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Author Archive for William Beutler

Expecting the Spectator

Published by William Beutler on July 8, 2008 in Google, Journalist Bloggers, Spam, Technology, Website Design, William Beutler and YouTube. 0 Comments

I don’t know why, but since last night, the American Spectator’s website at spectator.org has been blocked for being a “reported attack site”:

American Spectator website blocked as “attack site”

Fortunately, perhaps, Google provides diagnostic tools for those curious about where the site has gone:

Google diagnostics on the Spectator as an “attack site”

Alas, I don’t know enough about network security to make a diagnosis. (Dammit Jim, I’m a private eye, not a doctor.)

As of this morning, I can get the website to load in Safari but not in Firefox 3, albeit intermittently. The front page is accessible, but if I try to visit the blog, I get this instead:

American Spectator will cause “harm” to your computer

In the past, Google has been accused of removing conservative-aligned content from YouTube and from Google News, but I see no evidence that this is what’s happened this time. I’m not even quite sure why Google is responsible for providing these diagnostics.

What’s most likely is the Spectator’s webmaster left a security hole unplugged and the site was taken advantage of by opportunistic spammers, which is something of a tautology.

I’ve put an e-mail in to a contact at the Spectator, and if I find out what happened, I’ll provide an update in this post.

Update: Looks like I called this one. The site still isn’t working for me in Firefox, but via Safari, they offer this explanation:

We have received a number of inquiries regarding the fact that Spectator.org has been designated a “harmful site” by Google, because of outside entities attempting to use our site to distribute malicious software. We have been working with our Web hosting company to address the issue, and believe that it has been resolved and that our site is safe to visit, though there is a lag time before Google can remove the “harmful site” status. In the meantime, if you normally find us via Google, you can still visit us by typing Spectator.org directly into your browser, or by entering our site via Yahoo. Thank you for your understanding.

Richelieu in Repose

Published by William Beutler on July 7, 2008 in Blogging Officials, Brick-and-mortar consultants, John McCain, Mike Murphy, New York Times, Weekly Standard, White House '08 and William Beutler. 0 Comments

In today’s New York Times, the Weekly Standard’s Bill Kristol asks:

So Where’s Murphy?

That is to say, why has former McCain strategist Mike Murphy not yet joined John McCain’s presidential campaign? Because Kristol is talking about it, it seems like everyone else is talking about it, but nobody is talking about where Murphy has been recently.

Or where he may very well have been. That would be the Weekly Standard’s blog, where a pseudonymous contributor named Richelieu is thought to be Murphy by several writers in a position to know (or at least fairly suspect) that this is so.

This makes it all the weirder for Dean Barnett, also of the Weekly Standard, to write today at the very same blog:

In the New York Times today, Bill Kristol speculates that Mike Murphy may be about to ride in on his white steed to save the McCain campaign from itself. Maybe he’s right.

Looking through the archives, it turns out that Richelieu has not contributed a post since late June. After several months (since October 2007) of frequent posting, Richelieu’s output slowed to a crawl in mid-May and had nearly ceased altogether by early June.

Mid-May was also about the time where Obama’s nomination finally appeared to be inevitable, and early June was when Sen. Clinton finally dropped out. So did Murphy hang up his pen name just in time to be available to offer his services to McCain? It looks like we just may find out.

All the Mea Culpas #2

Published by William Beutler on July 7, 2008 in Metapost, WikiRage and William Beutler. 0 Comments

All the Rage is taking a week off due to my own busy schedule and the fact that, when I arrived back in town late last night from spending the July 4th holiday in Ohio, I found the list at Wikirage to be somewhat underwhelming.

For the record, WALL-E is still at number one, that second-to-last Doctor Who episode remained in the top 10 and, as predicted, so was the finale. I think that’s about all the Wikipedia analysis I can muster for the time being.

Next week, when I won’t be spending a miserable Sunday waiting for my delayed flight at a Detroit airport, we’ll get back to the business of analyzing the top ten most edited aticles on Wikipedia for the week ending Saturday.

