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Archive for October, 2006

Don’t Judge A Facebook…

Published by William Beutler on October 30, 2006 in Candidate Bloggers, Facebook, George Allen, James Webb, Midterms '06, Social Networking and Virginia Politics. 8 Comments

As any reader of the Drudge Report knows, Virginia Senate candidate James Webb is “under fire” from the George Allen campaign* and pretty much no one else about steamy, even somewhat disturbing passages from Webb’s combat fiction.

Now Webb has set aside writing novels for politics, and by the dictates of modern web campaigning, he can be found in another “book.” That is to say, Facebook. (Thanks, I’ll be here all week.)

Having graduated from college two years before the company was founded, I haven’t been a Facebook user in the past. Only this morning, after getting a tip about the contents of Webb’s account, did I register for an account. So here is the very top of the front page of his profile:

James Webb on Facebook.com

And here’s why I logged in — wouldn’t you like to know what kind of issue/lifestyle groups this possible junior senator from Virginia belongs?

Jim Webb left the group Fuck, Drink, and Smoke someshit.

Jim Webb, meet Jonathan Frist and Julia Corker.

But what of it? As a dispassionate observer, I say not much. It’s not clear to me that Webb intentionally signed up for this group (and others like it, though they are now lost to history (and by history I mean the servers at Facebook HQ)) in the first place and something must be said for the fact that the screen shot I provide is Webb leaving the group.

If someone wanted to press the issue (like maybe a certain current junior senator from Virginia) they probably could, though they’d have to monitor Webb’s Facebook page for longer than I have. And if Webb’s commercial storytelling is relevant to the campaign, why not his social networking?

·      ·      ·

* Even Allen’s new media coordinator Jon Henke, writing at the campaign-sponsored Allen HQ blog, sounds a little non-committal about whether Webb’s fiction is relevant:

Democratic blogger Andy Borowitz said of Scooter Libby’s book, “Read into it what you will.” Whether voters think what Webb has written is relevant or irrelevant, so be it. Nevertheless, it is part and parcel of the public record he has cited, so let the voters judge for themselves.

I’m not sure “Democratic blogger” would be the first description I’d use for Borowitz — to the left of Scrappleface, okay; co-creator of “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air,” sure; a wannabe one-man The Onion, most definitely.

But I digress: Though Henke has taken some lumps for changing his tune to align with his current employer, I think this time he might be doing more than just harmonizing.

Besides giving the Webb library a boost at Amazon, I don’t know what this line of attack accomplished besides making Allen look desperate. If anything, it seems more likely to create a backlash against substance-free negative tactics. Their internal polls must not look very good.

Update: A Republican campaign staffer points out to me that Facebook created pages for every major federal candidate this cycle. Guess who else has one? That’s right: George Allen. But it doesn’t appear that the campaign has done anything with it.

Stabbing Eastward: Lamont, the Netroots and Barack Obama

Published by William Beutler on October 30, 2006 in Barack Obama, Blogs vs. MSM, Comment Sections, DNC, Democrats, Elections, Internecine Battles, Lamont v. Lieberman, National Politics, Netroots and White House '08. 23 Comments

Shortly after Ned Lamont upended Holy Joe Lieberman in the CT SEN primary this summer, I noted a report by TNR’s Ryan Lizza arguing that Washington Democrats would steer clear of the race from there on, letting the blue-on-blue rhetorical violence work itself out. Two and a half months later, that looks eerily prescient. Lamont has fallen behind in the polls, and there’s little question that a victorious Lieberman would retain his committee assignments even if the newspapers called him (I-CT).

Also not looking too bad: My question at the time, about what the Lamont primary victory — then hailed by some as the first breakthrough win for a netroots candidate — about what this would mean:

Could it be that what seemed less than 100 hours ago like the first major gate-crashing will actually end up building more barriers between Beltway Democrats and the party’s online activists?

Keep that in mind as you read excerpts from yesterday’s Matt Stoller classic, “Senate Democrats and Bill Clinton Stab Us In The Front”:

Why did Lamont let Joe get away? Well there are a number of reasons, but among the most prominent is the total abandonment of Lamont by the party establishment. And let’s be very clear - this is not Lamont that they are abandoning, it’s the party primary voters that they are abandoning. …

Make no mistake, these DC Democrats are only our temporary allies. They have total contempt for the rules of the party, and they cheered Joe after he faced us in the primary. It is no longer reasonable for them to call for party unity, because they no longer have any legitimate claim to call themselves leaders of the party. They may be leaders for the next few decades simply due to inertia, but it’s very clear that Bill Clinton and Barack Obama are liars who think nothing of insulting Democratic primary voters who play by the rules. …

The American people know this. They know that Democratic Senators aremoral lepers, weaklings, and that is the only reason we aren’t furtherahead when the Republicans screw everything up. The Democratic Senateleaders will sell us out at every opportunity, be it torture, Iraq, Alito, Lieberman, the Bankruptcy Bill, or stopping war with Iran. They aren’t poll-driven, they aren’t fear-driven, and they aren’t driven by strategic differences. They are simply driven to beat us down, their voters, by any means necessary. …

We can win this fight, as the polls are tightening. But it would be a whole lot easier without that knife in our back.

Leaving aside the obvious question of which side the Stollerites are supposed to be bleeding from, there’s enough hyperbole here to last until the first big straw poll.

