THE NEW LIBERAL CW….After a lull following the 2004 election, liberal blogs are suddenly front page news again. Steve Benen comments:
On Thursday, the Washington Post’s David Broder rejected “liberal bloggers,” claiming that “the blogs I have scanned are heavier on vituperation of President Bush and other targets than on creative thought.” Today, the New York Times’ David Brooks, while specifically lashing out at Kos, characterized liberal bloggers as “small-minded,” and described sites as “squadrons of rabid lambs [who] unleash their venom on those who stand in the way.”
And then, of course, there’s the ugly fight The New Republic picked with Kos….What on earth is going on here? What’s fueling all this anti-blog rage? Jealousy? Elitism? And if blogs are written and read by fringe ideologues that don’t matter, why are all these major media personalities so worked up?
I don’t know. Maybe it’s just a perfect storm of YearlyKos, Ned Lamont, and the TNR-Kos feud. But whatever the cause, it’s not doing us any good. Mainstream reporters, despite their generally liberal temperaments, have an odd sort of contempt for actual liberal politicians, who they widely view as being wimpy, pandering, fence-sitting, poll-driven wonks who are hesitant to really speak their minds and insist on giving lots of boring policy-oriented speeches that don’t make good copy.
Well, the blogosphere is anything but that, but it turns out the mainstream press doesn’t like that much either. I’m not sure how that’s going to play out in the long term, but in the short term I have a feeling it’s nothing but bad news. “Spittle-flecked loons” seems likely to become the new media CW. Karl Rove must be pleased.
