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Archive for July, 2006

Defending The Kossacks

Tonight at NRO’s The Corner, Byron York reports that the NRSC is sending out a press release holding MT SEN Dem nominee Jon Tester responsible for a truly crazed Daily Kos diary offering such incoherent gems as: “‘SCREW YOU, ISRAEL’!!!!!!!”

This is not the first NRSC release publicizing the netroots’ strong and early support for Tester, but it is the first one conceivably worth getting worked up about. And worked up they are, or pretend to be:

Jon Tester’s campaign website links to ‘Daily Kos,’ a radical left-wing web site. The editor of ‘Daily Kos’ has consistently praised Tester and even contributed to his campaign. The hateful rhetoric on ‘Daily Kos’ isn’t fit for a campaign for U.S. Senate, but sadly, Jon Tester has refrained from condemning it.

Yes, Tester’s site links to Daily Kos, as do untold thousands of blogs. And Daily Kos has untold thousands of pages, probably hundreds of new ones each day. And this is one post I’m sure Greenwald and Patterico (let alone Moulitsas and Tester) could agree to condemn, if they even knew it was there.

But it so happens that the Kossacks themselves did care to denounce this post. In fact, all but one of the 50 commenters did, and that was a digression about church and state. Other users appropriately tagged it a “Troll Diary,” with some responding angrily and others just making fun of it. Did the NRSC read this far? Would it have stopped them from sending out the release if they had?

And just how vital a member of the Daily Kos community is White on Black, the alleged troll in question? First of all, the account was registered only in the last week or so; we know this because the telltale user ID number is in the mid-94,000s. In that time he has posted 16 comments, all but two of which link to his four diaries. And here’s a brief rundown on them:

  • His first post, dated two Sundays ago, asserting that “Sadaam [sic] in 1990 needed the ports of kuwait.” No troll rating, but only 8 comments and no support.
  • Another spittle-flecked diatribe claiming the U.S. “betrayed Sadaam” [sic (again)], subsequently troll-rated.
  • A rant giving “credit to Syria and Iran for staying out of this fight,” which rated one comment and a “Troll Diary” tag.
  • The diary the NRSC apparently holds up as representative of dKos as a whole.

And here is a typical example of White on Black’s comment section contributions:

I’ve said this before! I am handicapped from an unfortunate accident in 2001 and have only one good hand and one finger to type with. It is hard and not the easiest thing for me to do,-typing. Is that all you kmow how to do is pick on people. I feel very sorry for you. You sound more handicapped in so many more ways than I am.

It’s impossible to tell what White on Black’s motivations really are, or if he is really a he, but I’d wager that he prefers Conrad Burns be returned to Washington this fall, and not Jon Tester. If nothing else, the NRSC has fallen for a prank.

To be sure, there are certainly posts to be found at Daily Kos that are highly unrepresentative, to say the least, of the average American or of the Democratic party’s desired image — and by actual members of the community. Linking the Bush family to Hitler? Check. Republicans-hate-democracy conspiracy theories? Check. Committed non-support of Israel? Check.

The upshot is that there probably is enough borderline anti-Americanism on the site to be a political problem, even if those are minority views. It’s hard to believe any reporter working for a daily paper would bother picking up this offering from the NRSC, but as more these releases go out, they’re going to have an impact.

York is right when he advises: “Look for more of this,” meaning more GOP groups tying Dem candidates to the unsavory views found on liberal blogs. Lord knows there are times when a candidate really should distance themselves from a particular blog. But this isn’t one of them.

Shorter Reynolds, Longer Instapundit

Following up on the Chronicle of Higher Education symposium Blog P.I. summarized on Saturday, participating blog Sivacracy (but not participating blogger Siva Vaidhyanathan) zings fellow participanting blog Instapundit good on the lacking substance of many an Insta-post. It doesn’t qualify as “shortering,” but it is pithy enough to be unsummarizable.   Zingee Glenn Reynolds is actually on vacation this week, so the post’s author, Univ. of SC prof Ann Bartow, will actually see a rising word-to-link count thanks to his guest bloggers over the next few days. Which may only reinforce her point.

In Reynolds’ defense, dashed-off posts may be the unavoidable result of “instant punditry.” Still, “SURELY THE END TIMES ARE UPON US: Ana Marie Cox is now Time.com’s Washington Editor” hardly qualifies as “punditry.” And if Reynolds’ law school dean truly thinks his blog counts as “scholarship,” let alone legal scholarship, the academy might have bigger problems than mere blogging.

