Itz News to Me

I’ve posted comments on several sites in response to the faux-controversery of Ed Whelans naming the blogger-formerly-known-as-Publius. My basic point is that if you want use a pseudonym in order to protect your “real-life” reputation, then you have no right attacking the reputation of those with enough courage to put their names to their opinions. It’s the craven act of a coward to complain that someone has “outed” them after the whiny, little brat picks a fight and then runs to hide behind the skirts of a pseudonym.

 Jules Crittenden makes the same point a bit more eloquently….

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I know it’s thin gruel, but I can’t help but speculate if Andrew Sullivan’s bosses at The Atlantic have suggested that he take a few days off - whether he likes it or not…

After a week of breathlessly “reporting” every kind of speculative slur against Sarah Palin at the behest of David Axelrod and the Obama campaign - each and every one of which was subsequently debunked with some actual fact-checking, his blog has gone uncharacteristically silent for over 24 hours now. His last post was a view from a window with the simple title “The View From Your Window” - reminiscent of the kind of pouting a child does when his mother grounds him and sends him to his room.

The Atlantic has been taking some well-deserved abuse from bloggers for continuing to write paychecks for a guy whose writing tends to remind one of a gossipy teenage girl engaged in a verbal slapfight with her rival over the star quarterback (that is when he’s not indulging himself in outright anti-Semitism or narcissistic back-patting). The only thing which separates him from those anonymous Kos diarists whose work is periodically disappeared down the memory hole after it becomes an embarrassment even to them is The Atlantic masthead.

It would show the first moment of good judgment from The Atlantic’s management since the Palin onslaught began if this is indeed the case, but only time will tell if this is anything more than rank speculation on my part…

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To hear Democrats (and their media cohorts) talk about Iraq and Afghanistan, you’d think we’re getting our butts kicked. But evidently nobody gave Al-Qaeda the party talking points.

The guys at Powerline don’t have any special access to classified documents the way that the New York Times does. They’re just looking at publicly available documents, and they found yet another nugget in the treasure trove recovered from Zarqawi’s headquarters which any reporter interested in the real truth would (and should) have discovered long ago if they were interested in anything other than playing politics with the war.

It’s plainly evident from this letter that: a) our operations in Afghanistan are succeeding at tying down Al-Qaeda leadership, b) our operations in Iraq are succeeding in alienating Al-Qaeda from any popular support in Iraq, and c) the Democratic party is conspiring with its media allies to keep this information from the American public.

There is no way that reporters who have repeatedly put classified information on the front pages of newspapers and at the top of news broadcasts don’t have access to the same information that a couple of pretty regular Joes were able to dig up. But they won’t publish it because were it widely known then George Bush specifically and Republicans generally would be walking to a landslide victory in the upcoming elections.

Thank God the days of Democratic party operatives at the helms of major media corporations controlling the news cycle are coming to an end with the continuing rise of bloggers. For the last couple of decades, they decided what made the headlines and what Americans were told about the state of their country and the world at large. But the explosion of citizen media on the internet is changing that, and they couldn’t be more unhappy about it…

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