Rightank

An interesting report was issued this week regarding the impact of political bloggers, particularly the liberals or “progressives.” (I don’t understand why the Left desires to use “progressive” in lieu of “liberal.” Even if they believe this massages the radicialism out of the liberalism, any American who is semi-intelligent will see beyond such linguistic tomfoolery).

The report, entitled “Emergence of a Progressive Blogosphere: A New Force in American Politics,” attempts to argue that liberal bloggers are gaining ground politically through the blogosphere and already carry internet trophies commemorating their enterprising successes.

What is interesting are the “successes” attributed to both liberal and conservative bloggers. In most cases, the successes attributed to liberal bloggers were glorified failures. Conservatives, however, can legitimately claim victories:

Liberal

Outcome: John Bolton was appointed by President Bush as a recess appointment. John Bolton is the U.S. Ambassador to the U.N.

Outcome: The Downing Street Memo was mentioned by the press. So what? The memo’s bite was a supposition by a British staffer that the Bush Administration planned to get rid of Saddam before possesses adequate intelligence or evidence to support a war in Iraq. A mere supposition hardly is an accusation or evidence of vindictive intent on Bush to eliminate Saddam without assessing his threat to our national security.

Outcome: This success claim is the most legitimate. President Bush’s social security plan is in the works for next year, however. Thus, at best this success could be described as “defeating W.’s social security plan in 2005.” That’s it.

Outcome: First key word: little. Second key word: noticed. Third key word: affair. Result: If success is measured by hitting the pages of the New York Times, perhaps the authors of the report need to look at the dwindling subscription numbers of the Gray Lady.

Outcome: Hackett lost. If losing is succeeding, the liberals and liberal bloggers are doing a bang-up job.

Conservative

Outcome: Daschle lost to John Thume in the Senate race in South Dakota. Quite a success to clean-out Daschle, although I believe other conservative interest groups like the Club for Growth influenced the race more than the bloggers. Success #1

Outcome: Excellent book by John O’Neill and Jerome Corsi and. New York Times bestseller. Millions read it. Key component in defeating John Kerry. Success #2

Outcome: Jordan made stupid comments alleging U.S. soldiers were deliberating shooting at journalists. Jordan was fired as a result. Success #3

Outcome: Labeling Dan Rather’s deliberate use of a forged memorandum in an attempt to tarnish President Bush’s military service a “charge” implies that the authors of the report believe the charge is untrue. Perhaps, they need to re-educate themselves, but the impish habit liberals have of ignoring the truth in order to push their agenda is hard to break. The truth to Rathergate is here. Rather was forced to recant, even though he still maintains that the memorandum is authentic. Success #4

The authors of the report, Chris Bowers and Matthew Stoller, belie their claim that “progressive bloggers” success on the internet trumphs conservative victories. Even as bloggers, they still seek to liberally spin the truth in order to justify success or rally their cause. The report is interesting, but bogged down in spin. They are right about one thing though: the blogosphere is the campaign headquarters of the future.

Here is a copy of the email (with some minor changes) I sent to the Federal Election Commission regarding proposed rule changes to campaign finance regulations with a particular emphasis on bloggers editorial and commentorial contributions during the federal election cycle. Enjoy:

To Mr. Brad C. Deutsch, Assistant General Counsel of the Federal Election Commission:

This electronic communication from a United States citizen addresses the Commission’s proposed changes to rules and regulations governing the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002, commonly referred to as “McCain-Feingold.”

I desire to address the proposed rules and regulations from a blogger’s perspective. I operate a blog named “Rightank” located on the World Wide Web at http://rightank.com or http://www.rightank.com. I use the blogname “Tank” in posting content on my blog and responding to visitors to my site whether by electronic mail or through comments on my posts. My comments are as follows:

Part II.B

* The Commission should amend 11 CFR § 100.26 to explicitly state that “bloggers” are not included in the definition of “public communication.” Generally, I fear that some in both the main-stream media (particularly print or television) desire to limit the influence of the blogosphere among the general populace. Whether their motivation is financial (loss of advertisement revenue due to declining readership) or loss of political influence, their criticisms of bloggers are real. See Peggy Noonan, “The Blogs Must Be Crazy: Or Maybe the MSM is Just Suffering From Freedom Envy.” By explicitly inserting “bloggers,” it would protect a blogger from any concerted effort by a single media outlet or conglomerate to threaten the blogger into silencing himself or herself based on the notion that the blogger is acting unlawfully in his or her voluntary writing on behalf of a particular candidate or viewpoint that closely aligns with a “clearly identified candidate for Federal office.” See 2 USC 431(20)(A)(iii). Moreover, an explicit definition will prempt a court from judicially including “bloggers” (bloggers who receive renumeration and those who do not) as part of the definition of “public communication” as a means “of general public poltical advertising.” See 11 CFR § 100.26.

Part IV.B

* The Commission should require a blogger to disclose payments from a candidate, a campaign, or political committee if the payments are made to promote, attack, support, or oppose a Federal candidate. See 2 USC 431(20)(A)(iii) and 441i(b). While independent bloggers invigorate, inform, and enliven a robust public debate during election season, bloggers who receive monetary sums on behalf of their advocacy should disclose the source of their finananical gains. My rationale is two-fold: (1) The poltiical blogosphere might metamorphose similar to the 527 political action groups that enabled wealthy individuals to circumvent campaign finance law, rules, and regulations and exercise inordinate influence on the outcome of the campaign, hamstringing poltical parties and others who lawfully adhered to the rules; and (2) Disclosure would help the public would identify the financial source of the viewpoint in order to substantiate its validity and veracity.
* An exemption for smaller blogs might also be appropriate as some blogs are read more voraciously than others. For example, a blog whose readership is less than 1,000 hits a month and who receives a nominal amount (less than $100) would be exempted from the disclosure rule.