Opportunity Knocks

Over the weekend, the Washington Post’s Peter Baker sought out Council on Foreign Relations president Richard Haass’s response to Bush’s “public optimism” re: the Two Weeks and Counting War on the eastern end of the Meditteranean. Apparently Bush used the word “opportunity”; Haass retorts as only a former State Dept. official can:

“An opportunity? Lord, spare me. I don’t laugh a lot. That’s the funniest thing I’ve heard in a long time. If this is an opportunity, what’s Iraq? A once-in-a-lifetime chance?”
Haas literally wrote the opportunity book on U.S. foreign policy. His title? “The Opportunity.”

Jerome Armstrong Closes Ranks: Pat Hynes And The Blogger/Consultants

On Friday morning Dem blogger/consultant Jerome Armstrong of MyDD fame and Mark Warner campaign infamy posted to his site — in theory he gave up blogging until after ‘06, but in practice he’s continued posting on a semi-regular basis — a response to GOP blogger/consultant Pat Hynes’ apparent disclosure problems. Perhaps not surprisingly, Armstrong seems to have Hynes’ back. But what he really wanted to address was himself, viz. allegations that he was a surreptitious stock tout and a weirdo astrologer to boot, plus the ethical considerations re: blogging consultants. Too bad he doesn’t have much to say.

As for the astrology itself, his hint that such dabbling was a byproduct of leaving behind Christian fundamentalism has the ring of truth, and he shows at least some humor by saying, “I have to laugh at myself along with the crowd.” Perhaps we should let this one go.

On the SEC front, he does no more damage to himself, and he may be lucky that his agreement with the SEC forbids him to — because he does himself no favors explaining why he deleted astrological references from MyDD:

Writing the articles under a pen name, associated to me the lack of seriousness with which I approached the matter of looking at politics through the astrological spectrum with, but to others I guess they thought I was hiding the matter. Obviously they don’t go away, but I had them deleted from the site to make the issue clear about their relative weight in my political thinking.

In other words, and to scramble a well-worn saying, they were accurate but fake. And if we’re to believe Armstrong’s blogospheric knowledge is worth the hard- and soft-raised dollars of his high-profile political clients, it’s hard to believe he thinks he could get away with deleting embarrassing posts — it’s a rookie mistake, but a veteran’s misbehavior.

And we should still ask: Just how thoughtful is Armstrong about his work, or, how good is he at thinking about it? Let’s look at his persistently inadequate take on the ethics of blogging while working on campaigns. I understand it’s frustrating to be asked these questions when brick and mortar consultants don’t always get the same scrutiny — Mark Penn being the latest — but that doesn’t mean blogger/consultants should be let off the hook. It would seem that Armstrong disagrees:

[I]t’s ironic, given how little transparency there is over other mediums of communications (newspaper, radio, television), how much disclosure is demanded in this medium. I’ve often remarked that the only standard for blogging is FEC regulations, but not surprisingly, more seems necessary to most (or at least among the vocal ones). … I hardly think that setting standards [for blogs] above what is done in other media outlets is something that’s of vital importance–if it were then the FEC would make it so.

Bzzzt! Wrong answer. Not even close. Like it or not, blogs start out with less credibility than the establishment press and pundit class. That surely isn’t fair in every case. But perception matters, perhaps unfortunately. Because bloggers are not as well known or as respected, they have the added burden of proving that they are respectable first. Surely, plenty of what’s been alleged about Armstrong is either arguably irrelevant or inarguably speculation. But by defending Hynes, Armstrong looks even worse, associating himself with Hynes’ inadequate response to his work for McCain, his Cato-to-AARP Social Security defection [on second thought, I should say unexplained defection], and other questionable PR work in New Hampshire, where he lives. Maybe it’s unfair to scrutinize bloggers-turned-consultants through the lens of these two, but it isn’t unfair to scrutinize Armstrong and Hynes.

It’s easy to see why Armstrong might be bitter, but it also seems to have clouded his judgment. If you dig into the comment section on his post, it quickly becomes apparent that his readers have a much clearer view of the ethics of blogging consultants. To start with, Jeffrey Feldman (of Frameshop) asks a lot of very smart questions, most of which do not have obvious answers. One of the best comments belongs to Scott Shields, formerly a MyDD front-pager, now working for Sen. Bob Menendez’s NJ SEN campaign:

Personally, when I joined the Menendez campaign, I made the announcement, stopped blogging on the front page here, put a very obvious ‘Menendez for Senate’ link in my sig file, noted my job in my user profile, and left it at that. I try to make it obvious in every diary I post that I’m on the Menendez for Senate staff and so far, I haven’t caught any flack.