Portrait of the Smear Artists as an Old Boys’ Club

Published by William Beutler on July 3, 2008 in #pdf2008, Barack Obama, Charts and Graphs, Online Campaigns, Tech Blogosphere, Urban Legends, Web 2.0, Website Design, White House '08 and William Beutler. 0 Comments

Example of Obama’s Fight the Smears pageIt’s been a few weeks since Barack Obama’s presidential campaign unveiled its much-discussed Fight the Smears microsite. It’s certainly a daring move, and probably the right one. Although a cardinal rule of politics has long been “don’t repeat the charges against you,” there does reach a point where that no longer holds. John Kerry learned this the hard way, and Obama should get credit for adjusting accordingly.

One aspect I haven’t seen discussed in any great detail is the second page of the website, “Behind the Smears”. It’s not easily found — although it occupies the somewhat prominent last spot in the list of links at left, it’s also buried at the bottom of the page, below the main content and just above the site disclaimers.

The main content of said page is a chart showing the relationships between the accusers, and it looks like this:

Network of Obama “smears”

It’s pretty neat, but it’s also under-designed. After all, it seems to claim that the 1992 Clinton campaign itself is is smearing him, when all it means is that… actually, I’m not sure what it’s saying. What’s more, the lines are too light and don’t convey any specific information about how they are connected. There are a few small revisions which would make it more intuitive: a dotted line for lesser connections, or bigger names for those with more influence.

Relationship mapping is becoming a bigger deal in the blogosphere as more rigorous and even scholarly studies are done about the connections between blogs and attempts are made to quantify the influence one has upon another. This is driven in part by curiosity and in part by my own industry, where marketers are desperate to accurately quantify their impact. One example comes from Linkfluence, as demoed at Personal Democracy Forum this year:

Political blog map via Linkfluence

But how useful is this information? It’s nice to see a representation of the political ’sphere at the macro level. Some insights can certainly be derived therefrom, but it leaves a lot unsaid. For example, it doesn’t necessarily help me to know that one site has linked to another. I need to know why. I need to be able to drill down, and find out how they are arranged by a common link or keyword.

Don’t get me wrong, though: I’m all for pretty pictures.

And while the Obama campaign chart isn’t all that pretty and ultimately not that informative, it’s nevertheless a step in the right direction. The more and better tools a campaign can give to its online supporters, the more investment (in time as well as money) they are likely to make in turn.

The Beutler Files: 30 Cent Edition

Published by William Beutler on July 3, 2008 in District Politics, Gun politics, Journalist Bloggers, Metapost and William Beutler. 1 Comment

The biggest news in the District’s blogging circles yesterday had nothing to do with John McCain’s campaign shakeup or Barack Obama’s rhetorical shift centerward but the inexplicable shooting of one of liberal blogging’s up-and-comers, Brian Beutler.

Early in the day I’d seen Dave Weigel’s IM message reading “Brian Beutler for Batman/Mayor” but did not understand the context. Hours later the news broke beyond his close friends, and thankfully along with it that he is hospitalized at Washington Hospital Center and should recover.

The blog tributes flowed in, bringing with it a wave of complaints about the relative safety of Northwest Washington. Megan McArdle started with “I just found out a friend of mine got shot three times in the stomach last night in my neighborhood during a mugging,” and though vowing to delete any opportunistic comments about District v. Heller, she couldn’t avoid addressing public safety:

When DC does try to “do something”, it’s something stupid and quasi-fascist like locking down neighborhoods instead of putting more cops on the beat and using the advanced police tactics that are now the norm in every other city. From what I know, Fenty seems like a better mayor than DC’s previous disasters, but the city government remains corrupt and incompetent. No one should have to spend their lives feeling this afraid.

The American Spectator’s J.P. Freire concurred:

I can only echo Megan’s thoughts about the state of crime (and crime-fighting) in this city — it reminds me of the needless and violent murder of the New York Times’s David Rosenbaum, who was left unaided, ailing on the sidewalk, ignored in his death. There’s an illusion of safety in this city, conveyed by the economic development and the swollen demographics familiar from college. But we’re not on college campuses where things feel safe (and are sometimes very much not). We’re in a city, a particularly criminal one.

