Bloggasm

Simon Owens: Which conservative bloggers do you think create the most spin? And if you had to pick a conservative blogger to label a worthy adversary, which blogger would that be?

Rising Hegemon: Spinners? I suppose Michelle Malkin or the Cornerites or Instapundit, but I’ve found they generally don’t do much more than repeat whatever the White House is pushing.

I mock many conservative bloggers but I really don’t consider any adversaries. I don’t engage in a lot of back and forth with any conservative blogs.

Simon Owens: How likely do you think the recent wire-tap uncoverings will unhinge the Bush Administration? Are they in any real danger?

Rising Hegemon: I have no faith in the cover being ripped off the Administration. I wonder often if the media is afraid of what they will find there.

Simon Owens: How many direct ties do you think will be found between the Jack Abramoff ordeal and individual congressmen?

Rising Hegemon: Extensive between several Republican Congressman, indirectly to scores more. Almost exclusively Republican.

Simon Owens: What are the five blogs everyone should be reading (besides your own)?

Rising Hegemon: I’m going to try to stick to blogs that don’t get the attention they deserve perhaps as opposed to the bigger blogs.

Dependable Renegade
First Draft
Echidne of the Snakes
Democratic Veteran
Needlenose

You can find Rising Hegemon over here.

Dependable Renegade:Dependable Renegade is a mix of political humor and general exasperation. It’ll be a year old on 2/13. My god, soon I can start buying it the Pampers Pull-ups!

Simon Owens: Which conservative bloggers do you think create the most spin?

Dependable Renegade: Tough question - so many of them are convinced by their own spin that their blogs seem a bit . . . detached . . . from reality. I think I’d have to give the award to Jonah Goldberg, though. He’s a real whiny assed titty baby. I’d also include the screeching of the always wrong Michelle Malkin and the often delusional Instapundit.

Simon Owens: And if you had to pick a conservative blogger to label a worthy adversary, which blogger would that be?

Dependable Renegade: Um…I know this is going to sound wrong, but I’ve yet to read a conservative blog that’s funny. I think that’s what separates conservatives and liberals. Chris Rock? Funny! Dennis Miller? NOT funny!

Simon Owens: Do you think that colleges are breading a new species of young liberals which will affect politics in the coming years?

Dependable Renegade: I haven’t been on a college campus in quite some time, but if current events are any indication, I’d say that there is a scary resurgence of McCarthy Era tactics employed by some very scary people who are trying to shut down “liberal” professors. However, I have attended many a protest march, and I’m heartened to see the sheer numbers of college-aged kids participating.

Simon Owens: If you had to pick one thing that Bush has done right, what would it be?

Dependable Renegade: Bush? Done something right? It is to laugh. The only thing that this adminstration has gotten right is manipulating the American people with a finely tuned spin machine that spits out fear. Well, that and its full-nelson on the corporate media.

Simon Owens: What are the five blogs everyone should be reading (besides your own)?

Dependable Renegade: Hmm. Hard call on that one, since I know quite a few bloggers. I’m not going to give you the usual (Atrios, Josh Marshall, Digby, Jesus’ General - all well worth the time) and I’ll try to be as impartial as possible and in no particular order - these are the ones I visit daily:

a. James Wolcott - the Godfather of Snark. Nobody else does it with such finesse.

b. Firedoglake - I turn to Jane, ReddHedd, and Loren for all things Plamegate and for thoughtful analysis on current events.

c. Dohiyi Mir - for a Quaker, NTodd curses a lot, but he also takes a stand, engages in honest debate, heated or otherwise, with his readers, and has some really cute pets.

d. Rising Hegemon - the stealth blog. I wholeheartedly admit that I copied Dr. Atta J. Turk’s act after reading his incendiary and hysterical photocaptions and I really love his “primitive” photoshop work. Also, he and I co-blog elsewhere.

e. TBogg. If Wolcott’s the Godfather of Snark, then TBogg’s the Capo. I do so appreciate his fine turn of phrase and keen sense of irony. And again, he’s got really cute pets.

