Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Blogging after November: A forecast
Vanity Fair wonders how the "netroots" -- the lefty blogosphere -- will alter its tone if Barack Obama is elected in November. Good question, since in the matter of blogging "offense" is much easier than defense. Conservative Jonah Goldberg, who knows something about both, put it best:
It’s simply easier to be on offense than defense. On offense you can make ‘the perfect’ the enemy of ‘the good.’ On defense you have to defend ‘the barely good’ against ‘the perfect.’”
If Obama is elected, it will represent the first change in position since blogging became a factor in American politics. The left will move to defense and the right to offense. Both will be constrained, at least up to the point of their own self respect, by their respective records for exacting intolerance (in the case of the left, which has held George W. Bush to a standard of "competence" required of no previous wartime president) or "reasonable" qualification (in the case of the right, which has turned explaining away the administration's fumbles in to something of an art). When the teams switch ends of the field, enterprising righties will no doubt comb the archives of lefties for posts that demand perfection, and the left will do the reverse. Expect defensive airbrushing in response, and unsubstantiated accusations of same.
We bloggers will learn a lot about intellectual honesty in the next couple of years.
CWCID: Patrick Appel blogging at Andrew Sullivan's.
6 Comments:
By 
, at
Tue Jul 29, 07:40:00 PM:
I am pessimistic, too, but let's not declare Obama the winner yet!
By 
Georg Felis, at
Tue Jul 29, 08:23:00 PM:
I predict no great change. The Left bloggers will continue to rail at the horrible injustices committed by the Right, only instead of the repetitive cry "It's Reagan's/Bush's Fault!", we will see some other non-presidential individual picked out for specific scorn, the focus of evil in the modern world. Gingrich had his day in the crosshairs. I hope they don't pick TH.
By D.E. Cloutier, at
Tue Jul 29, 09:39:00 PM:
FYI - NY Times article by Jodi Kantor (30 Jul 08): "As a Professor, Obama Enthralled Students and Puzzled Faculty."
Link:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/30/us/politics/30law.html?ex=1375070400&en=d789030b53a92d3e&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink
By , at
Tue Jul 29, 10:45:00 PM:
do none of you have memories? if the dems win the white house (which i doubt very much) then the media will feel free to assail obama since it won't affect the power structure. they tormented clinton endlessly when he was in power.
By , at
Wed Jul 30, 11:25:00 AM:
Interesting article in the NY Times about Mr. Obama (from DEC).
He remains a bit of a cipher, an enigma, as it were.
I honestly wish we could find out more about how he would govern. He seems, at least, a very articulate and intelligent man; but I doubt his executive skills. As President, he has to be able to turn his thoughts into actions and decisions. He may be paralyzed by his lack of experience and knowledge of particular issues, though he is indeed a very intelligent man.
-David
By , at
Wed Jul 30, 11:58:00 AM:
"The left will move to defense and the right to offense."
And, if Hussein IS elected, this is why the "fairness" doctrine will be revived and claims of hate speech will be the response to every criticism of Saint Hussein (what's the Muslim word for "saint?").
The ultra left media? The NYT will NEVER criticise Hussein and will justify anything negative he does by pointing to what Bush left him. And, we will see history rewritten like never before!
