Unqualified Offerings

Reading the interestingly partial Boston Globe report on the recent war between the liberal blogosphere andThe Non-Republic, it hit me: Atrios and others have wondered how everyone seems to have forgotten that there’s a conservative blogosphere out there at all – all the media attention goes to these unhinged liberals proving their unhingedness by saying liberal things. Maybe I’m the last person to figure out the real reason, but I think it’s simple: the right wing blogosphere have been good team players. They’ve reliably taken their lead from the official Republican Party and its authorized opinion mags. You don’t see Powerline or RealClearPolitics getting into fights with the Weekly Standard or Karl Rove – you see them amplifying the Authorized Version. Contrariwise the liberal blogosphere goes after prominent politicians and established opinion-makers.

So why is this? Some of my liberal readers will take this as evidence of the moral superiority of liberal blogs. I think it’s more that, for the last few years, the Republican establishment has been pretty successful at getting and increasing power while the Democratic establishment has sucked monkey ass at the same task. Liberal bloggers were as in the tank for the Kerry campaign as conservatives and neolibertarians were for Bush’s reelection effort. But Kerry failed, one more failure in a five-year string of failures. It sure as hell looks like like a competency vacuum in the head of the Donkey – it’s not surprised bloggers would insist on filling it.

People who suck at their jobs will whine loudest about losing them, and fight dirty to keep them. What else can Joe Lieberman do? Who wants to be known as the generation that saw The Non Republic, finally, into the obscurity it has long merited? On IOZ’ anti-Dem item, MB comments

Clearly the ideal — but unlikely — solution would be for Mr. Peabody to take Democratic representatives and senators back to October 10, 2002, so they could vote the other way on AUMF-Iraq. That would free up Democratic incumbents from the ‘flip-flop’ paradox which I think is a lot of the reason that the intelligent actors on the left avoid the issue of the systemic (did I use it right?) immorality the neo-con doctrine. (Alternately, those Dem incumbents who voted for AUMF-Iraq could have bowed out in 2004 or 2006 and supported candidates not tainted by their vote.)

MB is clearly smart, and knows the idea of American politicians voluntarily relinquishing personal power in the name of honor and duty is as fanciful as Mr. Peabody himself. You can have their power and perks when you pry them from their cold, dead, metaphorical electoral hands.

If the Democrats, previous entry notwithstanding, make substantial gains in the fall, it will be interesting to see if the right wing blogosphere becomes newly assertive in Republican circles. And as interesting to see whether the media considers it a story.