Coincidence? You Decide.

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.

Mickey says:

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?