Part V.B

* The Commission should amend 11 CFR § 109.21(c)(2) to exempt all dissemination, distribution, or republication of campaign materials on the Internet generally and excise the reference in the regulation to “public communication.” Habitually and near-uniformly, bloggers link to each other’s blogs and link to other news and information sources when posting. Moreover, it is extremely unlikely that any independent blogger thinks about whether linking to an information source and thereby disseminating, distributing, or republishing that information source is a “public communication.” See 11 CFR § 100.26. A blanket exemption would actively promote a robust public debate “by the millions of individuals [who] daily . . .share [political] information and air their views on a variety of subjects” and prevent a squelching of informative discourse and differing viewpoints from reaching the public’s eye. See Internet Communications, 70 Fed. Reg. 16967, 16971 (proposed March 29, 2005) (to be codified at 11 CFR pts. 100, 110, & 114). In addition, an explicit exemption of all bloggers would eliminate the burdensome regulatory inquiry to determine whether a public communication has occured. For example, a determination whether multitudinous linking by “Group X” bloggers to a particular post by “X” blogger who received renumeration for his on-line entry was an impermissble “contribution.” See 2 USC 431(8)(A)(i).

Part VI

* The Commission should rule that bloggers are entitled to the “periodical publications” exemption for expenditures. See 2 USC 431(9)(B)(i). The exemption covers three types of informative output from traditional media sources: news stories, commentaries, or editorials. See 2 USC 431(9)(B)(i). Arguably, bloggers publish all three types of informative output or a combination of all three. See, e.g., Tank, “If I Were President . . .” (last visited May 29, 2005). Moreover, blogs are similar to on-line and print media sources in that they “provide direct access to poltical news and events and offer commentary on current affairs.” See Internet Communications, 70 Fed. Reg. 16967, 16975 (proposed March 29, 2005) (to be codified at 11 CFR pts. 100, 110, & 114). The exemption should not apply to bloggers who are compensated for editorials, news stories, or commentaries made on behalf of a poltical party. Such payments would constitute “control” by a candidate, political party, or political committee only if the blogger produced “multiple” editorials, news stories, or commentaries. The Commission should define “multiple” as “two or more on-line editorials, news stories, or commentaries within one week of on-line publication or archive.” This would balance the freedoms of the blogger in advocating for his or her candidate, poltical party, or political committee of choice and the regulatory aims of federal campaign fund disclosure and transparency.

Part VIII

* The Commission should enact the proposed rules on exceptions to the defintions of “contribution” and “expenditure” for individuals or volunteers (including “bloggers”) who act independently for the purpose of influencing a federal election. See Uncompensated Individual or Volunteer Activity That is not a Contribution, 70 Fed Reg. 16967, 16977-78 (proposed March 29, 2005) (to be codified at 11 CFR pt. 100); Uncompensated Individual or Volunteer Activity That is not an Expenditure, 70 Fed Reg. 16967, 16978 (proposed March 29, 2005) (to be codified at 11 CFR pt.100). A blogger should be able to independently advocate for the candidate, political party, or political commitee of his or her own choosing without regulatory repercussion. Anything less will inhibit robust debate and eliminate the requisite quantum of political discourse necessary to promote democracy and to protect and defend our Constitutional Republic.

In Federalist #1, Alexander Hamilton queried “whether societies of men are really capable or not of establishing good government from reflection and choice.” Thankfully, our Framers established such a goverment. Bloggers amplify the ability of our society to reflect and choose which candidates for Federal office best align with their values, interests, and beliefs. I strongly urge the implementation of the above comments and leave them for your thoughtful mediation and analysis. Thank you for your time and consideration and for your service to our country.

Respectfully submitted,

/s/ Tank
“Tank”
rightank@gmail.com

As I was perusing the updated conservative/liberal ratings of U.S. Senators and Representatives, I stumbled across yet another journalist miffed about the bloggers success.

Williams Powers’s piece in the latest issue of National Journal at first-glance reads as if Powers approves of bloggers but actually is a stealth-attack masked as favorable parlance. Powers indeliably praises the bloggers (e.g., for the takedown of CNN executive Eason Jordan), however, he describes the result as “wicked.” Also, Powers is mistaken in claiming the MSM was centrist! before the bloggers arrival:

The current momentis troubling for a lot of people precisely because it’s so cannibalistic. In the last half of the 20th century, the media consolidated a great deal of power for themselves in a tiny tribe of supreme outlets. Since those outlets had strong tendencies toward the center (because that’s where the big audiences and the money are), it was inevitable that a lot of news consumer –those who aren’t so centrist –would be unhappy with the product.

Calling the MSM centrist is a joke. I wonder who he believes is centrist: The New York Times? The Washington Post?

Powers reasons that because only the MSM can perform “the heavy journalistic lifting” necessary to vet out the truth or produce real news, bloggers will soon fade away into obscurity.

Powers is wrong. He appears, from his clever but substance-less writing, that he is one of those snob journalists who feels that one needs a degree in journalism or a job at a MSM outlet to be taken seriously.

As the Eason Jordan scenario (among others) illustrates: Bloggers are staying and Journalists now have some competition. How sad, Mr. Powers. How sad indeed.

Check out this cartoon. Down with the Main Stream Media (”MSM”)!!!