"Blind partisanship" has reared its ugly head again.
Considerettes - By Doug
Friday evening, Instapundit noted that Eason Jordan resigned over the uproar over his remarks at Davos, suggesting that journalists were targeted by American troops. The blogosphere had been all over this situation, which is one reason I didn't say much (read: anything) about it. I really didn't have anything new to say about it, and I was on the road the week before Jordan resigned, and really only had time for the ponderings required for my Social Security post below.
But today, after the deed's been done, I thought I'd take a peek at something related to this, and related to other issues that have come up in the blogosphere; the reaction of the liberal blogs to the downfall of a liberal (or assumed liberal). The lefty blogs were all over the downfall of Trent Lott, but then so were the righty ones. In fact, some suggested that the right-of-center ones were harder on him.
Previously I've noted that Kos, Atrios and Josh Marshall were virtually silent on the whole Rather-gate story (Marshall literally, Kos & Atrios only slightly less so). So here's another major figure, who espouses liberal opinions, taken to task by the blogs over his remarks. Let's see how the big three have reacted thus far.
(Please note that, while most blogs, mine included, post little to nothing over the weekends, these big 3 liberal blogs are still very active then. They can't claim lack of opportunity to post, and especially since so many conservative blogs found time; see the Instapundit link.)
The Daily Kos: Silent
Josh Marshall: Silent
Atrios: Silent
As of this posting, none of these guys have mentioned "eason" or "cnn" since Friday.
But all three (Kos, Marshall and Atrios) certainly had plenty to say about the Trent Lott comments at Strom Thurmond's birthday party. Both were considered "off the record" comments, and you could easily make the case for Lott that he was just trying to be polite at Thurmond's party, whereas there are no mitigating circumstances for Jordan's remarks.
So the big picture here is that you won't get the big picture from the high-traffic liberal blogs, but you can get it from the high-traffic conservative blogs. And again I'd say that, generally speaking, intellectual honesty will more likely be found from a conservative viewpoint than a liberal one. If you think Fox News leans conservative, then that's a good thing for fairness and balance. This is not to say you won't find intellectual honest on the left nor blind partisanship on the right, but when 3 upper echelon liberal blogs won't touch--or will only give the shortest of shrift to--huge news stories that put folks with their ideology in a bad light, this doesn't speak well in general of that side of the spectrum.
Independent-minded people, who don't identify themselves with one or the other and who like to consider both sides, should take note. Who do you trust?
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