(if you have really cute pets, I’m telling you, post their pictures. Drives the hit count through the ROOF!)

Simon Owens: Which conservative bloggers do you think create the most spin? And if you had to pick a conservative blogger to label a worthy adversary, which blogger would that be?

Brian Linse: I don’t think conservative blogs create any spin at all. What they do often, however, is uncritically disseminate the talking points and spin emanating out of official Republican circles. Compared to the Lefty side of the Blogosphere, the Blog Right does very little original analysis work, and very seldom takes positions critical of their Republican masters. There are, of course, exceptions, like Tom Maguire at JustOneMinute, but it strikes me that they prove the rule.

The high-traffic conservo blogs are all just part of the Republican Noise Machine now. The degree to which they wittingly provide this service varies depending on the blog in question, but I don’t think there is any question that the Lefty blogs are, as a group, much more critical and independent of their own presumed political allies. The irony, of course, is that this difference is of some short-term benefit to the Right in keeping “on message”, but the continued greater growth of traffic to Lefty blogs would seem to indicate that they are reaching an ever widening audience while conservative blogs, in relative terms, are stagnating. I believe that the relative independence of the Lefties, and the greater credibility that comes with that independence, are key factors in the Left finally overtaking the Right in terms of blog traffic. This is no small feat considering how dominant the conservative side was for the first three years of the political Blogoshpere.

My daily blog reading used to cover half a dozen conservatives, but they have all gone over to the dark side, and now offer nothing but Republican CW and spin. I used to enjoy the many smart conservo bloggers from the early days, but I seldom read any of them now. Bill Quick’s Daily Pundit hasn’t changed much since he invented the term “Blogosphere”, but of the old-timers he is a rare exception. I still check in with him (and always disagree with him) from time to time to take the temperature of the conservative blog mind. I just feel that all the others have lost perspective and are preaching to their own choir.

The only blog from the Right that I have any daily interest in is John Cole’s Balloon Juice. Cole is a real conservative. He is bright, thoughtful, passionate, and as open-minded as any partisan could hope to be. He is the only conservative blogger that I’d care to debate, and certainly the only one I’d ever expect might beat me. I read him every day.

SO: Have the Democrats disappointed you at all on how they performed during the Alito hearings? What could they have done differently?

BL: The Dems, as a party, almost never fail to disappoint me. The fact of the matter is, the Left lost this SCOTUS battle when they lost the election. And whether or not one believes in any of the theories regarding election fraud, the fact is that it was only Democratic incompetence that allowed the vote to be even close enough to steal. There is no excuse for the Democratic party to have failed so miserably with the Kerry campaign.

Given the recent track record of the Dems as a party, however, I was not as disappointed in the Alito hearings as I expected to be. The Dems certainly performed better than they did with Roberts, and they did manage to make some noise about unchecked executive power.

SO: What do you think Osama Bin Laden’s reasons were when he released a tape offering a truce with America? Did he really think we’d bite, or was there a more subtle motive involved?

BL: I think OBL has played Bush like a violin from the very start. He’s a madman (that’s OBL, not GWB) so it’s hard to guess what his reasons were, but I’ll bet that whatever the wrong response is, Bush will choose it. So far, Bush has eliminated a rare secular state in the region that will now likely emerge as a theocratic nation in the Iran mode; he’s alienated many of our allies and given Islamist psychopaths like bin Laden fuel for creating an entire generation of terrorists; and he’s stretched the US military so thin that we are virtually powerless to act anywhere else in the world if needs be. I’d say OBL is probably quite happy with the way things are turning out.

SO: What are the five blogs everyone should be reading (besides your own)?

BL: My blog was only a must-read years ago when it was one of only three partisan liberal blogs that existed. Things have changed so much that being a must-read requires being a full-time blogger.

