I'm doing a bunch of project budget stuff for four or five projects which involves sitting on the phone listening to people estimate based on data they don't really have. But the client needs the numbers, and I timebox them anyway so the range I give upward is accurate. But it involves much sitting on the phone listening to people figure stuff out. I surf the blogs while I do that, I'll admit, and am good enough at multitasking that I can even come back to focus on issues where my thoughts and information are useful.
So today, I'm reading Micky Kaus' blog and had a kind of a "giggle" moment.
Another party I'm not invited to. And you aren't either: Vlogging fogey lashes out at ur-whippersnapper Ezra Klein, upon learning that Klein has created a private Townhouse-like email group where liberal bloggers and editors hash out issues before they let the public in on the discussion. ... P.S.: Yes, I have private email discussions too, and there are probably some advantages in having these talks in front of a group instead of one-on-one. (If, say, Sidney Blumenthal emails five leftish bloggers privately, all five might think they have an exclusive. If they compare notes, they won't.). But the innovative virtue of Web journalism, I've always thought, is that it makes the back and forth process of argument and investigation relatively transparent to everyone. If the Klein Klub succeeds, isn't there a threat that it will a) compromise independence, in part because participants will always worry if they are using something that should be kept private and will feel they owe the other members; b) will encourage groupthink, as everyone works out the tacit party line before presenting it to their sheeple-like readers; c) encourage propgandism (see (b)); and d) become the place where the real conversation happens, a conversation the non-elite public isn't privy to. ... P.P.S.: Who's in the Klein Klub? Have they published a list of names? The sheeple demand to know at least that! ... P.P.P.S.: Chait, I know you're in it. Who else? ...
Why is this funny?
Because the other day roy, over at Alicublog laid into the anti-Emohawk blogs with this:
ATTENTION COMRADES! Previous meme "Scott Thomas does not exist" is no longer operative. Please to substitute "Scott Thomas Beauchamp is a bad man" or "Scott Thomas Beauchamp is Oliver Stone" or "Scott Thomas Beauchamp is a semiotic construct" or "We'll get Scott Thomas Beauchamp fired" or whatever damn thing you can think of.
...wonder if roy is on Ezra's mailing list? I seem to recall another mailing list a few years ago, run by Kos; I recall a to-do when someone publicized the existence of the list.
You'd assume that someone would invite me...if there was a right-wing listserv out there, the last liberal hawk ought to get a pass, don't you think? But no...which suggests a) there isn't one; and b) the prog-blogs not only have one but are using rhetorical accusations that the right-blogs have one as a weapon.
Mirrors reflecting mirrors reflecting mirrors. Motes and logs, as they say. Or maybe that's just why all the prog-blogs sound the same?
Simple answer: projection.
I think Robin Roberts' simple answer is right.
Yes, it's also why Bush (and we) are always being called liars.
Remember the left-wing paranoia in the last American presidential election about the Republicans pulling off an "October surprise" or "late hit" on the elections. Every sort of paranoid scheme was advanced in frenzied seriousness, including needless "wag the dog" military operations, and Osama Bin Laden, long under wraps in secrecy, being produced late, in disregard of what would work for the war but purely for electoral advantage. All these schemes assumed that the Republicans were totally dishonest, focused on domestic political advantage in the narrowest and meanest sense, and indifferent to the war and America's standing in the world.
In the election, what did we see? There was no Republican surprise. But there was every attempt by the mainstream / Democratic media to pull of a late hit, culminating in the bogus story about hundreds of tons of explosives. All this was done without regard for the war or America's international standing, for partisan advantage in the meanest possible sense, and in total disregard of all the ethical standards that these journalists and related workers could have followed or not followed. If there was a line and they thought they could get away with crossing it, they crossed it.
Projection fueled the "October surprise" and "late hit" fantasies.
Or maybe that's just why all the prog-blogs sound the same?
Actually it's because we all like to make jokes. Treasonous jokes, but jokes nonetheless.