John Aravosis offered more details on the neighborhood in question:

The neighborhood he was shot in, like a 5 minute walk from me, has an ongoing gang war on the very corner he was shot. It’s been going on for years. And years. And years. But DC is such an inept city, that all we hear about is how fighting crime is hard work. Sound familiar? I’ve looked at condos right next to where he was shot. $400,000 for a one bedroom. I laugh when I see places like that, because I know there’s a gang war going on about 100 feet away. And now this would be our second mugging-shooting we’ve had in the last month or so.

And I’m pretty much in agreement with all of this. I was once the victim of random violence myself, albeit of a much less serious nature: more than a year ago I was struck in the head by an unseen assailant at about 3:00 a.m. on a side-street just above Florida Avenue. It wasn’t a mugging; I just kept walking, hoping that no sudden movements would pay off, and there was no follow-up attack.

I’m pretty sure it was done on a dare or for the thrill, likely both. And it shook me from my complacency, at least for awhile. Shortly after, I moved one neighborhood over — to approximately three blocks north of where Beutler was shot on Wednesday morning.

But it wasn’t all (understandable) hand-wringing about the state of the city. Nicknaming Beutler “30 Cent” after the projectile-prone rapper, Dave Weigel reported:

Collaboration began on a lengthy list of “Brian Beutler Facts,” inspired by the (now surely played out) list of oddball stories of Chuck Norris. Sample entries: “Lance Armstrong wears a Brian Beutler bracelet.” “The active ingredient in Levitra is Brian Beutler.” “Meatloaf would do that for Brian Beutler.”

And Julian Sanchez followed up:

Brian Beutler is awesome. If you read his phenomenal reporting, count yourself lucky. If you know him, count yourself even luckier. (2) You can add your wishes for a speedy recovery at the first link. I’m not the praying sort, but if you are, it couldn’t do any harm.

I echo those sentiments.

When Beutler first moved to town a few years ago, we had a brief jocular exchange on a post at my personal blog, The Washington Canard, also titled “The Beutler Files”.

Since then I haven’t met Beutler in person, but in this small world of Washington bloggers, we share more than a few acquaintances. And as you may have already noticed, we share a last name (if not the pronunciation thereof).

There’s room in this town for the both of us, and let’s hope it stays that way for a long time to come.

Cerf’s Up: When Bipartisanship Really Isn’t

Published by William Beutler on June 30, 2008 in #pdf2008, Al Gore, Blog Consultants, Blog Fights, Democrats, Fundraising, Google, Hillary Clinton, Lobbying, Tech Blogosphere, Virginia Politics, Web 2.0 and William Beutler. 2 Comments

At last week’s Personal Democracy Forum, one of the events I missed was the launch of a coalition called InternetforEveryone.org. I’m skeptical of the organization, and while I admit I’m not really sure what it’s all about, therein lies part of my skepticism. It’s very easy to agree that Internet access should be as widely available as possible. However, the policy details are not so easily agreed upon. But as a market-oriented thinker, I’m inclined to agree with Erick Erickson that this is in fact a bad idea.

Supporters at the press conference included Stanford professor Larry Lessig, former FCC commissioner Jonathan Adelstein, environmental activist Van Jones, a venture capitalist from the firm which first funded Twitter, Google’s chief evangelist Vint Cerf and Josh Silver from Free Press. That’s the same Josh Silver I criticized back in May for claiming the only real news was his kind of news.

Also on the panel: Republican consultant David All, whom I count as a friend and whose work on Slatecard I admire but with whom I disagree on some matters of policy and partisanship. I’m not the first to note the incongruity of this panel; if you happened to check out the comments at All’s TechRepublican starting this weekend, Mike Turk initiated a very interesting debate with All on the merits of the group continuing through today.