And here’s blog veteran/NYT wedding announcements subject/lawyer Adam Bonin:

What makes things different here is that identity is not nearly as firmly constructed here as it is elsewhere — thanks to things like YearlyKos many of us have finally met, but we really don’t “know” who the other people here are. And because identity is a little shaky and we don’t have resumes and personal impressions ot rely upon, credibility is the key currency in the realm, and it’s only built by the quality of your content. That credibility can be pissed away in a heartbeat if it’s determined you’re a paid shill.

If I was a Democratic candidate for federal office, I’m not so sure I’d be eager to hire Jerome Armstrong. But Feldman, Shields and Bonin might well be getting phone calls. Or maybe emails.

P.S. Maybe some full disclosure is in order: I am currently employed in the PR industry; this URL is owned by my employer, New Media Strategies*. I have no plans to write about NMS’s clients in this space, and if I ever do it will be accompanied by a disclaimer. Sometimes it’s tricky to know exactly where the line is crossed — but in Hynes’ case, it shouldn’t have been a tough call.

Also, while at The Blogometer I reported on some of the scurrilous rumors about Armstrong, which I later said that I regretted. But I also asked some good questions about his ad buys for a different client. And Jerome has been, on occasion, an exceedingly intemperate email correspondent. I don’t think that’s influenced this post, but you’ll have to draw your own conclusions.

* This is NOT the same company as Hynes’ new venture, New Media Strategics. I’ve already had to explain the difference once already, and I’m afraid I’ll be explaining this for awhile. This didn’t influence my thinking either, but again, you’ll have to decide for yourself.

Update: La Shawn Barber offers good advice.

“All Politics is National”

Good line. Wish I’d said it first, but Google tells me I’m at least 115 results too late. Bill Clinton might’ve said it, too. However, only a few seem to have intended it as I did. One is the now abandoned godofthemachine.com, which put it succinctly:

In life all politics is local: on blogs all politics is national.

I didn’t invent it, but maybe I can still popularize it. I’ll try to remember to use that where it applies — a lot of places, I’d think. Consider your help solicited.

The line comes from a post dated 7/16/03, titled “The Immutable Laws of Blog Comments.” It holds up well enough that I’ve included the full text, after the jump.

Continue reading ‘“All Politics is National”’

A Million To Juan

The Chronicle of Higher Education’s latest weekly Chronicle Review section includes a symposium inspired by Yale’s rejection of controversial Middle East scholar Juan Cole, best known for his widely-read blog, Informed Comment.

Conservatives and supporters of Israel launched a campaign to persuade Yale against making the hire, and speculation leans heavily toward that being a decisive factor. He’s not the only professor whose blogging is suspected to have been an issue at review time: Last year, both Daniel Drezner and Jacob Levy were denied tenure at the University of Chicago. But those deliberations are secret, and unless somebody slips up, we’ll never know for sure.

Now the Chronicle brings us the next best thing: an octet of professor-bloggers, Cole included, addressing the question of what impact blogging has on hiring, tenure and academic freedom. It’s now hidden behind their subscription firewall, but you’re in luck: Blog P.I. has read them all and distilled each to the core argument or the best lines, and we’ve reproduced them below:

  • Siva Vaidhyanathan, Sivacracy, NYU — “There has never been a better time to be a public intellectual, and the Web is the big reason why. … Who knows whether, without the fame and widespread respect Cole has earned via his blog, he would have been in the running for a position at Yale? We do know that without his blog as a target, the right-wing hit men never would have thought to make an issue out of him. He used to be harmless. Now he is dangerous enough to try to stop. … But Cole’s experience has shown us all just how tenuous academic freedom is when it comes to stuff that really matters. Thank goodness for tenure. Imagine what his critics would do at Michigan if they thought they could drive him away.”
  • Glenn Reynolds, Instapundit, Univ. of Tenn. — “Though the academy gives lip service to academic freedom, it’s quite clear that a candidate’s expressed views, and politics generally, are often important factors in hiring or tenure decisions. … One doubts that an admitted member of the Ku Klux Klan would do well … [but] far less controversial beliefs … might well stand in the way of hiring or tenure at many institutions. Expressing such ideas on a blog merely ensures that they are Google-searchable if anyone bothers to check.”
Continue reading ‘A Million To Juan’

Blogs From The Underground

Steve Rubel Micro Persuades:

Deep underneath the blogosphere lies a network that’s just as big and powerful. It has a lots of participants, yet it’s completely invisible to those who do not blog. It’s the Underground Blogosphere. The Underground Blogosphere is an intricate web of hundreds of thousands of emails that bloggers send to each other every day. In essence, they are “pitching” their latest posts in hopes of getting a link. Sometimes, bloggers are genuinely looking for good feedback, but more often than not all they are just looking for traffic. There’s a lot of irony in the Underground Blogosphere! For starters, I get more email pitches from bloggers whom I have never met than I do from PR professionals. Many of these same bloggers probably hate PR pitches, yet they’re happy to dish it out themselves.