Depending upon what issues are hot at any given time, my list of must read blogs varies. As a core set of blogs for anyone who wants to keep informed I’d have to include Eschaton as the guide to the Left’s blog world activities. Atrios is to the Left what Instapundit is to the Right – a quick and easy way to check in on the day’s topics of interest. Digby’s Hullaballoo is without question the best writing available on any blog, and his position represents the more aggressive side of the Left Blogosphere. Political Animal is a more centrist Lefty view, and as I mentioned above, John Cole’s Balloon Juice is the only broad topics conservative blog that is worth reading for the purpose of learning and thinking.

Anyone interested in how the blog form works should also be reading Kausfiles. Mickey Kaus practically invented the current political blog, and we all owe him a great deal. Nobody exploits the form better than Kaus - at least not without copying his approach - and he is now engaged in a new type of blog over at Bloggingheads.tv. Check it out.

For me, though, one of the great joys of reading blogs is discovering the new kids; the brilliant crank with a computer and a little spare time. Jane Hamsher’s firedoglake is the latest, but I can remember when I first read some of today’s most popular bloggers at the “crank with a computer” stage. It’s harder for the new kids to break out now, but always a joy when they do.

You can find Aintnobaddude over here

Lenin’s Tomb: As to provenance, I’m from a drab small town in Northern Ireland, known for its dour Unionism and habitual violence. I myself transcended the sectarian divide by kneecapping people on both sides of the community. I moved to London as soon as the opportunity presented itself, and have stayed here to work, study, inspire tumult and generally make the place untidy. The blog began as a means of supporting my writing practise, which before then had been restricted to interventions on various message boards. Aside from bibliophilic narcissism, the blog also allows me to express obviously marginal politics in a way that I hope is convincing. The blog was markedly improved, I think, by it’s transformation into a group effort last year.

Simon Owens: Which conservative bloggers do you think create the most spin? And if you had to pick a conservative blogger to label a worthy adversary, which blogger would that be?

Lenin’s Tomb: I rarely actually read conservative blogs, but the memes that they disseminate can usually be traced back. Generally speaking, I think the most contemptible, untrustworthy conservative blogger is Oliver Kamm. Curiously, despite all evidence to the contrary, he seems to regard himself as being on the Left - but that is an artefact of a political climate in which the word ‘Left’ has come to mean, in some hands, simply commitment to an unproblematised Enlightenment rationalism.

But to come back to the conservative blogs, I rarely read them and have found few of them to be of interest - the only exception being Paul Craddick’s Fragmentica Philosophica, which would certainly be a worthy adversary if I could bring myself to dislike it.

The reason I don’t read conservative blogs, is because there is little to be gained. There is an attempt to coopt Bloggers as a sort of new ‘commentariat’, an online community of natterers, a cyberspace chattering class, one that validates and corroborates the existing media diapason of gossips, bores, ranters and joke-boxes. There is, as it happens, an old Northern Irish joke that sums up my attitude to this community: ‘St Peter is standing at the pearly gates, administering the bouncer treatment to would-be entrants to heaven, when he notices that half-way down the queue is a bulky IRA man in army fatigues and a green balaclava. St Peter strides up to him and says “Excuse me, but I don’t think you can get in here.” The man says to him “Who wants in? You’ve got twenty minutes to get the fuck out!”‘

I want no part of this narcissistic gang of petit-bourgeois navel-gazers, particularly with their latest Ways To Be Good.

Simon Owens: Your blog has a high amount of reader comment activity. Do you read your reader feedback closely, and does it help you in increasing the accuracy of your reporting?

Lenin’s Tomb: Yeah, I read almost all of the comments, and involve myself a great deal in debates and argument with various trolls and geniuses. There are certainly a number of extremely well-informed and articulate commenters, many of whom will not hesitate to correct a mis-citation or exaggeration. On the other hand, there appears to be a couple of trolls whose main end is to divert and ruin intelligent conversation with endless red herrings and (often racist) provocations. I delete those, and totally disregard all ensuing pleas about free speech, tolerance of difference etc. I’m a Leninist, dammit!

