Friday, June 16, 2006

Via Atrios, this post by Peter Daou.

If Ann Coulter didn't exist, someone would invent her. Or however that saying goes. She and her ilk can't be debated or engaged, because how do you debate or engage vitriol and hatred.

If she can sleep at night after performing her little hate-based theater, then bully for her. I don't get it, but there are lots of things in this wacky world that I don't get.

The real criticism goes to the producers and editors who showcase her. Check it: if you give her the platform, you are complicit. Don't kid yourself that she deserves an audience, because she has an audience, or that because she's controversial, you have to cover the controversy, or some other self-perpetuating and self-serving bullshit.

Producers and editors, you know her shtick. She is not going to enlighten anyone, she is not going to change any minds, she is only there to provoke hatred, either hatred of her or hatred of whoever she is attacking. You put her on, you lower yourself to the level of carnivals and back alleys.

You aren't serving a news function by putting her on. You are cynically using a hate-monger for ratings and/or buzz. You have made that choice, and you need to recognize that you are forfeiting your credibility with that choice.

Tuesday, June 13, 2006

But can bloggers carry a unified message, or should they? It seems to me there are an awful lot of opinions even among the lefty bloggers, except for wanting the Dems to win in '06 and '08. And if they did coalesce around a central message and regularly check in with Harry Reid (one of the speakers) and company, wouldn't they give up the very maverick quality and independent nature that makes them fun to read?

Howie Kurtz, asking the questions that no one else will. Because they are stupid questions.
But can bloggers carry a unified message, or should they?

Who is asking them to? Who is asking whether they should or not? Based on my own regular reading, only Kurtz is.

Blogs are soapboxes, and open forums, and echo chambers, and networking tools, and expert opinions, and inexpert opinions, and kitten pictures, and plain old meanspirited mockery. Not to mention crackpots and rage peddlers.
And if they did coalesce around a central message and regularly check in with Harry Reid (one of the speakers) and company, wouldn't they give up the very maverick quality and independent nature that makes them fun to read?

And if they did all jump in the lake, wouldn't they all get wet? Why, yes Howie! Yes they would!

But again, who is asking bloggers to become a parrot chorus? Besides Kurtz, that is.
Milbank:
What the minority leader lacked in audibility, he had in embellishment. His prepared text said "close to 2,500 U.S. troops killed" in Iraq; he made it "about 2,500." His text said the war is "costing over $8 billion per month"; Reid made that "costing us $10 billion a month." The text described as "good news" the killing of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and the forming of an Iraqi cabinet; Reid left that out entirely.

Is it me, or is it Milbank?

Reid strayed from his prepared remarks. This is described as "embellishment."

Changing "close to 2,500" to "about 2,500" is evidence of this embellishment. If that's a sin, then I've gotta be a lot more careful with my own choices of words, I guess.

Another, more fitting, description of an embellishment is offered, but Milbank does nothing to independently evaluate these numbers.

Somehow, a reference that was in the prepared text, but not in the spoken remarks, is a final example of Reid's embellishment.

Doesn't Milbank attend these things for a living? Is he truly this sensitive and critical to a speaker varying from his prepared script?

Or does he resent having to pay attention to the actual spoken words, rather than just reading from the printed document?
Rove Won't Be Charged in C.I.A. Leak Case

Christy Hardin Smith says that, since this is based only on Rove's lawyer, she will believe this when she sees it for herself. I'll go with that.

I'd hate to see Rove pull a Rollo Tomasi.