David has called Internet for Everyone a “bipartisan” organization, which Turk has also called into question. All’s claim seems very hard to justify, based on the names above. For one thing, the only other reference to Internet for Everyone as “bi-partisan” comes from Brian Reich at Fast Company — who is, coincidentally, a former Gore campaign aide. Meanwhile Tim Karr of Free Press didn’t bother to include the word “bipartisan” in his announcement at Huffington Post.

But I was reminded of a tweet from @DavidAll the evening the conference ended:

David All tweet about Vint Cerf as a Republican

And in a post on Saturday, All did concede that the bipartisanship of the group was tenuous:

As one of the only Republicans in the coalition (Vint Cerf of Google is a registered Republican), I believe it’s crucial for Republicans to embrace a national broadband strategy.

Curious about Vint Cerf’s Republican bona fides, I decided to punch his name into OpenSecrets.org. For the sake of column width, I’ve removed his employers (principally MCI, MCI Worldcom, Worldcom and Google). Here’s what I found:

Vint Cerf’s political donations, via OpenSecrets.org

Finally! Proof that Vint Cerf is a Republican. Well, maybe he was once a Republican. And so, David’s claim that the Internet was Republican from the beginning has a fighting chance. But Cerf is clearly not a Republican now, in fact he has been quite an active Democrat since approximately the Reagan administration.

There are certainly times when cross-ideological partnerships are a good idea, such as when Redstate’s Mike Krempasky, Adam Bonin and Markos Moulitsas of Daily Kos came together to fend off campaign finance restrictions on bloggers. But it concerns me that David All — one of the C&E-recognized rising stars of GOP Washington — is giving ideological cover to an organization which is not just non-conservative and not just un-conservative, but whose basic idea treats limited government and market-based solutions as beneath discussion.

P.S. I hope this doesn’t dissuade him from watching the rest of The Wire.

The Swift Boating of John McCain

Published by William Beutler on June 30, 2008 in 527s, Comment Sections, John Kerry, John McCain, The Politico, White House '08 and William Beutler. 1 Comment

It’s an article of faith among among Democrats that John Kerry, a war hero, was unduly smeared by a group of fellow veterans who did not know him or his accomplishments. I took more a mixed view of the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, finding some of their claims worthy of discussion (Kerry’s involvement with the Winter Soldier Investigation) and others unworthy (Kerry’s supposed “war crimes”). So I hesitate to use the phrase in the title, but I think it’s warranted.

Four years later, some on the left are doing the exact same thing to John McCain. The Politico has already taken note of two in particular. One is Gen. Wesley Clark, who is likely to get some major press coverage. Less likely to generate interest offline, but still likely to be influential, is this John Aravosis post:

Honestly, besides being tortured, what did McCain do to excel in the military?

It’s not “nice” to ask the question, but it’s actually a pretty good question. … A lot of people don’t know, however, that McCain made a propaganda video for the enemy while he was in captivity. Putting that bit of disloyalty aside, what exactly is McCain’s military experience that prepares him for being commander in chief? It’s not like McCain rose to the level of general or something. He’s a vet. We get it. But simply being a vet, as laudable as it is, doesn’t really tell you much about someone’s qualifications for being commander in chief.

One might think that Aravosis would think twice about taking this line of attack, considering his support for John Kerry in 2004. On the other hand, AMERICAblog spent most of that year trying to make President Bush sound like a deserter. And in fact, Aravosis has been pushing this McCain-is-not-a-war-hero line for awhile.

But let’s answer the points Aravosis avoids: McCain spent more than a half-decade as a prisoner of war. Significantly, he refused an offer of early release in 1968, remaining behind with his fellow POWs and denying the North Vietnamese a propaganda victory (McCain’s father was a four-star admiral leading the U.S. Pacific Command).

Meanwhile, Aravosis portrays John McCain as participating in a propaganda video as if McCain did so of his own volition, rather than being held captive. To the contrary, McCain often made trouble for his captors — cheering the bombing of the North with his fellow soldiers — and spent significant time in solitary confinement. I don’t refer people to Wikipedia as a matter of course, but these sections are very well-supported, and the bibliography is a credible one.

