At least two blue bloggers are seeing red this morning. While Mathew Gross swears “on [his] honor” not to draw “analogies between the Red Sox and the general election,” Electablog’s David Pell makes no such pledge. “This just in,” Pell writes. “A team of northeast liberals who everyone thought couldn’t come through in the clutch just gave a whole lot better performance in the midwest than anybody thought they would …”
And we found a red blogger who comes off a little blue today. At National Review‘s The Corner, Stanley Kurtz wonders: “… what does it say about the changes in this country that the [election] battle is this close? It’s true that, historically, Americans don’t walk away from a fight. But if that’s so, why is this election such a nail biter?” Kurtz answers himself: “The rise of the boomer left has put traditional American cultural views in doubt in a way that has never happened before. That’s what this election is about.”
Want to see a red blogger seeing red? Head over to Roger L. Simon’s blog. Simon says: “If the [sic] Kerry does win, the mainstream media will have gotten him elected with their biased coverage [no links in this post to such coverage] and they will pay for it more than they could imagine. And it will be the blogosphere and you, our supporters, who will make them pay.” And how might they pay for it? Not spelled out. Note to mainstream media: Put the children under 24-hour guard and double the fire insurance on the house.
Seems Bob Somerby, too, would like to make the press corps pay, though for different imagined sins than Simon conjures up. Somerby summarizes the language and logic of an op-ed yesterday by the New York Times‘ Nicholas Kristof as follows: “George Bush isn’t a liar — he just clarifies overarching realities by harnessing ‘facts’ which are sometimes false.” Somersby huffs: “Who except a Washington journalist — or a stoned college sophomore — ever uses language that way?” and “How inane is your Washington press corps?”
The press flogging continues over at little green footballs where Charles posts some information gleaned from a reader “with access to Lexis/Nexis”: “the party registrations of a number of key journalists leading the anti-Bush assault in the final week.”
Among the things we learned: the Associated Press’ Nedra Pickler, a Campaign Desk favorite, is apparently a registered Democrat with the middle name “Jane”; and the New York Times‘ Jill Abramson is a registered Democrat, a female, and an Aries.
Who knew Abramson was trying to keep all that under wraps?
— Liz Cox Barrett
Liz Cox Barrett is a writer at CJR.