case citations is Sentencing Law and Policy, with 21 citations in 17 cases," Best wrote. He added that "three other well-known legal blogs" -- How Appealing, Legal Theory Blog and The Volokh Conspiracy -- merited citations, too.
Eugene Volokh praised Doug Berman of Sentencing Law and Policy for getting so much attention from judges. "Many (likely most) law professors never get that many court citations for all their law review articles put together, much less for their blog posts," Volokh wrote.
Best followed his research on blog citations in court cases with insightful interviews about blogs with two judges: U.S. District Judge Richard Kopf in Nebraska and Ohio Supreme Court Justice Judith Lanzinger. Both shared their insights about blogs and their blog-reading habits (Kopf reads them every day, Lanzinger only "periodically").
Lanzinger offered this warning: "Assuming that legal blogs are now in their infancy, and that they will grow to have a long and fruitful life, I think that lawyers who ignore them altogether will do so at their peril."
Kopf also shared his thoughts on how technology might lead to other changes in the legal world. He noted in particular the potential impact of both video and audio technology.
"[A]s video technology and the Net become interwoven," he said, "I see little reason to require witnesses to travel long distances to attend trials when they could as easily appear by interactive video. As another example, think about whether court reporters are needed given advances in digital audio recording. Digital audio recordings of trials can be provided over the Net, perhaps even in real time. Vendors located at any place in the world could access the digital audio over the Net and bid to provide transcriptions, presumably at very low prices."
(Hat tip to Concurring Opinions.)
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Posted by dglover | 07:15 AM
"The Rise Of Blogs," the article I wrote for National Journal magazine in January, made the point that bloggers are "influentials" among their peers. BlogAds founder Henry Copeland noted that "the blogosphere is crawling with certified, grade-A opinion makers.
New analysis from Jupiter Research, as reported by ElectricNews.Net and The Guardian, drives that point home. Although the article focuses on the influence of blogs in Europe, and particularly the media and business sectors there, the message that bloggers exert a "disproportionately large influence" on society holds true for the the American political realm, too.
The lead at ElectricNews.Net captures the essence of the research nicely: "Companies that ignore the opinions of bloggers and Internet commentators could create massive public relations disasters." Just change the word "companies" to "government officials," and the conclusion just as readily applies to Washington.
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April 18, 2006
Posted by dglover | 12:36 PM
This year's Pulitzer Prize winners were announced yesterday, and bloggers who love to hate the media wasted no time in reacting.
With few exceptions, the reactions are surprisingly muted. Power Line penned the harshest criticisms -- over the award to The New York Times ("The Pulitzer Prize For Treason") for breaking the news about secret domestic surveillance by the Bush administration, and over the award to Washington Post fashion writer Robin Givhan ("The Pulitzer Prize for Vapidity").
Firedoglake also lamented "what a sad waste of time the Pulitzers have become." But one writer at Daily Kos, which keeps company in the same part of the blogosphere as Firedoglake, had a different take: "This year's Pulitzers have been announced, featuring some outstanding work, and some not so outstanding work, but that happens."
America Abroad, Americablog and Michelle Malkin also commented. The Hotline's Blogometer has a roundup as well.
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Posted by dglover | 12:07 PM
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, a potential presidential candidate in 2008, is making a concerted push to be an innovator in the realm of political technology.
Last week, the Tennessee Republican launched his own podcasts at the Web site for VOLPAC, his political action committee. "In these podcasts, I'll be giving unscripted and unfiltered updates from Washington, D.C., about legislation in the Senate and from across America as I campaign with conservative candidates," Frist wrote. "We already have five of these updates on the site now."
Frist also is one of Congress' early and more prolific bloggers, and he has granted exclusive podcasts to Instapundit Glenn Reynolds, who lives in Tennessee.
Today, Frist added another element to his tech forays: iFrist Volunteers. "If Republicans are going to continue to lead America forward," Frist wrote at his blog, "we need to do a better job communicating with the Republican grassroots. ... IFrist volunteers can sign petitions, complete surveys, endorse candidates, spread the word and help build support for the Republican agenda by encouraging their friends, family and co-workers to participate."
All of the activity prompted Washington Post blogger Chris Cillizza to wonder aloud whether Frist is the "Howard Dean of the GOP" -- a reference to the Democratic presidential candidate who caused the biggest blogospheric and online stir in 2004. Cillizza said Frist "appears to be the candidate most closely copying the Internet blueprint of Dean."