Meanwhile, based on the comments to Aravosis’ post, it sounds like McCain’s critics are likely to try pinning the 1967 USS Forrestal disaster on him as well. Oh, and there’s this lovely comment:

HOW ABOUT A LITTLE WATERBOARDING FOR THIS CLOWN

Meanwhile, Aravosis’ 2004 candidate was “merely a vet” who spent just four months in combat, gave time to slanders against his fellow soldiers and whose convictions on the Iraq war developed late, at best. But I don’t want to argue about John Kerry; that may be the point. In fact, Barack Obama’s lack of a military record is an unlikely plus: he grew up at a time when military service was neither obligated nor obligatory.

Aravosis’ post by itself is deliberately inflammatory and poorly reasoned. Alone, it wouldn’t demand a response. But with liberal 527s outspending their conservative counterparts, it will be very interesting to see how far Obama supporters pursue this line of attack in the coming weeks and months.

No Blogging, Just Heads

Published by William Beutler on June 29, 2008 in Barack Obama, Bloggingheads.tv, John McCain, Leftosphere vs. Rightosphere, New Media Strategies, Web video, White House '08 and William Beutler. 1 Comment

This weekend I made my second appearance on Bloggingheads.tv’s “The Week in Blog” series opposite Bill Scher. I got the call sort of last-minute, so I wasn’t nearly as prepared this time as my first appearance last month. Yet I think I came across as better prepared. Maybe that has something to do with having already done it once; maybe it has something to do with not over-thinking it for a week beforehand.

We talked about liberal and conservative reaction to District v. Heller, the relative recent success of Newt Gingrich’s “Drill Here” petition, Barack Obama’s stance on nuclear energy and John McCain’s awareness of the Internet.

P.S. Coincidentally, my colleague Jon Henke filled in on Bloggingheads just last week. And yes, this does probably does mean that New Media Strategies is taking over the world, one diavlog at a time.

All the Rage #15: Seven Words You Can Say on Wikipedia

Published by William Beutler on June 29, 2008 in #pdf2008, Entertainment, Obituary, Rhetoric, Sports, Technology, Television, WikiRage, Wikipedia and William Beutler. 0 Comments

If it’s Sunday (or, admittedly, sometimes Monday) it’s Blog P.I.’s weekly post about the ten most-edited articles on Wikipedia:

  1. Wall-E model courtesy Andy Castro on Flickr.Article: WALL-E
    Why: Disney-Pixar’s latest movie hit theaters this weekend, and it’s unsurprisingly shaping up to be a hit, posting Pixar’s third-best opening ever.
    Detail: Wikipedia aims to be as impartial as possible, but what can you do when the subject is universally acclaimed? You fine-tune the language and cut back on verbatims, as one editor advises: “Well, as you say, the reaction has been overwhelmingly positive, so it will be difficult to get the reception section sounding anything less than a puff piece. However, and speaking as the editor who added the current version of the reception section, I entirely agree that the reviews should be paraphrased better, with fewer direct quotes.”

  2. Article: The Stolen Earth
    Why: The penultimate episode of the latest run of Doctor Who episodes on BBC One.
    Detail: Which means there’s a very good chance we’ll see the final episode appear in one of these slots next weekend. Of the numerous British articles included in this list over the past few weeks, Doctor Who has ranked the highest most consistently.

  3. Article: 2008 NBA Draft
    Why: If you’ve ever wondered where all these new basketball players come from, perhaps you should learn about the NBA draft.
    Detail: The NBA still hasn’t caught back up with football in national prominence, but basketball fans still eagerly anticipate and closely follow draft night each year. With two televised rounds of thirty picks each and numerous trades, that’s a whole lot of updates on one night — and as Wikirage shows, most edits did occur all on one night.