As I’ve demonstrated previously, Stoller’s over-reliance on self-righteous anger and quick imputations of bad faith to his political opponents (even those ostensibly on his side of the fence) makes him seem less a sharp-tongued political street brawler and more like a circus clown exaggerating his act.

And as usual, the response in the MyDD comments is mixed. A contingent protests that Stoller is being unreasonable, but his sentiments are shared by a larger set. Meanwhile, Stoller’s hyperventilation obscures what is actually a pretty interesting question to pick apart: How did Lamont lose his momentum, and what explains Senate Democrats’ reluctance to join the netroots in the War on Lieberman? I recommend this thread, which includes MyDDer Chris G gamely trying to explain to the wounded ‘roots that it’s not all about them:

Dem leaders are not trashing Lamont, and they’ve expressed their support. but by “cutting loose” Liberman [sic], and trashing Liberman, as you suggest, they run the risk of the following: Liberman winning nonetheless, and organizing with the GOP.

Quite. Senate Democrats are too worried about being stabbed by Joementum in a 50-49 split to carry out any personal vendetta against the netroots. It’s not personal. It’s politics.

Still, as for MyDD, it’s a marked improvement from last week’s poll-frustrated Conn. voter-bashing thread:

A bunch of idiots do live in CT. What a fucking embarassment.

Now that’s what I call people power.

·      ·      ·

Another interesting thing about the philosophical and political differences between the Beltway establishment and Democratic-aligned bloggers is the split opinions about Barack Obama. If you don’t know that Obama ‘08 is in its ascendancy at the moment, then you must be in a persistent vegetative state. With Republican newspaper columnists Charles Krauthammer and David Brooks offering genuine praise of the freshman Democrat, it becomes all the more clear that his surge is a media-driven sensation. Though hyped excessively by celebrity-obsessed reporters, Barack Obama has demonstrated, potentially, a very broad appeal. Yet there is one group seemingly impervious to his charms: the netroots, of course.

First, note Stoller’s derogation of Obama above. It’s not the first time; Stoller has a long history of badmouthing Obama going back to the 2004 convention in Boston, where he was disinvited by Terry McAuliffe’s DNC from continuing on as a coordinator after writing that Obama hadn’t said “anything really interesting or useful.”

But also note the comments from others in the threads below the post. Here’s one, from a former Hillary Clinton supporter (somewhat rare among liberal bloggers in good standing) no less:

I do know one thing: I do not support Obama for any office. He has ZERO spine. He didn’t even want to filibuster Alito when even Hillary was among the first to advocate filibuster for BOTH Alito and the Alito-with-pretty-blue-eyes, Roberts.
And this one:

I wouldn’t go so far as to call Obama a liar, but he HAS been a major disappointment. He’s got one of the safest Senate seats around, having romped to a landslide victory in what was a dreadful year for Democrats nationwide, and he’s done next to nothing to advance Democratic values, choosing instead to scold Democrats for, among other things, not being religious enough.

Well, Barack, let’s talk religion, since it’s one of your favorite subjects. When the torture bill came out, where the hell were you? … Mr. Obama, I still have some hope for you, but your silence on the torture bill means that you have abdicated any credibility in lecturing ANYBODY on “moral values”. You’re not a whole lot better than Republicans in that regard.

Maybe Krauthammer and Brooks know something the MyDD crowd doesn’t? In any case, Obama is not without his defenders:

In fact, I would like to see in print where Obama promised to come to CT and campaign for Lamont. He has publicly supported Lamont, but just because he supports Lamont publicly does not mean he has to bad mouth Lieberman. … But please if you can provide written proof on where Obama has lied about CT, I would love to see. Until then, I have to chalk it up to your irrational dislike of the man.

In the meantime, you have to wonder: if Washington Democrats’ lukewarm support for Ned Lamont is tantamount to treason, what would the netroots say if Barack Obama actually got the nomination in 2008? Or Clinton/Obama?

P.S. It’s worth remembering that only a week ago, Stoller posted a comparatively thoughtful essay titled “Why Barack Obama Should Run for President.” Was he being disingenuous then or is he being exciteable now? It’s hard to tell, but I wouldn’t rule out the possibility that the answer is both.

The Hunt For Blog October

Published by William Beutler on October 26, 2006 in Blog Fights, Blogs vs. MSM, Campaigns, Sock puppets and Website Design. 1 Comment

Stop me if you’ve heard this one: Previously unknown, weeks-old blog makes waves by posting the results of e-mails ultimately leading the blog’s target to vacate office.

This time the target here is not a congressman, but the blogger who first published e-mails exposing the poor judgment (and spelling) of now-ex-Rep. Mark Foley. TPMmuckraker headlines it:

Final Foley E-Mail Mystery Solved (Sorta)

“Sorta” is right, as the blogger behind the original Stop Sex Predators has not been publicly named (though the “final” part remains to be seen). The SSP blogger apparently is — to the satisfaction of Republican Washington — until just now an employee at left-leaning gay rights outfit Human Rights Campaign, and prior to that a Democratic campaign staffer.

Credit goes to the NYT for giving this space in their pages, but of course they don’t credit the blogger who actually uncovered the facts, the pseudonymous GTL of Stop October Surprises.

Until just today, SOS (as we must call it) was linked by and interacting with only a few conservative blogs.

