Instapundit, who loves nothing more than stories about conservative blogs, highlights a piece on Mediachannel.org which argues that, “The GOP’s underreported e-campaign may lack the media razzle-dazzle of the Deaniac phenomenon, but it promises to leave no less a mark on the annals of political campaign history. It all comes down to a difference in style and strategy.” Instapundit muses, “the Bush blog has certainly improved of late.”
The Daily Kos takes a close look at John O’Neill, the Houston lawyer who served in the same unit, although at a different time, as John Kerry in Vietnam, and lately has been publicly questioning Kerry’s status as a war hero. As Kos pointed out earlier, this is in fact Round 2 of O’Neill vs. Kerry. Way back in 1971, O’Neill was a designated attack dog sent out by Richard Nixon to challenge Kerry’s anti-war message, and the two even participated in a televised debate on the issue. Now Kos has what he seems to view as another major scoop: O’Neill’s partner at his current law firm, Margaret Wilson, used to work at Vinson and Elkins, Enron’s primary firm. He calls both firms, ominously, “the very embodiment of the Houston good ol’ boy Republican network … Thus, there should be no illusions that O’Neill is in any way an independent and impartial critic of John Kerry.”
Noam Scheiber, meanwhile, blogging for The New Republic, wonders why, in the wake of the 9/11 hearings, CIA director George Tenet still has a job. Scheiber says Tenet has “failed spectacularly at his most important responsibility,” and finishes up with is own little (conspiracy?) theory: “[Tenet] has the goods on administration higher-ups, and … he’s proven willing to embarrass them with this information if leaned on.”
And there’s a typically polite difference of opinion between Amy Sullivan and Matthew Yglesias. Sullivan scolds Air America for a recent segment that mocked Christians, writing: “Making fun of religious people feeds into the stereotype of liberals as hostile to religion, which is something we’re working to change so that we can be more welcoming to people of faith. And furthermore, what does it gain you? A big fat nothing.”
Yglesias calls Sullivan’s post, “a little confused.” In a riposte titled, oddly, “Enterprising Young Blogger” (is that her, or him — or both?), Yglesias argues that dissing people of faith “isn’t a helpful electoral strategy for a politician trying to win voters over, but as a tactic for a liberal radio network to build an audience it seems fine. Liberals were all excited about Air America because we wanted something a bit more strident than Morning Edition, and this is what you get, real down-and-dirty talk radio — unfair, ugly at times, disrespectful of the opposition, and playing to its audience’s prejudices. That’s how it goes.”
Next: Kevin Drum responds to Matt Yglesias responding to Amy Sullivan responding to Air America. Then, the entire world explodes.
–Zachary Roth
Correction: The post above has been changed to reflect John O’Neill’s service in Vietnam in relation to John Kerry’s. We admit it: we got spun on this, just like CNN.
Zachary Roth is a contributing editor to The Washington Monthly. He also has written for The Los Angeles Times, The New Republic, Slate, Salon, The Daily Beast, and Talking Points Memo, among other outlets.