  4. Article: Night of Champions (2008)
    Why: It’s not the WWF, that’s the World Wildlife Federation. It’s WWE now — World Wrestling Entertainment.
    Detail: If the NBA draft is a bit less-attended than the adventures of the Tenth Doctor and his TARDIS (yes, I’ve been skimming the Doctor Who pages) at least it is a little better-attended than this WWE event. This page was reverted and protected and reverted, but not necessarily due to vandalism. More the problem seems to be enthusiastic but inexperienced editors adding information in the wrong place and even trying to use the page as a forum. This happens often on some popular subjects, and it makes me wonder about members of the WikiProject Professional wrestling. No doubt the project counts among its members some dedicated and knowledgeable editors, but it seems that they find themselves having to undo a lot of the “help” they get. I doubt the same happens at WikiProject Molecular and Cellular Biology.

  5. NBA Draft archive photo from Noam Galai on Flickr.Article: Guitar Hero World Tour
    Why: Previously titled Guitar Hero IV, makers of the next installment of the popular video game series have continued to make new information available over the past few weeks, but was protected from unhelpful help (see above) until early June. Now the gates are wide open.
    Detail: Allowing people to add spurious rumors such as the planned inclusion of a Soulja Boy track with no guitar instrumentation (since removed). Interesting also that video games seem to show up in this list months ahead of release — the title won’t be out until late October — while movies typically don’t appear until the week of release.

  6. Article: Deaths in 2008
    Why: Death and taxes may be inevitable, but only one ranks well in the list of most-edited Wikipedia articles.
    Detail: Passing this week: one of the most influential comedians in my life and the second half of the 20th century, George Carlin. And then some other people, including a 37-year-old American comic book artist of cancer, a 20-year-old Russian-Kazakh model who threw herself from her 9th story Manhattan appartment yesterday afternoon, and the 9-year-old University of Georgia mascot, Uga.

  7. Article: District of Columbia v. Heller
    Why: In the session’s most closely-watched decision, the Court affirmed 5-4 that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to own a firearm.
    Detail: Through the week I’ve been somewhat skeptical of the claim bandied about that the case was the first to rule on the Second Amendment, and here is an amusing smackdown of Slate’s lead legal correspondent, who apparently was among the banditos: “We are well aware of U.S. v. Miller, and know much more about it than the sensationalist writer Lithwick. The article does not say that D.C. v. Heller is the first case to pertain to the Second Amendment or that has incidental remarks that could be interpreted as pertaining to the question of individual-rights vs. collective-rights; it is not the first such case, nor is it the second. It is, however, the first case to definitively or directly or comprehensively address the question.”

  8. George Carlin photo via eyewash design on Flickr.Article: Battlefield: Bad Company
    Why: Not the English rock supergroup, but a new video game from Electronic Arts which “puts the player in a fictional war against Russia, where gamers will lead a squad of AWOL soldiers fighting both Russians and Mercenaries.”
    Detail: I can’t really tell where all the edits went, except that editors have removed some unnecesary sections, but I was a bit surprised to find out that this page has existed since August 2006, presumably when it was first announced.

  9. Article: 2008 WWE Draft
    Why: Did you know the WWF WWE had a draft? Or maybe that should be “draft”? If it wasn’t for Wikipedia and this feature, I wouldn’t.
    Detail: Do you think Vince McMahon is mocking David Stern?

  10. Article: Camp Rock
    Why: The Disney Channel sitcom all but ignored in last week’s edition because I was trying to pay attention at Personal Democracy Forum is back again, down to the tenth slot from the third.
    Detail: For I think the first time, Disney holds the first and last articles on this list.

    11. Holdovers this week: Camp Rock

    Falling off the list: Everything else.

    Recurring themes: Top American film releases, Doctor Who episodes, the NBA, Disney.

    Honorable mention: I would have thought Carlin would have been ranked higher. Instead, it looks as if his page was edited heavily on June 22 but not much thereafter. And while there was some coverage this past week of the young woman who was fired for editing Tim Russert’s article before his death was officially announced, less has been said about Carlin’s article though an edit war of sorts took place here. Several people tried to add the correct data, only to have other editors ask for more information, changing the article back until receiving confirmation.

