he World Turned Upside Down
June 28th 2007 @ 10:14 am Immigration, Election08, General, Politics
DAILY PUNDIT
What Just Happened:
Something huge for the blogosphere. Every time in the past the Right Blogosphere has opposed a Bush policy or other action, GWB has found a graceful way to lose without officially doing so. On SCOTUS appointments, blogospherean opposition led to Alberto Gonzales not being nominated in the first place, and Harriet Miers “withdrawing” her nomination. On the Ports Dubai mess, Bush never backed down, but for some reason Ports Dubai “agreed to withdraw their purchase of US ports” (through a complicated buy-sell arrangement). On the initial attempt at an immigration amnesty through the House, the blogosphere notched a win, but GWB hadn’t staked his entire roll on the bet. Everybody knew the house defeat was only Round One, and that Shamnesty Would Rise Again, especially given that Democrats had taken control of the Senate after the 2006 elections.
But this was the full power, majesty, and bribing, arm-twisting immensity of the entire Bush Administration, led by the Commander in Chimp himself, to orchestrate a carefully crafted attempt to ram through the Senate an amnesty/open borders bill for reasons known only to Bush himself. Not only that, he allied himself with the Democratic leadership of the Senate, and the crafty old fox, Teddy Kennedy, to grease the skids. And finally, he had the full support of the liberal mainstream media, and the entire panoply of liberal goo-goo organizations from CAIR to ACLU to the Academy-Think Tank complex going to the mat for him as well.
Against this fearsome, supposedly irresistible array? A few conservative media/journalism outlets, especially the heroic National Review Gang [and double especially, Kathryn Lopez] - (but not Fox, which took a dive for amnesty), the conservative talk radio spectrum, and…the Right Blogosphere. (And significant portions of the Left Blogosphere as well, although not as passionately).
In the end, the underdogs crushed the Bush Amnesty, and in the process, came of age as a true power player on the national political scene. Of course many contributed: Conservative think tanks generated reports and analysis, and the righty talkers mobilized their millions of listeners. But in the middle was something new: the Blogosphere, which reacted to every Bush attempt with speed and ferocity never seen before in American politics. The bill was subjected to a merciless spotlight within hours of its release, so merciless that it became impossible for Senators to follow their usual procedure and vote for it sight unseen.
The talkers became, essentially, a megaphone for the work done at lightning speed in the blogosphere. Everybody you listened to was saying things like, “I saw on NRO,” or “the Powerline guys are reporting,” or “Michelle Malkin just posted,” or “Mickey Kaus said,” or “you can search the bill yourself at N.Z. Bear’s blog,” as well as passing mention of dozens of other blogs, or analysis obviously generated in the blogosphere. We gave them everything: speed, accuracy, analysis, information resources, encouragement, any and everything the talkers could possibly need or use to mobilize and engage their massive listening audiences. And we did it 24 hours a day, seven days a week, from the start of this battle to the finish.
And Bush never wavered. Nobody withdrew anything, nobody made any real concessions. Bush staked his power and reputation on his ability to shut down the power of the blogs and the talkers, and he failed. Not only did he fail, he failed miserably. It was a naked, bare-knuckles slugging match, and we knocked him out cold.
Without the blogosphere, the talkers would have still been clearing their throats when Bush, Reid, McCain, Kennedy, and Graham presented them with a fait accompli.
What Does It Mean?
It means we’re in the big leagues now, and it means that other players must now regard us as equals, and potentially dangerous. We’ve been growing toward this for some time, but now we’ve arrived. We took everything the entrenched powers of Washington could throw at us, and we beat them.
Which means the entrenched powers are no longer going to be looking at us as an interesting toy. They are going to look at us as potential allies and enemies. And if we are enemies, then they will try to destroy us. We made a lot of enemies in this fight. They won’t forget. Neither should we.
What Comes Next?
We need to make good on our promises. John McCain’s presidential run needs to be stopped now, and his political career ended as far as any relevance henceforth. The same for Lindsey Graham. He’s running for re-election in 2008. He called us bigots, idiots, and worse. He needs to either be defeated in the primaries, or defeated in the general election. If he is the candidate, he shouldn’t be able to raise one thin dime from Republicans. I want to see Jim DeMint replace Mitch McConnell as Minority Leader, and become Majority Leader after the 2008 election. Finally, Trent Lott must pay a price. We drove him from the leadership once. We can do so again, and we should. We need to do everything we can to see to that. Half of being effective in politics is the ability to reward our friends. The other half is being able to punish our enemies. We need to take care of both sorts of business.
We will be attacked now. Look for a coalition of liberals, disgruntled RINOS, entrenched pork-meisters, and an enraged Administration to start making noises about a new Fairness Doctrine. But keep in mind that we have arrived as a power, and so, although we will have enemies, we will also have those who wish to be our friends. We must use not just our already-demonstrated power to defend ourselves, but to enable our would-be friends to fight for, and with, us as well.
The Unintended Consequence:
We may not hear of it openly, but I think Mickey Kaus’ call for attack videos, and the devastatingly immediate response, changed the entire equation. One of the things that the permanent government liked very much about the McCain Feingold Incumbent Protection Act was that it protected them from tv hit pieces in the final sixty days before the election. Political pros know that the majority of voters barely tune into elections until the last thirty days. They also know how much damage a well-timed tv hit piece can do to a candidate when it crops up a week before the balloting, with no time to put your own creative people, agencies, video makers, message meisters, and so on, to work on crafting an effective response.
But these pros have always regarded the effective hit piece as the province of a heavily financed operation - one with focus group and full high-tech message crafting capabilities. In other words, the enemy (which they thought McCain Feingold muzzled) were other groups with resources comparable in some part to their own.
Imagine their horror to find themselves viewing devastating attack videos created within hours of Kaus’ call for them and, worse, those same videos immediately available everywhere in their home districts, ready for viewing by anybody with a computer and a video connection.
I think both sides learned something new about our capabilities today. We learned that we have the ability to take control of the video conversation on a moment’s notice, and do so with an effectiveness that matches anything they can field with their millions of dollars of media and technology wizards. An An Army of Davids, indeed.
They learned it, too. They also learned that their only hope of countering such capability has to come from the same blogospherean resources. And those who can’t adapt to that truth will probably die. The blogosphere is real. It has a sting. And that sting can be fatal to a politician’s hopes of staying in power or wielding power once in office.
There is a myth floating around that 2004 was the first “internet” election. But that’s an erroneous analysis, or at least an irrelevant one. The internet is a medium, but it isn’t a message. The message - at least as far as US politics goes - is provided via the internet by the blogosphere. And so, far more meaningful in every way, 2008 will be the first true blogosphere election.
I can’t wait.
-Bill Quick dailypundit.com |
