InstaGlenn [1] notes this norning an article in the Economist, which says in part:
“The erosion of the old media establishment probably does entail some shift to the right, if only because so many of the newer voices are more reliably pro-Republican than Mr Rather.
I regard this as being more reflective of the country itself thanMr. Rather. And this is a facit of Blogdom that many, inclding apparently the economist do not understand, nor do they reckon with; Larger numbers of voices are a better representation of the society.
Large numbers in the voter turnout were previously considered to mean a lean to the left. I’ve always held otherwise… that the country was more to the right than anyone, particularly the press, suspected. So, after this most recent eelction we find that the larger numbers of voters predictably means a swing… not to the right, but away from the extreme left.
Thus, the perception of blogdom tending to lean right isn’t because blogdom itself is shifted to the right, it’s because blogdom, being larger in number, than the news orgs, are a better representation of the voices of society than the three Networks, and society itself leans more to the right than Rather. (OK, let’s be honest… Fidel Castro leans more to the right than Rather does, but the point is made.)
The larger implication of this fact is that the left doesn’t have the societal support they think they do… and they’ve yet to reckon with this fact. The news media being leftist themselves, reflect this lack of understanding. It may, in fact, be years before they understand this.
But the new media are simply too anarchic and subversive for any single political faction to take control of them. There are plenty of leftish bloggers too: such people helped Howard Dean’s presidential campaign.
Here, the Economist starts to guzzle the kool-aid. Do they really expect us to beleieve as they apparently do, that Dean’s “blogging” efforts was ever anything but a group of paid writers hawking leftist dogma like day-old bread at a bargain outlet? About the only thing most blogs had to do with Dean’s was that they both came up on the internet when called.
And the most successful conservative bloggers are far from being party loyalists: look at the way in 2002 that they kept the heat on the Republicans’ then Senate leader, Trent Lott, for racist remarks that the New York Times originally buried.
And they continue to gulp the kool-aid down. At the very least, they continue to not understand what drives the right.
And this is the capper, for me…
It is a safe bet that, if the current Bush administration goes the way of previous second-term administrations and becomes consumed by scandals, conservative bloggers will be in the forefront of the scandal-mongering.
Rather like wishful thinking, huh?
Oh, I’ve no doubt that the KOS-clones of the world will be trying to create scandal… a look at Usenet and Kos’s page (to say nothing of the DUh crowd) shows they’re already trying to create such.
Yet this comment from the Economist… indeed the whole article, sounds suspiciously like trying to establish an scandalous expectation of the Bush Administration, so the left will have something to bound their wounds with. They’re still looking to play the politics of blame, and are still looking for something to point the finger of blame at.