Simon Owens: How much influence do you think special interests groups have on politics and general awareness? Which interest groups are the most effective?

Lenin’s Tomb: I think “special interests groups” is a topic of American political discourse that has few resonances in Britain. To be sure, there are corporate lobbies who make use of PR firms like Hill & Knowlton here, and they certainly have a way of influencing the news. And the biggest such group is the Confederation of British Industry, which has an uncanny ability to ensure that it’s views are rarely without support in the government.

Given the comparative lack of resources, however, you have to admire groups like the Stop the War Coalition and even the Palestine Solidarity Campaign for their ability to maintain a persistent base of support and activities - despite, in the latter case, repeated harrassment and attempts to shut them down.

Simon Owens: What are the five blogs everyone should be reading (besides your own)?

Lenin’s Tomb: Dead Men Left: fellow socialist, economist, and acerbic political commentator.

Le Colonel Chabert: exquisite prose, penetrating political and cultural analyses and, what is rare in Bloggery, serious commitment.

K-Punk: withering political, cultural and philosophical insights.

Charlotte Street: literary criticism, philosophy and witty political interventions.

Jews Sans Frontieres: anti-Zionist dispatches from a Jewish East Londoner dedicated to Palestinian liberation.

You can find Lenin’s Tomb over here

David Neiwert is a freelance journalist based in Seattle. He is the author of Strawberry Days: How Internment Destroyed a Japanese American Community (Palgrave/St. Martin’s Press, June 2005), as well as Death on the Fourth of July: The Story of a Killing, a Trial, and Hate Crime in America, (Palgrave/St. Martin’s, 2004), and In God’s Country: The Patriot Movement and the Pacific Northwest (1999, WSU Press). His reportage for MSNBC.com on domestic terrorism won the National Press Club Award for Distinguished Online Journalism in 2000. His freelance work can be found at Salon.com, the Washington Post, MSNBC and various other publications.

Simon Owens: Which conservative bloggers do you think create the most spin? And if you had to pick a conservative blogger to label a worthy adversary, which blogger would that be?

David Neiwert: Most spin? If by “most spin” you mean “most mendacious,” I’d say Glenn Reynolds and Michelle Malkin, with Hugh Hewitt a close third. And though he doesn’t rank with them, Dean Esmay is in a class to himself when it comes to dishonesty.

I’ve really only seen two conservative bloggers who I think, for the most part, argue honestly: Tacitus and John Cole. For that reason I also consider them the most worthy adversaries.

SO: In a world where anyone with an extra five minutes can set up a political blog, how does one go about figuring out which bloggers to pick a fight with and which ones just aren’t worth your time?

DN: My criteria for fight-picking is based on my own internal gauge for the harm inflicted by the misinformation I’m typically confronting when I write such a post. In some cases, someone with a megaphone will attract my ire just because the Newspeak they’re spreading reaches so many people; in other instances, the depths of the ugliness or viciousness of a lesser blogger might set me off. It tends to depend on the posts in question.

SO: Do you think that liberal political blogs help improve America’s image to foreigners in that they show there is a very large percentage of the population that disagrees with the president?

DN: Sure. I think any kind of progressive grass-roots activism performs the same function. Though I would never say that’s a reason to blog at all, or even is close to the most important function of liberal blogs in the course of our discourse.

SO: What are the five blogs everyone should be reading (besides your own)?

DN: Eschaton. Firedoglake. Jesus’ General. James Wolcott. Digby. On days when I can’t scan the blogs I still read them.

You can read Orcinus over here

Simon Owens: Which conservative bloggers do you think create the most spin? And if you had to pick a conservative blogger to label a worthy adversary, which blogger would that be?