SOS’s first substantive entry, posted nearly two weeks ago, explains quite simply how the anonyblogger was caught:

how to catch an idiot? Start with something simple… Send the moron an email using a tracing tool like ReadNotify, wait until the email is read. This little adventure all started with a simple email sent from an account ‘dcguy191@yahoo.com’. One of the persons behind StopSexPredators, using the email address ’stopsexpredators@gmail.com’, read this email from several network locations. (Don’t think physical location, think network location.)

Contrary to what New Yorker cartoons would have you believe, these days on the Internet people sometimes do know that you’re a dog (provided they sign up for a free trial with ReadNotify). A subsequent post included screen shots from ReadNotify’s tracking history, demonstrating that SSP had read the tracked e-mail from a network address assigned to none other than the Human Rights Campaign.

Before long the HRC was issuing statements, and as the MSM coverage was being readied for publication yesterday, SOS’s GTL added:

I know who this employee is, and have for some time, but I cannot prove that he has been fired. I will let others go after that for now. There is more to this story… It seems to me that the HRC has more work to do in this matter, and I communicated that message to Brad Luna.

SOS has been left out of most MSM and blog coverage up to this point, but blogger Joe. My. God. has a brief e-mail interview with GTL (Mike Rogers makes a special appearance in an update, giving his take on the matter). The transcript includes this possibly meaningful exchange:

JMG: Isn’t it possible that the IMs were leaked internally at HRC without the knowledge of top management? SOS: no comment.

Hmm. Needless to say, HRC may have a PR problem on their hands. At the very least they should release the staffer’s name; if these episodes have taught us anything, it’s that such information is going to come out anyway [Update: Yep. See update below].

Before you’re done with this, make sure you look at these two blogs back to back, Stop Sex Predators and Stop October Surprises. Even a cursory glance reveals that they are identical in almost every meaningful way: Similar titles, subject matter, short duration (though SOS wisely dispensed with the fake history), fraternal twins down to their Blogger accounts — SSP uses the black Minima template; SOS chose white Minima.

So there is at least one more Foley e-mail mystery to be solved: Who is behind Stop October Surprises?

P.S. Looks like Mickey Kaus blogged too soon:

Foley? That rings a bell. I remember there was something about a guy named Foley a while back.

The Kaus Faster Theory (as I call it, considering I’ve never once heard Bruce Feiler weigh in on the subject) may well have a wide range of applications, but there’s still that one thing which can render it inapplicable to an ongoing story — new developments.

Update: There you are, Radar, I knew you couldn’t not follow this one up. At least this time, you’ve actually contributed to the conversation. SSP turns out to be one Lane Hudson. Ace has more.

Of course, did Radar Online mention Stop October Surprises? No, no it did not. No points for you.

Remedial Math: Democrats, Bloggers and Political Reporters

Published by Not Paul Begala on October 26, 2006 in Blogs vs. MSM, Democrats, Elections, Guest Bloggers, Internecine Battles, Midterms '06, National Politics and Netroots. 2 Comments

I imagine this occurs naturally in any subject area, but the great aggravation we so-called insiders have with the blogosphere is how often stupid things are published. For so-called outsiders to relate, how often have you heard someone make an ignorantly flippant remark about something in your area of expertise? You might leave it alone because the fight isn’t worth it — but now imagine this person writes a blog in your field.

It’s really annoying.

Take this example.

Matt’s third point bugs me:

Elect Tester, Get a Seat on Approps, and Start Building Some Seniority: Start building seniority with a new Senator now, so that when Max leaves, we’re not left with no seniority and no seats on powerful committees, but rather have a man who is by all accounts an able and honest legislator well into his second-term on Approps.

He’s referring to this story:

Democratic leaders in the U.S. Senate say they will give Jon Tester a seat on the influential Senate Appropriations Committee as soon as they can if he beats Republican incumbent Conrad Burns in the November election. Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid of Nevada said in a statement Thursday he will “work very hard” to secure a seat for Tester - even as a freshman senator - “as soon as possible.”

This is classic case of a DC outsider who thinks he knows something about the process (or actually does know something and is being disingenuous; another post topic).

Jon Tester is not getting an appropriations seat. Key phrases in that article being “as soon as they can” and “as soon as possible.”

First, there is the seniority issue in the Dem caucus in general — you think a freshman gets to jump over 2-term senators whose own states lack an appropriations seat? Second, there are “red states” up next cycle where a Dem would need a prime committee to defend his/her seat, e.g. Mark Pryor (AR). Third there is the potential retirement of Robert Byrd which would result in his fellow WVer John Rockefeller (also up in ‘08) making a play for the seat. Fourth, Chuck Schumer of NY will likely need persuasion to stay on as DSCC chair or take approps as a prize for winning back the Senate. And lastly, Tester’s own incoming class would knife-fight him for that seat — Claire McCaskill of MO and Bob Casey Jr. of PA are both Dems without senior senators in their own states while Bob Menendez already has seniority in the ‘06 class.

Bottom line, he ain’t getting that seat.

And people might say, “NPB, get off your lazy ass and join the conversation.” To which I reply, “There are just too many conversations to join, too much remedial math to teach.” If I wanted to teach, I would start a blog called “Politics for Third Graders.” But I do want the occasional polling number leaked to Left In The West about the Montana Senate race. When it comes to the blogosphere, I want the news which they provide, but I’m forced to put up with the crap that comes with it.

But maybe I’m being too hard on them.

Let’s see: Occasional tips, exaggerations about process, bullshit opinions, morons who think too highly of their opinions who wouldn’t last 15 minutes on the inside… sounds like some political reporters and columnists I’ve worked with. Maybe bloggers and the MSM have more in common than I thought!

