alternative hippopotamus

progressive cyberdadaism from our nation’s capital

May 10, 2006

Question: What is the Conventional Wisdom on the Rightie Blogosphere?

by AltHippo @ 11:00 am. Filed under Uncategorized

In comments below KCinDC posits that: “The conventional wisdom about the angry right is that if they’re complaining about something we must be being too liberal, so we’d better shift further right. The conventional wisdom about the angry left is that if they’re complaining about something they’re a bunch of obscenity-spewing wackos who should be at best ignored and at worst publicly ridiculed.”

Sounds about right. Though, if anyone has other insights about how the rightie blogosphere is perceived, I’d be very interested.

One thing I’ve noticed is that the effort to brand the leftie blogosphere as shrill moonbats in the throws of Bush derangement syndrome has picked up a bit as Bush’s poll numbers approach the lower primes. Which is odd. You’d expect to see things from the likes of IMAO like: Given the turn of recent events, e.g., Katrina, Iraq pre-war planning, Iraq, post-war planning, Iraq war profiterring, etc., our reflexive support of Bush was probably misplaced.

You know, a rational not-angry-like-the-left kind of response.

Instead, Harvey writes:

What should you eat while you’re driving your SUV through a crowd of hippies?

Which sounds, I don’t know, kind of angry to me, but I guess if you’re right-wing, it’s just assumed that everyone likes a dead hippie joke.

Tom Maguire, meanwhile, intent on tossing another well-beaten canard on the Unhinged Leftie dead horse, cites feminist of the year Richard Cohen, and secret agenda advocate, John Dickerson, inferring that both are lefties. (”Richard Cohen of the WaPo and John Dickerson of Slate, neither of whom will be mistaken for member so the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy, strike related notes in assessing the Democratic prospects in 2006.”)

Tom may not have been aware of Cohen’s support of the Iraq invasion (”Only a fool — or possibly a Frenchman — could conclude otherwise. “). He also may not know of Dickerson’s flexible ethics in his Plame coverage, (see this interview of Dickerson by Al Franken).

While Cohen and Dickerson may not be card-carrying members of the VRWC, with friends like these, who needs actual card-carrying enemies.

As long as we’re talking about branding, and as long as we’re selectively quoting WaPo OpEders, I thought this EJ Dionne column was interesting:

The current reaction is not simply to President Bush’s low poll numbers. It’s also a response to the failure of conservative policies and to the declining appeal of conservative rhetoric. Conservatives are trying to save themselves by offering progressive-sounding criticisms of the status quo, much as liberals offered ersatz conservative critiques two decades ago.

According to Dionne, the situation is far from the conventional wisdom espoused by the right. Democrats are the ones with actual ideas. The pull is toward the progressive platform.

Boy, I’ll bet that one makes the righties go ballistic.

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7 Responses to “Question: What is the Conventional Wisdom on the Rightie Blogosphere?”

  1. KCinDC Says:
    May 10th, 2006 at 11:31 am

    Did you see that General JC Christian, Patriot, has admitted he’s Richard Cohen? The “possibly a Frenchman” quote gave it away.

  2. AltHippo Says:
    May 10th, 2006 at 12:06 pm

    I always said Cohen was a funny guy.

  3. Sgt. Gehlen Says:
    May 10th, 2006 at 12:13 pm

    For information about what’s happening in Iraq and other countries in the CENTCOM area of operations, check out our website www.centcom.mil.

    Sgt. Gehlen
    U.S. Central Command Public Affairs

  4. KCinDC Says:
    May 10th, 2006 at 12:43 pm

    Centcom is doing comment spam now? AH, you should definitely look into the logs and see what the IP address and referrer are. Is the military doing Technorati searches for “Iraq” and spreading propaganda through pasted comments?

  5. AltHippo Says:
    May 10th, 2006 at 1:12 pm

    Yes, that’s exactly what it is. The referrer is the technorati search for Iraq.

    I hate to mention the ip address, just in case I inadvertently out someone.

    The weird thing is why centcom would want to be in the blog spam business.

  6. KCinDC Says:
    May 10th, 2006 at 1:38 pm

    A couple of interesting things here and here. Looks like there’s a lot more out there that’s googlable.

  7. DCDL Says:
    May 24th, 2006 at 8:26 am

    The “Angry Left” and Commencement Speeches

    Alt Hippo and I have talked frequently about the asymmetry in treatment and perception of the “angry right” and the “angry left”. In yet another example, Glenn Greenwald explains the lessons the right (and much of the media) wa…

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hip·po·pot·a·mus n. A notion, perhaps distinct from conventional wisdom, that needs to be verified by reality-based scrutiny.

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