Partisan, heal thyself
The QandO Blog
Posted by: Jon Henke on Wednesday, March 09, 2005
I'm absolutely dumbfounded by this American Prospect piece by Garance Franke-Ruta. As near as I can tell, she's devoted an entire column to pointing out that some political bloggers are...."partisan operatives". (where "partisan" is defined as "Republican" and "operative" is defined as "who is interested in politics".
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Scratch the surface and the same names turn up in each scandal, revealing the events of mid-February to have been part of an ongoing and coordinated proxy war by Republican political operatives on the so-called liberal media, conducted through the vast, unmonitored loophole of the Internet.
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Understand, though...when Ms Franke-Ruta examines this phenomenon of partisan operatives, she means Republicans. And "military conservatives"...as opposed to, what, "civilian liberals"?
There's a lot to criticize here, and it's been done well elsewhere. Mostly, I find it odd that a partisan writer for a liberal publication—one who has written what even Jonathan Chait called "sympathetic Dean pieces in the American Prospect during the campaign" — has the temerity to criticize conservative bloggers for being partisan. (and "operatives", though she doesn't present an iota of evidence for that charge, except that these conservatives are...well, conservative)
In fact, when she broaches the subject of explicitly liberal activist David Brock, she calls him "former conservative activist".
Yeah, well, that's one way of putting it.
But, in pointing out that the blogosphere contains some Republican bloggers who are tangentially connected to Republican organizations, she's certainly leaving out a very odd point. The prominent liberal blogosphere is almost exclusively composed of political operatives.
Daily Kos: Run by prominent Democratic political consultant Markos Moulitsas Zúniga.
TalkingPointsMemo: written by acknowledged liberal journalist Josh Marshall, who writes for—and is paid by—multiple explicitly liberal publications.
Atrios: written by acknowledged partisan Democrat and paid liberal activist Duncan Black.
Political Animal: written by acknowledged partisan Kevin Drum, who is paid by the liberal Washington Monthly.
Brad DeLong: written by a former Deputy Assistant Secretary for Economic Policy in the (Democratic) Clinton administration.
BlogForAmerica: Blog initiated by the campaign of current Democratic Party Chairman Howard Dean.
Matthew Yglesias: written by acknowledged partisan who is paid by the liberal magazine The American Prospect.
MyDD: written by (paid) Democratic Political consultant Jerome Armstrong.
Pandagon: written by paid Democratic partisan Jesse Taylor, who is paid by Democratic activist group Jerry For Ohio.
Oliver Willis: written by acknowledged Democratic partisan who is paid by liberal activist group Media Matters.
Naturally, none of those connections affect the value of their opinions. Still, it's hard to see how prior work for conservative school "the Leadership Institute", writing occassional columns for conservative publications, being named as Fellows at "the conservative Claremont Institute" and — I kid you not — serving in the military constitutes providing "cover for professional operatives to conduct traditional politics by other means".... but the extensive, nigh - exclusive paid connections among the prominent liberal blogs constitutes something entirely different.
And I'm entirely unsure how Kevin Drum can — from that thin gruel — conclude that "a large part of the conservative blogosphere is nothing more than old style slime artists with a shiny new medium to abuse". If partisan operatives constitute "old style slime artists", then the Left side of the 'sphere has a lot more to answer for than does the Right.
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