·      ·      ·

On A Completely Unrelated Note: News story leaving out the important details, facts not quite up to par, not satisfield with the news as reported? Assignment: blogosphere!

In this week’s installment, can you finish where the NY Times left off and tell us who is the girl in the Harold Ford Jr. Playboy ad and how I can get her number? And the gun guy — was that Charlie Sheen? Did Adam Sandler play the porn producer? Holy trimmed-down Wilford Brimley-sighting batman, Canada will get those terrorists!

Now all of us political guys know that the occasional actor is needed for a commercial, but I want the story behind that. Popular commercials lead to bigger and better things — have ya’ll noticed that the Capitol One buffoon (”Noooooooo!”) is on “Studio 60″? Is that girl getting new offers? (That “call me” was so sassy at the end.) Will she show up on “Entourage”? And really, I’m not kidding, is that Charlie Sheen making a cameo in camo?

Hop to it, blogs! Get your Variety sources on Skype and get moving!

Hot Or Not: From Beltway Insiders To Blogosphere Outsiders

Published by William Beutler on October 24, 2006 in Blog Consultants, Blogging Officials, Journalist Bloggers, MSM vs. Blogs, Seriously, Startups and Website Design. 11 Comments

HotSoup LogoWhat to make of HotSoup, the non-partisan, non-ideological, mostly non-everything political discussion/debate site just out from Beltway insiders Carter Eskew, Matthew Dowd, Joe Lockhart and Mark McKinnon plus media types Ron Fournier and Allie Savarino (and top-heavy with yet more executive co-founders)? It’s difficult to be polite; I won’t always be.

Toward the end of its debut week, there isn’t much talk at the site. Nor are too many non-”Hardball” news outlets talking about it. Among those who have, appraisals tend toward the grim.

One is GOP Internet strategist Mike Turk, who once worked on a similar project called Grassroots.com. Upon HotSoup’s announcement this summer, Turk warned of the pitfalls at Personal Democracy Forum. But as he wrote this week at his blog, Kung Fu Quip, the problems were bigger than he’d thought:

Perhaps the most vexing thing about the site is the apparent lack of any correlation between the name and the content. Their content is divided into “Issue Loops” but that bears little relationship to Hot Soup. They might as well have called the site Eggplant.com. Honestly, I don’t get it. I have a lot of respect for the people involved in this, but it may be the most poorly conceived idea since Kevin Federline.

Earlier in the week, Paul NcManara of NetworkWorld.com had pled for sanity:

This group cannot be operating under the illusion that all they have to do is provide a platform and the Lincoln-Douglas debates will break out. They must know there’s a good chance that not every Hotsouper will come willing to bridge divides, celebrate differences and gain enlightenment.

Yes, they can be, but to their credit, they seem to: This week Fournier or somebody posted a message in the non-blog front-page meta window, “Hot Corner,” admitting that things need to be retooled:

We knew HOTSOUP.com would go online as a figment of its future potential, and that the finishing touches would come from you. That’s exactly what’s happening …. By scores, we’ve received your comments and criticism through feedback@hotsoup.com. Even better, many of you felt empowered enough to use the site itself to post your critiques in Issue Loops …. This take-matters-in-your-own-hands approach is confirmation of the core value behind HOTSOUP: It’s about you …. That’s why we’re hard at work at this work-in-progress … Among the problems we’ve fixed or are fixing: 1) Speed and performance of video …. 2) Content cutoffs in Loops …. 3) Discussion board display order …. 4) Loops ranking on homepage …. Thank you for your suggestions, and keep them coming. Only you can make the Soup the hottest site around.

It’s since been pulled (in favor of a blithering anecdote about their MSNBC appearance and something about the ONE campaign) — whisked away to who knows where. As I said, it’s not a blog. It’s just a square called “Hot Corner.” Once an announcement is pulled, it disappears into the aether. Please, people. Get a blog.

But there are many more problems than (I think it’s) Fournier addresses. For one, the registration process asks for too much information, and gets unpleasant when you don’t tell it where you live, what’s your job title, how you vote and where your ancestors came from:

HotSoup registration information required

Did I mention the site looks awful? The color scheme is unappetizing, its navigation tools are scattered, no RSS feeds are provided, and they have pictures on the front page where the content should be (c.f. Digg). The actual content (aside from “Hot Corner,” which apparently is not considered as such) is relegated to a narrow column just off-center:

HotSoup Front Page

Check the source code, and you’ll see the site is almost entirely rendered in Flash. Or, turn off your Javascript and watch the site disappear. There’s scarcely an indexable ASCII keyword on the page, so it isn’t likely to rank well in Google searches. This site should be rebuilt from the ground up. Most of the web-oriented co-founders arrive from a social networking site called SisterWoman.com that exhibits none of these amateurish flaws, which makes this venture’s absurd failure to launch all the more perplexing.

One of its selling points appears to be bringing famous-for-DC types to the blogosphere. But The Huffington Post — which was proclaimed to be the failure that HotSoup actually is — already did. (Still, I can’t let it go without noting that Arianna promised Gwyneth Paltrow, yet has so far only delivered Lynne M. Paltrow.)

HotSoup is closer to George Clooney’s “post” at HuffPo than a real meeting of the minds: It’s painfully obvious that most celebrity HotSoupers didn’t sign up themselves, their assistants or HotSoup did. Will we ever see them jump into the fray? How about you, Mary Matalin? Donna Brazile? (Seriously, John Ashcroft?) Hey, maybe even at some point Mark McKinnon and Allie Savarino will weigh in — you know, two founders of the site.