Scott Shields of MyDD, one of the blogs that rose to prominence during the Dean campaign, scoffed at the notion that Frist is anything like Dean. In a fundamentally lazy statement, he stereotyped most journalists as being "fundamentally lazy," with Cillizza's "pretty much mindless piece" as the only evidence to support his sweeping generalization.
Shields' point about the differences between Frist and Dean is fair enough. "Dean established himself as a credible political figure as the governor of a small state and likely wouldn't have attained the level of national notoriety he did without the progressive netroots behind him," Shields wrote. "In contrast, Senator Frist is the majority leader of the United States Senate. He's already in the national spotlight."
But Shields' slap at journalists is both ridiculous and wrong. It's kind of like a certain journalist who infamously dismissed all bloggers as pajama-clad losers.
UPDATE: Shields apparently thinks he hurt my feelings with his comment about lazy journalists. That's just as ridiculous and wrong as his comment about journalists. Shields didn't call me lazy, so why would my feelings be hurt.
I've also known and worked with a few lazy journalists in my day and have no problem believing they exist. Plus I have criticized my journalistic colleagues for their shortcomings, especially their sweeping generalizations about bloggers, so I firmly believe that all of us, including me, can improve the work we do.
But Shields' attack on "most" journalists based on a single blog posting written by one of them -- and a blog posting that arguably offers some worthwhile insight -- is baseless. It was driven by his own affinity for Dean and his desire not to have his political hero associated with a leading Republican.
Shields may well be right that Bill Frist is no Howard Dean. He certainly supported that view with more evidence and insight than his potshot at journalists. But his take on journalists is quite wrong. As I said, most of us are no more lazy than most bloggers are pajama-clad losers.
UPDATE II: This response from Shields also is misleading: "Take all of the journalists in the world -- every small-town AM radio reporter, every local coupon-clipper stringer, etc. -- and I promise you will find that most are not doing Seymour Hersh-level journalism." He's probably right on that score. But his initial entry clearly stated that he was referring to journalists (like Cillizza) who do their work in the political arena.
UPDATE III: Daily Kos also reacted to Cillizza's comparison of Frist to Dean, minus the poke at journalists. The conclusion: "Where Dean ... and others use the Internet as a means of citizen empowerment, Frist and others use it as a means of retaining power themselves."
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April 14, 2006
Posted by dglover | 11:49 AM
Rep. Jack Kingston held a conference call with a handful of conservative bloggers. The subjects ranged from Iraq and Iran to immigration reform and energy independence.
You can get full reports at Capitol Report, Captain's Quarters, HughHewitt.com, Right Wing News, The Right Angle and Wizbang.
Later in the week, The Washington Times mentioned the blog call in a story on Kingston's outreach to blogs.
The Hill covered the flip side of that coin: blog outreach by House Democrats, particularly Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, R-Calif. Capitol Report, GOP Bloggers and even the blog of the Republican National Committee highlighted the less-flattering aspects of the article.
The liberal Americablog, by contrast played up this quote from the story: "The liberal blogosphere is better developed than its conservative counterpart." And Matt Stoller of MyDD added that "it's good to see more recognition of the progressive blogosphere."
It's always amusing to see how the same story can spark such conflicting reactions.
More blog bits from this week:
-- Word that outgoing Rep. Tom DeLay, R-Texas, might be chosen by President Bush to head the White House Office of Management and Budget sparked a flurry of commentary in the blogosphere. For views across the political spectrum, visit Capitol Report, Firedoglake, Power Line, The Stakeholder and TPM Muckraker.
-- Stoller played delivery man to the office of Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., on behalf of the Rubber Stamp Republican Congress project of Firedoglake.
-- When Stoller caught some heat from his friends in the liberal blogosphere, meanwhile, he changed his mind about Rep. Melissa Bean, D-Illinois. And Chris Bowers of MyDD provided an update on the push to recruit Democrats for races in most House districts.
-- Pat Cleary of ShopFloor, the blog of the National Association of Manufacturers, praised his readers for bombarding the Interior Department with comments about the push for environmentally safe mineral exploration.
-- The Week magazine published its explanation of why it chose Ed Morrissey of Captain's Quarters as blogger of the year. For more evidence of why he won the award, check this bit of enterprising journalism about Iraq intelligence, as well as the response at both Barone Blog and RedState.
-- The Cincinnati Enquirer stopped publishing the "Grandma in Iraq" blog after bad press about the author of the blog, an Army public affairs officer.
-- Rick Hasen of Election Law concluded that new Federal Election Commissioner Hans von Spakovsky once wrote under the pseudonym "Publius."