Rubel occupies a prominent spot in the PR/tech/business blogosphere, which doesn’t overlap much with the political blogosphere. But the phenomenon he describes is just as prevalent on this side of the tracks (and I don’t just mean the controversial Townhouse list). The Blogometer attracted many emails from self-promoting bloggers, and by and large I appreciated them, though like Rubell, I wouldn’t reward everybody who just happened to think of me (or more accurately, the traffic I might send them). But close watchers could tell when I would too often quote a blogger out of proportion with how their readership or influence. And they probably could guess why.

On the other hand, there was one unnamed A-List blogger who, one week, started emailing me notification of every single post. Things you could tell he’d found on the Drudge Report only minutes earlier. I take some pride in being a courteous emailer, but before long I snapped: “Look, I read Drudge, too.” Regaining composure, I explained myself better in a follow-up, but after he apologized, the emails didn’t slow down. They stopped immediately, and I never heard from him again.

I would imagine the vast majority of such exchanges are friendly ones — unsurprisingly, people talk to their allies more often than their enemies — but you never know when someone will expose a small part of it to the sunlight. It’s always at least a little bit scandalous when this happens without permission, even if names are changed and there is no intent to harm. The Underground Blogosphere wants to stay underground for a reason.

What’s The Web Equivalent of Drano?

The series of tubes in our little corner of the Internet went all topsy-turvy over the last 24 to 48 hours, so if you missed it, that accounts for the mysterious non-posting over the same period.

Everything seems to be working fine now, so we’ll be back bringing the savvy just as soon as we take care of a few other things — work and sleep, depending on which side of the globe is facing the sun at the time you’re reading this.

Sock Puppet Theater

It’s been a bumper week for post-Hiltzik sock puppetry. First a number of remarkably similar comments praising Glenn Greenwald on various blogs were discovered to have come from Glenn Greenwald’s IP address, and now this.

It’s hard to know exactly what to say about Jason Leopold, whose name was already a byword for unreliability and who now appears to be having some sort of very public breakdown. Seixon has a number of lengthy and fascinating posts on the matter, the highlight coming when Leopold threatens him with legal action and then posts obviously forged emails from Seixon at ThinkProgress. (Since removed, but documented here.) It’s entirely possible there are more fireworks to come.

After being caught, Michael Hiltzik lost his column and was suspended from the LA Times. Here, unless Leopold ends up facing criminal charges, there are unlikely to be any such ramifications. As far as Greenwald is concerned, it’d be hard to say the revelations of sock-puppetry have damaged him in any serious way: his defenders probably don’t care, and his detractors were already a lost cause. For Greenwald, multiple online defenders posting under different names from his IP address just count as more mau-mauing.

The Greenwald and Leopold affairs do share a relative artlessness; in fact, that the infractions in question are so obvious might be the most embarrassing thing about them. The Greenwald sock puppets all sounded exactly the same, all wrote exactly like Glenn Greenwald, and were all devoted to pointing out what a big deal Glenn Greenwald was. Even without checking IP addresses and analyzing timestamps, it’s impossible to read them without a few red flags being raised. Similarly, there are many reasons to believe that Jason Leopold fabricated portions of his emails from Seixon, but chief among them is that it’s simply not plausible that they would contain passages like:

You’re damn right it’s blackmail. Johnson must be stopped and you’re the target. I will take you down and I will have the National Review back me up.

Presumably, there are more cunning practitioners of the form out there. While watching the ongoing misadventures of Jason Leopold, we should spare a thought for the good sock puppets of the blogosphere: the ones we don’t notice.

English 101

Via Skippy, this AP report by Susan Haigh leads me to wonder if Eric Alterman wasn’t onto something:

Some Democrats, however, said privately Monday that a Lamont primary win could help the other Democrat candidates. They speculated that Lamont could help drive turnout and enthusiasm on Election Day should he defeat Lieberman on Aug. 8.

Since when did the AP start using the noun “Democrat” for the adjective “Democratic”?