·      ·      ·

For the next part of my act, let’s roll the blooper reel. First, at the top of the main page you can find a link titled “Issue Loops,” and if you click on it even tonight, you will see:

HotSoup, No Issue Loops

Assuming there were threads to be found here, this is what you would want on the front page. This isn’t amateur hour; this is the afternoon before.

And this one is less a blooper, if anything more of a practical joke:

HotSoup marijuana question

The second blooper, now apparently changed but still not actually fixed at the time of this writing, occurs on the celebrity pet issue page for Lance Armstrong, where an unidentified patronizing author/moderator (see “Editor’s Comments” in box at right) demands:

HotSoup, Lance Armstrong

Never mind the fact that here the Beltway insiders are pretending they’re like, the new outsiders, man. Because whether you like it or not, Lance Armstrong has a pitch for his side, which you can pretty much ignore and skip to the very end:

HotSoup, Lance Armstrong's question

Is Lance’s ghostwriter a fan of Joyce? Maybe we’ll find the answer if we just click on the “more…” button…? No:

HotSoup, Lance Armstrong, no files

Okay, now I get it. What big issues aren’t being addressed in current online debate? There are none. This comic software glitch is emblematic of why HotSoup.com is going to fall far short of its lofty goals: Try to be everything to everyone, and you will be nothing to nobody.

Others are already doing what they think they are. If they don’t like the partisan debate sites, there are plenty of online forums already offering whatever kinds of debate you want: Slashdot, Kuro5hin, OffTopic.com, Anandtech, even Something Awful and Genmay. Try the Corvette Forums. You might be surprised.

Though most online forums are not about politics, all the big ones have off-topic sections where debates left, right and beyond are carried on around the clock. HotSoup is going to bring you… prepared text from Lance Armstrong’s agent? The experience of being hounded with insipid questions — “Is the sentence stiff enough? Too stiff?” — by Ron Fournier?

Blooper-wise, best of all is the unenlightening, unlinkable and surely soon-to-disappear V-Factor sidebar:

HotSoup V-Factor

Take it away, Mike Turk:

Something called the V-Factor rates posts on a scale between “never” and “definitely will”, but completely fails to indicate what they will never or always do? What the hell is that?

Update: I had thus far left out any mention of Right Wing News blogger John Hawkins’ involvement w/r/t the Conservative Forum he was asked to oversee — which so far is less popular than the now-defunct Conservative Grapevine message board Hawkins once ran all by himself — but now “Hot Corner” is mentioning it, and well, see for yourself:

…. Today we welcome the many readers of “www.rightwingnews” to the Soup ….

Never mind the fact that Hawkins has been on board since before the launch, so it makes no sense to welcome his readers “today.” Apparently HotSoup editors are not among the readers of Hawkins’ site. Because, depending on your browser, typing in “www.rightwingnews” won’t get you very far.

Update, months later: Things I should have said when the site was still operational:

  1. If it was supposed to actually be “hot soup,” it must have been carrot and pea soup. It never looked appetizing.
  2. Per the image asking what issue “our mainstream media and our leaders” were ignoring, why were the “voices” all people featured in the mainstream media?
  3. One of the key points that I did make was that this thing was bound to fail because it never had any buy-in from the famous-for-DC names attached to it. Carter Eskew and Mark McKinnon might have been interesting discussion leaders, but they never tried.
  4. The apparent teenager asking about legalizing marijuana is actually a married adult, possibly with kids. Months later, I saw him on “The Colbert Report.”
  5. The Corvette Forums have actually been pretty big on Fred Thompson.

I think that was about it.

The Eschatology of Eschaton

Published by William Beutler on October 23, 2006 in Atrios, Blog Fights, Instapundit, Iraq and Leftosphere vs. Rightosphere. 0 Comments

What inspires this?

In case you didn't know, Atrios sucks. But, he's not alone. For example, Matt Stoller and PsiFighter37 and Oliver Willis and thereisnospoon suck too. Of course, Kos sucks. My Left Wing sucks. I suck too. Chris Bowers sucks not once but two times. Armando sucks. Meteor Blades sucks. And in case you are not sure, Steven D sucks too.

Apparently, it’s this thorough fisking of this post at Eschaton by the cleverly-named Philosoraptor, a self-proclaimed ex-Atriot, “Winston Smith.” Eschaton, the popular link-driven community blog written by Duncan “Atrios” Black has succumbed to

the RushLimbaughification of political discourse. Limbaugh is not–contrary to what some people think–stupid. He’s a man of about average intelligence. It’s not that he believes the moronic and vitriolic things he says–rather, he just lets loose with a stream-of- consciousness invective. You can hear in his voice that even he doesn’t believe much of what he’s saying. He isn’t stupid, he’s dishonest. He’s simply saying “liberals are bad” over and over again in as many different ways as he can think of, without regard for whether the sentences with which he expresses this sentiment are true or false.

And, he argues, the comment section only compounds the problem:

The most disheartening part of the entire Eschaton post in question is, as usual, the comments. Though Atrios himself begins his post by saying “well, this thought isn’t much,” his dittoheads shower the post with praise. You are so wise Atrios…you are so fantabulous Atrios…you are so keen Atrios… Such adulation would be a tad weird even if the post had been vaguely good. Given how awful it was, it’s downright spooky.

