Crooks and Liars links to a panel on Fox News. (Note - there's actual video! I wonder if Fox knows yet that people can watch this stuff after it's been aired? Have they told Cheney?) The panel's general complaint, I'm reading, is that Democratic leadership in Washington is influenced by the crazy bloggers on the left, who take partisan talking points and repeat them endlessly until they take on the weight of truth. And as everybody knows, bloggers should repeat talking points GIVEN to them by the leadership of their party.
So bloggers, a group of elites made up of, oh basically anybody who wants to be one, is somehow unfairly influencing government by demading that they (let's call them "the citizens") be represented.
And the problem is only going to get worse, as more "citizens" feel the urge to express their "opinions." How can we stop this flood of left-wing blogs?
The answer comes in a report (.pdf) published by the Center for American Progress and Free Press. Did you know that AM Talk Radio has a conservative bias? Yes!
* In the spring of 2007, of the 257 news/talk stations owned by the top five commercial station owners, 91 percent of the total weekday talk radio programming was conservative, and only 9 percent was progressive.So there's your answer. Give us more AM Talk stations! Maybe we can divvy 'em up roughly along the lines of the President's approval rating. Hell, even if we even do it by Congress's approval rating we'll gain 10%.
The blogosphere on the Left does have some power. Just ask Joe Lieberman about how the name "Ned Lamont" came into vogue in Connecticut. Granted, once the primary was over, and the general election came around, Joe got the votes, but became an Independant. Why? Because the powers that be at the DNC saw the writing on the wall that Ned was going to be the Primary victor, so they had to support him (even tho most of those guys probably realized Ned wouldn't win in the Primary). Where did all the Ned love come from? Kos. They wanted someone else, and they found Ned.
ReplyDeleteDo you think Lieberman would have swicthed his Party affiliation to (I) had Ned Lamont not gotten the support from the Grassroots effort from the KosKidz? Of course not. So the Left blogosphere that you say has no power is ridiculous. They not only lost a seat for the Dems, they served notice that if others on the Left up for re-election didn't vote "the right way", they might be next..
Am I wrong?
I don't read Kos and I wanted Leiberman out. My point is yes, Kos championed Lamont but he didn't hypnotize the Democrats into voting. Democrats voted because they preferred Lamont.
ReplyDeleteAnd had it not been Kos, it would have been the weight of the other thousand blogs.
The Left netroots voted for LAmont, and helped him win th eprimary because of their activism.
ReplyDeleteThe general public (who probably never heard of Ned Lamont until the day the primary results came in) voted for Lieberman, and sent him back to Washington.
Do a search on Kos for Lamont, and you can see how much of an impact a blogger had on politics. Granted there were a few other blogs trumpeting Ned, but they did that after Kos' lead.
What about the other part of my comment, about just turning off the radio, if you don't like what is on it, the same way the Left has told Conservatives to turn off the TV if we don't like the content.