    Meanwhile, you still can’t say the seven dirty words on television, but as the headline implies, you most certainly can say them on Wikipedia. In the proper context, of course.

P.S. For what it’s worth, I feel compelled to note that I have made a few disclosed edits to a handful of Disney movie articles for distributor Buena Vista. However, I have not contributed to the Disney movies listed here — haven’t been asked and haven’t needed to do so.

Images courtesy andy castro, noamgalai and eyewash design on Flickr.

When Even Daily Kos Supports an Individual Right to Bear Arms…

Published by William Beutler on June 26, 2008 in Daily Kos, Debates, Democrats, Gun politics, Netroots, Supreme Court and William Beutler. 3 Comments

If it’s true that today’s District v. Heller ruling is the first time in U.S. history that the Supreme Court has has directly ruled on the meaning of the Second Amendment, it also seems likely to be the last. The battle has carried on for decades in lower courts, but those cases too are likely to be cut short, if not cut off altogether.

But what about the cultural debate? I noted in a recent post over at The Next Right that the left has largely acquiesced to gun rights. They may do so grudgingly, but for all intents and purposes they’ve given up. Except… that’s not what I found on some of the most influential leftroots blogs.

Instead, I found significant agreement with the ruling. Not just that, but matter-of-fact statements of support for an individual right that would have been unthinkable even five years ago.

At Crooks and Liars, the first commenter just asked:

Is this good or bad?

The question alone is kind of surprising. And the answers came quickly:

This, my friend, is good. This is an area where we lefties have dropped the ball in a most spectacular fashion. Gun bans such as the DC only affect those actually willing to obey the law. That’s not a tagline, that’s a fact. We need to crack down on the illegal gun trade, NOT on law abiding citizens.

And some I didn’t expect at all:

Wow. John Paul Stevens could not be more off base.

Here’s another:

yay for pro second amendment democrats

And I didn’t have to look hard. These are all in the first 9 comments. Still, these are comments. How about a genuine top tier blogger? Here’s Kevin Drum:

I’m basically OK with this. My personal, layman’s view has always been that both the history and the wording of the Second Amendment point toward a limited, personal right to bear arms, not merely the right for a militia to be armed. On a practical level I’m less sure whether this is a good thing, since I’ve never gotten into the policy weeds of handgun control and whether it’s effective. Still: a right’s a right. The wording of the Second Amendment suggests to me that the government can regulate guns a bit more than they can regulate, say, speech, but that they can’t flatly ban them.

This is not to say that support was universal, but even the dissenters realized that gun control is all but dead. And at Daily Kos, Adam Bonin had advice for those inclined to be upset:

I encourage you to read this fully before rendering your opinions, because, well, it’s a Constitution we’re expounding here, and this comes up in other contexts as well. Sometimes in life (and in law), there are things that we might desire from a policy standpoint — like certain forms of gun control, or restrictions on some election-related speech — which are nevertheless forbidden by the Constitution.

And in the comments, some indeed were. For instance, here is the first comment:

Tragic day for America

DC has a tremendously bad gun problem and they can’t take these extremely resonable step of banning the gun most frequently used in crimes? It’s outrageous and despicable.

This comment was rated up 16 times. But what’s really great about this is the reply:

Disagree

The D.C. law was sweeping in banning the possession of handguns, period. If it were less sweeping, say, you can’t conceal the weapon, or you have to have a background check, or you have to wait several weeks or months to receive your gun, blah blah blah, I do not believe that would have been struck down. But the right to own a gun, stop, should not be infringed upon.

How did this one fare among the Kossacks? This one was rated up 57 times.

As Drum hints, there will be state-level debates about concealed carry, gun shows and specific makes, ammunition, etc. But now that a) Heller v. District has affirmed the individual right to own a firearm and b) influential liberal commentators and communities agree, the cultural battle over gun rights is effectively over.

P.S. For what it’s worth, Lawyers, Guns and Money is essentially neutral.