Echidne of the Snakes: The spin created depends on the particular topic we are discussing. The ones that create spin about the Iraq war, for example, may not be able to create spin about something else. Drudge seems to have a lot of power, but I’m not sure if he is regarded a blogger as such. Andrew Sullivan is fairly widely read, too, and so are InstaPundit and Powerline. Bloggers like Ann Coulter or Michelle Malkin appear to me to try to create a lot of outrage.

Simon Owens: As a feminist, how do you view women who tend to be conservative? Do you consider them naive people who aren’t looking out for their own interests?

Echidne of the Snakes: I view all women as individuals who differ from each other as much as men differ from each other, so the conservative women tend to be like the conservative men. They value the same things in life. They may feel that the current society has dealt them a good hand, for example, or they may be very religious, and religions tend to be fairly anti-women in their preaching.

I don’t think that they are necessarily naive, though all sorts of people can be naive. What makes any person tick is really hard to decipher from outside, but I’d say that “looking out for ones own interest” doesn’t make for a good understanding of wider policy dilemmas. Because as I said, people are individuals with more or less in common, and we don’t want to make the world based on only our own life experiences.

Simon Owens: What are some of the main problems females face now in the 21st Century?

Echidne of the Snakes: This depends on the part of the world we are looking at. In Africa, the main problem of women is to try to stay alive and healthy. AIDS is a serious problem for all Africans, but it is an extremely serious problem for young women in countries where women don’t have the right to refuse unprotected sex. And then there are medical conditions such as fistulas. Google them to find out the kinds of horror stories that are daily life for many African women.

In some extremely Islamic countries women will have to fight to keep any of the rights we take for granted: the right to travel without a husband’s permission, the right to have a job, the right to inherit.

Family violence is a concern in many countries. Wife beating is culturally sanctioned in quite a few countries.

In the United States, the major problem women face today is the pushback from those who would like to reverse Roe vs. Wade. If this is combined with an attack on birth control we are fairly close to a world where women can’t decide on the timing and spacing of their children. The ability to do this seems to me to be a precondition for gender equality.

Then women will also have most of the same problems men in the same countries have, of course.

Simon Owens: What are the five blogs everyone should be reading (besides your own)?

Echidne of the Snakes: This is a tricky one to answer, because there are so many good blogs out there, and because the blogs I read for writing purposes are not necessarily the same as the blogs I read for pure entertainment or in order to learn more about something. But if we limit the question to political blogs from the left blogosphere, I’d recommend Digby (for deep analyses), Eschaton (for an unerring finger-on-the-pulse type of news), James Wolcott (for excellent writing in irony), Pandagon (for posts about feminism, racism and homophobism especially) and the Suburban Guerrilla (for just good reporting and analysis). But I could immediately write another list of five and so on…

You can find Echidne of the Snakes over here.

Simon Owens: Which conservative bloggers do you think create the most spin? And if you had to pick a conservative blogger to label a worthy adversary, which blogger would that be?

Steve Gilliard: None. I think the lot of them are liars and preternaturally dishonest. I don’t read them, I don’t link to them, I don’t like them.

SO: Bush has had many failures both on the domestic and foreign front. Which of the two do you thin he’s the worst at?

SG: I would say Katrina and Iraq are the obvious ones. His complete failuire on Katrina will take a generation to correct. Iraq’s effect will be lucky if they end in a generation.

SO: Conservative pundits continue to claim that we must “win the Iraq war.” What does “winning” the war entail? What does it mean to win?

SG: First, most of them are cowards who want teenagers to die for their beliefs. They act like this is a game, yay Marine Corps. Well, winning in Iraq means getting the US Army home in one piece, hoping there isn’t a general uprising against us by the Shia majority. We have little to no hope of influencing the political course of the country at this time. That’s the only victory possible. The resistance will continue as long as we stay there.

SO: What are the five blogs everyone should be reading (besides your own)?

SG: Firedoglake, Crooks and Liars, Informed Comment, The Black Commentator (more magazine than blog), Jesus’s General

You can find The News Blog over here.