To his credit, Atrios actually seems more amused with the post than anything. On the other hand, his readers show up in the Philosoraptor comments, as they have done elsewhere recently, to say things like

wow. this blog DOES suck. now I’m pissed at atrios for sending me over here; I’ll never get the stink off.

and generally assist in proving his original point. Indeed, Mark Kleiman’s “In defense of Atrios” post actually concedes

Much of what Winston says about the decline of Eschaton seems to me (regrettably) sound. And the post Winston attacks could have been better written.

before mounting arguments in favor of John Wayne and Wesley Clark (serious).

Philosoraptor isn’t the first blogger to comment on Atrios’ wan blogging style, nor is he the first to make the Atrios-Instapundit comparison, though he does offer a key insight:

I’d say that Atrios used to be less partisan and foolish than Glenn Reynolds, but now I’d say he’s worse. What made the difference, if there is, in fact, a difference? Could it be because Atrios included comments and Reynolds didn’t? They both play to the crowd, but only Atrios has an adoring chorus hanging on his every word.

Philosoraptor encourages Atrios to become more intellectually honest, although if one really wanted, the post could be construed as a suggestion that Atrios stick to what he’s good at: linking. It has been said many a time over the years that in the blogosphere the blogosphere is made up of “linkers” and “thinkers.”

One day soon I’ll construct a survey demonstrating the continuum between the bloggers who are mostly editors (Atrios and Instapundit being among them) and those who are mostly writers (Digby, Captain Ed). Though they each serve a purpose, linkers are frequently looked down upon by the thinkers, even as they sometimes depend upon them for traffic. Anyone could do what they do, except if you tried, nobody would read you, because they’re already reading them. So the Philosoraptor quote could also be construed as a bit of sour grapes (and Atrios’ fans have certainly been willing to suggest that).

Nevertheless, if you’re going to be a linker, you need to have an edge. What Atrios has instead is snark, and if one limits oneself to visiting Atrios no more than once a day, snark will do. Visit any more often than that, and chances are you just can’t get enough of Atrios, or you just can’t get enough of how full of it he is.

P.S. Can I quote a relevant piece of 1990s literary fiction for three posts in a row? Yes, I believe I can. Atrios explains that the name “Eschaton” comes from a chapter in David Foster Wallace’s 1996 heartbreaking work of staggering genius, “Infinite Jest,”

in which students at a private tennis academy play a complicated game called Eschaton. It’s a strange half-explained simulation of WWIII, sort of a Risk-like wargame played on tennis courts, with tennis ball bombardment representing nuclear bombardment. The game has arcane rules requiring a computer to compute the value of each “hit” based on position, trajectory, etc… In the passage the game eventually gets completely out of hand and the rules break down.

It’s a comic passage, all right:

Timmy Peterson takes a ball in the groin and goes down like a sack of refined flour. Everybody’s scooping up spent warheads and totally unrealistically refiring them. The fences shudder and sing as balls rain against them. Ingersoll now resembles some sort of animal that’s been run over in the road. … Nobody’s using tennis balls now anymore. Josh Gopnik punches LaMont Chu in the stomach, and Lamont Chu yells that he’s been punched in the stomach. Ann Kittenplan has Kieran McKenna in a headlock and is punching him repeatedly on top of the skull. … LaMont Chu is throwing up into the Indian Ocean. Todd Possalthwaite has his hands to his face and is shrieking something about his ‘doze.’

Hmm… sound like any blogs you know of?

To Live And Die On YouTube

Published by William Beutler on October 22, 2006 in YouTube. 1 Comment

Who ever said kids won’t listen to their elders?

Touchstone-of-the-moment YouTube.com boasts a small but influential (or at least popular) number of registered users who are about 50 years older than the stereotype, and the fact that they are among the site’s most-subscribed user accounts suggests that at least some of the kids are listening. Apparently, many thousands of Internet users are willing to sit through sometimes rambling 3-to-5-minute snippets of mid-20th century recollections — whether or not they actually tied an onion to their belts, which was the style at the time.

Take for example 86-year-old Martin Harris, known on YouTube as MHarris1920, who had posted for several months on the website, sharing his stories of serving overseas during the Great War, perhaps touching viewers emotionally, or at least intriguing them enough to click.

YouTube account for Martin Harris, MHarris1920

Two weeks ago, he died. The obituary that ran in his local paper even noted his late-acquired following:

Born in Malden in 1920, the son of Russian immigrants, Mr. Slobodkin graduated magna cum laude in international studies from Harvard University in 1941 and has been back to every reunion bar one since then; this would have been his 65th. Upon graduation, he enlisted in the Army as a medic. Based on IQ tests, the Army sent him to graduate school at Yale to study Russian, and then to the Sorbonne in Paris to study philosophy. (His memories of WW II can be seen and heard on www.youtube.com under Mharris1920.)

His second-to-last video, the last full-length (2:26) video with Martin sharing his WWII-era experiences, was viewed 18,596 times. His final video, very short and with just one message and one question, titled like an email — “Re: Re: War years part 1″ — was viewed 61,658 times, with 250 comments.

YouTube video by Martin Harris about WWII experiences, MHarris1920

As far as I know, his question about “the name of that wonderful” bar in Glastonbury, where he had a “dark ale and shandy, something we never get in the states somehow or other,” has gone unanswered. But maybe I’m wrong. YouTube is vast.

