Paper Armies

I cited a NYTimes piece the other day about liberal bloggers starting a series of conference calls with the major media.

One of the subjects - Bob Fertik of conspiracy site Democrats.com - responds today.

For those of us who've come to regard Democrats.com as a journey through the fever swamp via Kafka, the piece doesn't disappoint.

Fertik:

At the final session of the conference, called the "Great Debate" between the mainstream media and the blogosphere, I noted the amazing growth of the blogosphere over the past year, and predicted bloggers would score a TKO over the mainstream media in the coming year.

History already judged; Powerline did it.

Fertik looks a gift horse in the mouth:

The Times article below is bizarre. It initially appears to be a straightforward article about a progressive innovation in bringing the work of investigative bloggers to the mainstream media - although it somehow manages not to mention the name of our effort (BlogCall.org). In the middle, it quotes kind words from a mainstream reporter and even a rightwing blogger.

Both of whom were overly solicitous - I'd actually say "comically restrained" - but we'll get to that later.

But the article is driven by the presumption that conservatives "own" the blogosphere and set its standards of quality, relevance, and influence. Doesn't anyone remember how many stories Matt Drudge has gotten utterly and farcically wrong - including Bill Clinton's black love child and John Kerry's intern affair?

It's true. The conservative wing of the 'sphere does set that standard, and that's even with Drudge's celebrated flights of fancy (which are more than matched by those of Democratic Underground, not to mention Democrats.com). More later.

And it drives completely off the cliff when it quotes FreeRepublic.com - a borderline criminal site whose members engage in the Internet equivalent of terrorism ("denial of service" attacks, including attacks on Democrats.com) and fantasize about the murder of people they disagree with - including journalists. If there was a progressive site remotely like this, it would have been shut down by Karl Rove's Homeland Security department long ago.

I refute Fertik with...Fertik himself. Democrats.com is that site - with the exception that unlike the Freep, it's run by party insiders like Fertik himself.

Odd that Fertik refers to "fantasy". Remember this?

" … alert: possible bush/republican coup: sen. wellstone assassinated … u.s. senator paul wellstone killed in mysterious plane crash right before pivotal, ‘too-close-to-call’ election, just like mel carnahan in 2000 ….

"remember how just before congress was going to vote on signing away our constitutional rights to the usa patriot act, how mail laced with anthrax was sent to members of congress ….

"remember how the nazis set the german parliament building (reichstag) on fire ….

"this is it, folks. We need to mobilize *IMMEDIATELY* … against a potenital [sic] republican fascist assault …. "

Democrats.com, unusually for a blog, doesn't keep archives. Perhaps Karl Rove had them confiscated.

With material like this, I don't wonder why Fertik wants the past forgotten, though:

According to DEBKAfile analysts, these seven anomalies point to one conclusion: Saddam Hussein was not in hiding; he was a prisoner.

After his last audiotaped message was delivered and aired over al Arabiya TV on Sunday November 16, on the occasion of Ramadan, Saddam was seized, possibly with the connivance of his own men, and held in that hole in Adwar for three weeks or more, which would have accounted for his appearance and condition. Meanwhile, his captors bargained for the $25 m prize the Americans promised for information leading to his capture alive or dead. The negotiations were mediated by Jalal Talabani’s Kurdish PUK militia."

Fertik, ironically, spends much of the article attacking Free Republic. Democrats.com is, indeed, analogous to the worst of Free Republic's reputation. Fertik notes:

Powerlineblog.com is "a force to be reckoned with"? In whose opinion? Is this hot air from Mirengoff or the considered opinion of the New York Times? Surely the reader is entitled to clarity on this point. For the record, Powerlineblog.com is just a footnote in the Rathergate story, as compiled by dKosopedia.

That's right - in Bob Fertik's special little world, Powerline is a footnote - but Kos, whose only mention of Rathergate was exhaustive "proof" that the documents were legit (because the TANG orderly room could have had a top of the line typesetting machine, doncha know!), is the dispositive source!

Analogous? Yep. Freepers are constantly ginning up stuff like this:

Here's a brief synopsis of the "Mighty Wurlitzer": rightwing blogcrap goes directly from Drudge (and newer rightwing blogs like LittleGreenFootballs) to Rush to FOX and then spills over into the mainstream media via rightwingers like Joe Scarborough and Pat Buchanan on MSNBC, Bob Novak and Paula Zahn on CNN, George Will on ABC, Will and Charles Krauthammer in the Washington Post, David Brooks in the NY Times, and their many allies.

Strike that. Freepers aren't that imaginative. From Drudge to the Media, via Buchanan? Hey, wasn't Pat Buchanan the shooter that brought down Wellstone's plane?

Copy it down, folks; they're still not archiving!

Let's talk about relative quality, here. Quick; name a story from a lefty blog in the past year. This is especially important if you are not a blogger.

I am, of course - but the only stories I can remember from leftyblogs in the past year are:

• Kos' "Screw 'em" story, spitting on the graves of four Americans killed by a mob in Iraq.
• Kos' "dispositive proof" that the Rathergate dox were legit.
• Atrios' story entitled "Why does Bush hate the troops"
• The 482 other Atrios stories with the same title
• A couple of Josh Marshall scoops that never materialized
• Regionally, the City Pages blog's call for armed revolution if Bush won
• Jeff Fecke calling the election for John Kerry
• Locally, Anoka Flash's kegerator.

I'm biased - but I challenge any non-blogger, especially non-conservatives, to do better!

The fact that Bob Fertik's sham conference call - which may not have even drawn a whole lot of reporters in the first place - got a sympathetic treatment in the NYTimes at all indicates that the mainstream media is bending over backwards to give leftyblogs a legitimacy they do not deserve. We see it all over the place: when KARE11 did its piece on Powerline, for "balance", it dredged up "niA More Perfect Union", a local soft-left blog so perfect it hasn't needed updating in two months (or, indeed, in the month before the piece aired!). Or when Powerline appeared on "Almanac" around New Years, and were counterbalanced by...The NewPats?

With all due respect to the NewPats - do you see how hard the media, locally and nationally, has to dig to find any leftyblogs? When embarassments like Democrats.com, Oliver Willis, the giggly fratboys at Pandagon and the incoherent Jeralyn Merritt are the best they can do, one wonders whether the barrel has a bottom.

By the way - does anyone who's followed Powerline and the Northern Alliance's battle with the Strib this past year find this next 'graf gleefully ironic?

A credible publication would have given us the opportunity to respond. Instead, at the end we're given unsolicited advice from the Freeper, who dismisses our serious, methodical, and thoroughly-document work as nothing but conspiracy theorizing.

In Bob Fertik's special little world, where Wellstone was assassinated, the Times lets their subjects respond in print and in their own hand and Powerline is a bit player, I suppose Democrats.com is the very definition of responsible journalism.

Posted by Mitch at March 15, 2005 06:46 AM | TrackBack