alternative hippopotamus

progressive cyberdadaism from our nation’s capital

July 10, 2006

Bullcookies

by AltHippo @ 1:34 pm. Filed under Uncategorized

I’m beginning to get concerned about the lack of accuracy and dependability in the blogosphere. Take Marshall Wittman’s latest rant:

It is deeply ironic to hear the kossacks and their fellow travelers kvetch, moan and complain that Joe was too tough on their boy Ned. Apparently, they can dish it out but they can’t take it. Now, they are crying copious tears on their keyboards as it is evident that Joe Lieberman is going to aggressively advance his argument for the vital center.

Joe has emerged as a key leader of the battling centrists. They span both parties and their foes are the wingers on the right and the left. This hearty band of moderates will defy ideological purity and forge new alliances across the political spectrum.

Note the rhetorical device Wittman uses to suggest that progressives appear disheartened by last Thursday’s debate: lying. I’ll also note that I caught the debate, along with the rest of the Drinking Liberally crew in the backroom of Timberlake’s. Among the Lamont supporters, in other words everyone there, not a single one was “crying copious tears”, or any tears for that matter.

You can tell Wittman is lying because instead of linking to a lefty blogger (the bane of Wittman’s existence) to make his point, he links to David “Calling all Bobos” Brooks. Now, last time I checked, Brooks was a movement conservative. Negatively spinning the left isn’t a rhetorical device for Brooks, it’s what he eats for breakfast.

Wittman uses a slightly less obvious rhetorical fallacy when he poses this false dichotomy:

The choice doesn’t have to be between Grover [ed: Norquist, not Cleveland] on the right and kos on the left.

I’m really getting tired of the entire lefty blogosphere being identified as “kos.” In the same sense that W is not my commander-in-chief, Kos (note the capitalization, Marshall) is not my blogger-in-chief.

Secondly, Wittman misidentifies the issue as lefty partisanship vs. wingnut partisanship as what motivates the blogosphere, or at least the left half of the blogosphere. The sites that are predictably partisan are the Powerlines, Instapundits, Malkins, and Goldbergs, i.e., the rightwing pundits. Yet, Wittman’s message is to stay away from the lefty bloggers, and Grover Norquist. Funny that.

Finally, if Wittman bothered to look at the numbers, he’d notice that regardless of of political affiliation, Lieberman’s approve/disapprove figures have swung significantly negative over the last year (see MyDD). In that respect Lieberman is certainly inspiring. He’s inspired Democrats to throw him out.

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2 Responses to “Bullcookies”

  1. KCinDC Says:
    July 10th, 2006 at 4:06 pm

    I’m sick of being told that Kos is somehow my leader. I look at Daily Kos several times a week, but it’s not part of my daily blog reading. Moreover, the vast majority of what’s onn Daily Kos has nothing to do with Kos. It’s true that Kos set up this confusion by naming the site after himself, but journalists ought to eventually be able to get it through their skulls that the man is not the site.

    I’m also sick of these idiots confusing being opposed to many of the existing Democratic powers that be with being “far left”. Kos certainly is not far left — he’s a pragmatic centrist with libertarian tendencies. The same idiocy then carries over to the depiction of politicians who are popular among bloggers. Dean is not far left. Neither is Gore. Can these commentators point to any “far left” policies these people support? If not, they should stop spreading this stupid idea. Not everyone who hates Bush or is opposed to the war is far left — in fact, those are the majority positions of the American public now.

    Just stop reading Wittmann. It only raises your blood pressure, and it may cause brain damage in large doses.

  2. AltHippo Says:
    July 10th, 2006 at 5:05 pm

    “Just stop reading Wittmann. It only raises your blood pressure, and it may cause brain damage in large doses.”

    That’s certainly my experience. I’ve stopped reading him on a regular basis over a year ago. In this case I was looking up blog reactions to Sunday’s WaPo story on Norquist, and his caught my attention.

    If anything, Wittman’s the one out of the mainstream. He’s just too used to identifying the Christian Coalition, where he used to work, with mainstream views.

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