Several days later, his widow appeared in Martin’s place for the first time, breaking the news to the community. This video drew more eyeballs than most television news programs last week: Good bye Martin was viewed 915,257 times, with 2880 comments.

First video by Martin Harris' widow

Her follow-up message has racked a not-insubstantial 13,461 views, about where Martin had been before. Does she now have her own following? Perhaps what’s said about God and doors is true of God and YouTube users.

Even if she doesn’t remain a YouTube celebrity, others are going strong. One is the impishly handled geriatric1927, an Englishman named Peter, 79 years young (as Willard Scott would say), who has posted 30+ videos sharing his own wartime experiences. Geriatric1927 is big. How big? There’s only one user on the site whose videos have been viewed more than his:

Lonelygirl15, Geriatric1927 are biggest YouTube hits

P.S. Since it’s only been one post since I’ve referenced a major literary work from the 1990s, well, let’s get this streak going: It occurs to me that the videos of those like Martin Harris will remain online forever, for all practical purposes, unless removed by a family member with the proper account information. This is pretty much what Don DeLillo envisioned in his era-spanning, non-linear 1997 epic novel “Underworld.” At the end of the 20th Century, a minor character, a nun, passes away. Instead of going to heaven, she went to the Internet:

A click, a hit and Sister joins the other Edgar. A fellow celibate and more or less kindred spirit but her biological opposite, her male half, dead these many years. Has he been waiting for this to happen? The bulldog fed, J. Edgar Hoover, the Law’s debased saint, hyperlinked at last to Sister Edgar — a single fluctuating impulse now, a piece of coded information. Everything is connected in the end.

P.P.S. To Live and Die on MySpace? The one social networking site still bigger than YouTube is of course the L.A.-originating, Murdoch-owned MySpace, which in its early days was popular as the slutty version of Friendster. Nowadays it has millions of registered users (even if not the claimed 100 million), and when you’re talking numbers like that, well, understand that a small fraction of them will be checking out on a regular basis. Now there is even a website that will tell you which MySpacers have shuffled off this mortal coil, and point you to their abandoned pages. They’ve got all kinds — plane crashes, suicides, kidney disease, stabbings, and IEDs:

MySpace obituary website, MyDeathSpace

Is this grotesque rubbernecking, or is this a legitimate service? I haven’t completely decided. Is this helpful to friends and families? Maybe, maybe not. Is it helpful to the development of the online community? It wouldn’t surprise me. And why not? The YouTube community is doing the same for Martin Harris.

Great Minds Think Alike

Published by William Beutler on October 21, 2006 in Asymmetrical Media, Elections, George Allen, Lamont v. Lieberman, Language, MSM vs. Blogs, Seriously and YouTube. 2 Comments

Tom Stoppard’s 1993 masterpiece “Arcadia” reminds us that the important discoveries and great achievements of human history are not uniquely occurring circumstances. If lost, they are never misplaced for long:

THOMASINA: [T]he enemy … burned the great library of Alexandria without so much as a fine for all that is overdue. Oh, Septimus! — can you bear it? All the lost plays of the Athenians! Two hundred at least by Aeschlylus, Sophocles, Euripides — thousands of poems — Aristotle’s own library brought to Egypt by the noodle’s [Cleopatra’s] ancestors! How can we sleep for grief? SEPTIMUS: By counting our stock. Seven plays from Aeschylus, seven from Sophocles, nineteen from Euripides, my lady! You should no more grieve for the rest than for a buckle lost from your first shoe, or for your lesson book which will be lost when you are old. We shed as we pick up, like travellers who must carry everything in their arms, and what we let fall will be picked up by those behind. The procession is very long and life is very short. We die on the march. But there is nothing outside the march so nothing can be lost to it. The missing plays of Sophocles will turn up piece by piece, or be written again in another language. Ancient cures for diseases will reveal themselves once more. Mathematical discoveries glimpsed and lost to view will have their time again. You do not suppose, my lady, that if all of Archimedes had been hiding in the great library of Alexandria, we would be at a loss for a corkscrew?

In the meantime, we have ample evidence that mere cliché will be repeated often and unembarrassedly as long as it remains useful. Illustrations below the fold:

Continue reading ‘Great Minds Think Alike’

Evil Corporate Image Makeover/Lefty Blogosphere Co-Optation Nearing Completion?

Published by William Beutler on October 20, 2006 in Comment Sections, Daily Kos, Energy Policy, Lobbying and Netroots. 1 Comment

What will the Kossacks make of the Chevron ad rotating with an in-house ad for “Crashing the Gates” at the top of Daily Kos tonight?

Daily Kos Chevron advertisement

So far, I see no discontent. Is that an advancement or an abdication? Or an accident?

How arbitrary is it? That’s no casual “it’s just in the sidebar” BlogAd — that’s a fully integrated premium BlogAd for an international petrochemical conglomerate lording over the front page of the progressive blogosphere’s most-viewed URL.

And yet, I only found it earlier by typing dailykos.com alone into the address bar in Firefox for OS X, at say, 10:00 p.m. EDT. Otherwise, I’ve gotten this:

Kos, "Crashing the Gate"

Can anyone duplicate the page with the Chevron media buy? As I reload, and reload, and reload, I continue to see the “Crashing the Gate” spot in the same place, over and over. Did Markos change his mind at the last moment? Did Chevron Corp. withdraw? Is it slated for release and for some reason I’m missing this will be completely non-controversial?

I guess we’ll see. Either way: Interesting agreement on Chevron’s part, and on Kos’ part as well.