-- CNN reported on complaints by two former staffers to Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., that he made them baby-sit, run errands and do political work. GOP Bloggers said it's about time someone covered the story. But what inquiring blogosphere minds really want to know is whether Conyers made the employees blog at ConyersBlog.
-- Andy Roth of The Club For Growth really wanted to find some useful information in "Crashing The Gates," the book by liberal bloggers Jerome Armstrong and Markos Moulitsas Zuniga. He didn't.
-- TalkLeft is being blocked at a public library in California.
-- Blogging by research universities: Blogspotting at BusinessWeek Online has a host of questions about the merits of the practice.
-- ABC News Washington correspondent Jake Tapper announced that he is taking a break from blogging at Down and Dirty "for a host of complicated reasons."
-- What makes a blog a blog? Asked and answered, in multiple ways, at Concurring Opinions.
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April 13, 2006
Posted by dglover | 12:51 PM
Yesterday's update to my ongoing list of links to candidate and lawmaker interviews included a series of pointers to video blog clips with Sen. John McCain at Ankle Biting Pundits.
That site has a new clip up today, this one with former House Speaker Newt Gingrich. The topic is the war in Iraq.
Gingrich is not technically a lawmaker or candidate, but that's not the reason for this separate blurb. Rather, my goal here is to draw attention to something profound that Patrick Hynes said about video blogs, or vlogs, in his blog entry to highlight the video.
"Blogs have already damaged the credibility of the MSM," he wrote. "I believe vlogging has the potential to kill off agenda-driven, gotcha journalism. Newsmakers can now go straight to the people with the facts, not run them through the filter of what Rush [Limbaugh] calls 'the drive-by media.'"
He's absolutely correct -- and that's why I expect to see more vlogging in both the political and policy arenas.
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Posted by dglover | 07:10 AM
Armchair political analysis and hopeful electoral spin are flying around the blogosphere in the wake of Tuesday's special election to fill a House seat in California.
The election was held in the Golden State's 50th District to replace Rep. Randy (Duke) Cunningham, a Republican who left office last year after pleading guilty to bribery. The contest featured 18 candidates, including 14 Republicans.
Democrat Francine Busby won 44 percent of the vote. In 2004, when she and three other third-party candidates challenged Cunningham, Busby snagged just 37 percent of the vote, compared with Cunningham's 58 percent.
The top Republican vote-getter, former Rep. Brian Bilbray, barely outlasted fellow Republican and big-spending businessman Eric Roach. Bilbray now will meet Busby in a June 6 run-off election because no candidate in the all-party primary won more than 50 percent of the vote.
Chris Bowers of MyDD sees reason to be hopeful over Busby's showing in a Republican district, even though she now will have to go head-to-head with a former Republican congressman. "Busby is in command in this district, which is solid red. Or rather, it was solid red, but like a lot of districts nationwide, that isn't the case anymore. I like our chances in June. ... [V]ictory is now within sight."
But the poor turnout in the primary left Markos Moulitsas Zuniga of Daily Kos concerned. "The Democratic leadership thinks that the GOP implosion will ipso facto translate to Democratic victories in November," he warned. "But the electorate is universally disenchanted with politics."
Instapundit Glenn Reynolds linked to Moulitsas' analysis and added this thought: "The good news for each party is that they only have to run against the other and not against a competent one. The bad news for each party is that the same thing is true for their opposition. ... [I]t's like the Special Olympics of politics or something."
PoliPundit characterized the vote as a defeat for liberal bloggers: "This was yet another race where ultra-left, America-hating blogger Kos threw his support behind the losing Democrat candidate." He also resurrected the argument that lefty bloggers have "an incredible 18 losses and zero victories" in races where they have been active -- a "myth" that blogs like Swing State Project keep trying to kill.
Tim Tagaris, the blogger for the Democratic National Committee, joined some of his colleagues in playing up the margin of Busby's victory over the closest Republican, but that margin is relatively insignificant considering the number of GOP candidates in the race.
At Democracy Project, Bruce Kesler said Democrats have no reason gloat over the election results. But he also warned Republicans: "There's still no justification from here for Republicans elsewhere to think they can coast. This is a strongly Republican-leaning district."
Hotline On Call published more interpretations/spin, as well as a look ahead at the run-off battle.
Some voters in Texas also went to the polls Tuesday for run-off elections, and DavidNYC of Swing State Project saw some good news in the results, including the fact that "fighting Dem" Ted Ankrum prevailed.
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