Roberts 7, Harpies 0
Power Line
That's the title of Michael Barone's post on NARAL's withdrawal of its absurdly defamatory ad attacking Judge John Roberts. Barone writes that the rout of NARAL is "a major victory for the Bush administration and a major defeat for the left-wing groups that exist to prevent confirmation of Bush judicial nominees." He gives partial credit, at least, to the blogosphere:
In the days before the blogosphere, and before
Republicans got organized to defend their presidents'
judicial nominees, the NARAL ad might well have gone
unchallenged. The mainstream media and the left would
have monopolized the dialogue, and the tendency of the
MSM to distort it in the left's favor is evident even
today from Powerline's posting on corrections in the New
York Times. But those days are gone.
Sometimes I wonder why established, mainstream commentators like Michael Barone and Michelle Malkin would want to be bloggers, too. Viewed from our perspective, it almost seems like Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen dressing as bag ladies, as I read somewhere they now do. (A rather weird analogy, I know, but hey--the hour is late.) I suppose the explanation is that the blogosphere is, increasingly, where the action is. I know that we are much more in the thick of things now, and have, in all probability, more influence, than when we were writing newspaper and magazine articles ten or twelve years ago.
To respond to Michael's point, I'm not sure whether NARAL would have gotten away with their ridiculous ad a few years ago. But I am sure it would not have been shot down with the speed and decisiveness that it was, prior to the internet age.
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