Update: Apparently yes, this has already appeared and apparently was not completely ignored — but still doesn’t seem to have meant the ad’s removal from the Daily Kos ad rotation — though perhaps efforts have been made to have it be less-seen. Presumably the ad buy is just running out by this point, and that’s that. I sure hope not.

Updated again: Competing arguments from the 10/16 comment section:

The bulk of this diary is bitching about a single adverstisement on the largest pro-democratic website in the world. Somehow, from that single ad (which isn’t fooling anyone around here, by the way), the diarist states that he is one of many who are “deeply concerned that this website has become a staging ground for big oil propaganda.” That is just stupid.
I agree as well…. …I am weening myself off this site. I am stunned that Marcos would accept advertising dollars from Chevron…especially since he lives in the SF Bay Area….and has to know that Chevron is a major polluter of the SF Bay and delta regions…I was shocked to see the ad and thought it was snark…oh, well…

It will be diaried another day.

The Agony and the Apostasy

Published by William Beutler on October 19, 2006 in Blog Fights, Defections, Elections, George W. Bush, Internecine Battles, Leftosphere vs. Rightosphere, Primary fights, Terrorism and White House '08. 4 Comments

Back in 2004, one of the founding members of the political blogosphere managed to blog his way out of the good graces of many he had inspired to take up Blogger accounts in the first place. That was Andrew Sullivan, and while he undoubtedly remains an A-lister, he’s probably already proved a kind of blogosphere peak traffic theory.

Another popular veteran blogger has been steering wider and wider away from his peers in the rightosphere, and unlike Sullivan, it’s one who has called himself a Republican. This is John Cole, the West Virginian Army vet and Pajamas Media signatory who writes Balloon Juice. His site is a rarity in the sense that the chief blogger identifies as right of center, but the readership (as demonstrated by its loyal commenters) leans decidedly to the left. For some time now, Cole has featured a co-blogger, Tim F., who is even more critical of the contemporary right than himself.

Andrew Sullivan, John Cole, conservative blogger discontentBoth Cole and Sullivan have voiced greater concerns about the direction of the Iraq war and the war on terrorism, and about the Republican Party’s priorities regarding social issues than most mainstream conservative bloggers (and more than avowed non-conservative Glenn Reynolds, at least until the “pre-mortem” post). Unlike many of their peers, they’ve lost all respect for the Bush presidency and reclaimed/redefined conservatism enough to justify staying on the same side of the fence.

The very fact of their disagreement isn’t so much the issue — they could have drifted apart and largely ignored each other. Instead, the animosity really has to do with Sullivan and Cole coming around to openly fight with their erstwhile allies. These arguments look like personality conflicts, and they certainly are, but are also so contentious because an ideological fight underlies them.

The fights they pick are not without merit, though it’s sometimes hard to decide which side is thinking about it more clearly, if anyone — and so I’ll punt and just say “follow the links”: a non-definitive summary would note that Sullivan has clashed with Glenn Reynolds and with James Taranto and become an inside joke among numerous other bloggers. Cole is currently in the middle of a blog fight with Dan Riehl, just concluded one with Red State, and before long will probably go another round with Michelle Malkin.

As far as I can tell, it seems Cole usually aims to stand up for decency, Sullivan for his principles. This also seems to mean Sullivan-engaged arguments often revolve around himself — and hey, that’s just what Time is probably hoping for. To use a phrase more commonly associated with the leftosphere, they’re like concern trolls* in the wider conservative blogosphere.

Such blog fights can be either great fun or excruciatingly dull, depending on how much you have invested in the squabbling parties. And considering the war’s prominence in these splits, there will probably be more. Assuming Iraq gets worse before it gets better — that being one thing supporters and opponents of U.S. Iraq policy might agree on — we’ll see more bloggers reach a breaking point, lambasting their spherical allies for failing to understand what they do now, while the stalwarts kick them to the curb and renounce them as apostates.

It’s hard to say what this means for the 2008 White House scrum, currently still in training camp (pre-season begins with the first post-election early primary state straw poll). Both the left and right blogospheres will fracture, sometimes with acrimony and sometimes amicably, as they all back different candidates for president.

Since its post-2002 midterm formation, the leftosphere has been an anti-Bush monolith, and his eventual departure from Washington (and our eventual withdrawal from Iraq) will create new tensions for Democrats and the bloggers who favor them, along with the expected opportunities. If Democrats win the White House in ‘08, we could see the blogospheric equivalent of a geomagnetic reversal — on both sides, existing bloggers would realign, some veterans might lose readership, and newcomers could pick up big traffic.

It seems plausible that Sullivan and Cole could support a Republican for president alongside their erstwhile compatriots, but probably not until after the primary is decided. But I have to wonder, when Cole has been putting his “Republican Stupidity” category tag to much greater use lately compared with his “Democratic Stupidity” one, even though the latter category was once created 10 places before the former.

Of course, if a Republican takes the oath of office in January 2009, things certainly won’t remain static. 9/11 created the right-blogosphere and the Iraq war defined it, but as domestic (social and economic) policy has been inevitably regaining significance compared to foreign policy (which again, they don’t always agree on) things have gotten — and will continue to get — more interesting.

So, let’s settle for a hypothesis: The longer an individual participates in the blogosphere, the likelihood of a political shift dividing said blogger from his or her allies along new lines approaches one.

Note: Additional text and argumentation provided by OXR.

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