Wednesday, August 17, 2016

The Blogosphere Is Dead: Long Live The Blogosphere


Nine years ago, the merest whiff of the possibility of getting icky Liberal blogger stink on them was sufficient for the Edwards campaign to humiliate and sack two liberal bloggers just days after bringing them on to do "netroots outreach".  Tossed under the bus they were, and very publicly at that, because their hiring made Bill "Cardinal Richelieu" Donohue and Michelle "Internment Camp Counselor" Malkin unhappy.

From Salon, February 2007:
Edwards campaign fires bloggers

Trying to head off a firestorm of criticism from the right, the presidential candidate dismisses two liberal bloggers his campaign hired only recently.

The right-wing blogosphere has gotten its scalps — John Edwards has fired the two controversial bloggers he recently hired to do liberal blogger outreach, Salon has learned.

The bloggers, Amanda Marcotte, formerly of Pandagon, and Melissa McEwan, of Shakespeare’s Sister, had come under fire from right-wing bloggers for statements they had previously made on their respective blogs. A statement by the Catholic League’s Bill Donohue, which called Marcotte and McEwan “anti-Catholic vulgar trash-talking bigots,” and an accompanying article on the controversy in the New York Times this morning, put extra pressure on the campaign.

Speculation from sources that the two bloggers might be rehired was bolstered by Jennifer Palmieri, a spokeswoman for the Edwards campaign, who said in an e-mail that she would “caution [Salon] against reporting that they have been fired. We will have something to say later.”...

Leading the charge against Marcotte — and to a lesser extent McEwan — have been bloggers like the National Review’s Kathryn Jean Lopez and Michelle Malkin. Malkin originally accused Marcotte of trying to scrub Pandagon’s archives of material that could be embarrassing to the Edwards campaign. When that proved untrue, Malkin posted a correction, but said that the fact that she had been wrong was “even worse for the Edwards campaign” because “its blogmaster left crackpot posts like that one up and hired her anyway.”
...
Mind you, they weren't sacked because they had lied or misrepresented reality in any way: they were sacked because, like most despised Liberal outcast who were the only ones pushing back against the Worst Administration in American History, they used some very blunt language to be heard over the roar of the Beltway media's craven collusion with the Bush Administration.

These were members of our ragged Liberal legions, most of whom have either given up or passed away.

These were members of our ragged Liberal legions, who one fed-up Conservative after another has been forced to admit (grudgingly and through clenched teeth, without every saying the Terrible Words out loud) were right about the Right all along.

These were members of our ragged Liberal legions who, despite being right about the Right all along.are still conspicuously ignored by the same people who still throw big bags of money at the likes of Bill Kristol and David Brooks and Michael Gerson and Joe Scarborough and Corey Lewandowski and ....

These were members of our Liberal ragged legions, who, if the're still at their keyboards at all, are probably still barely scrapping together poverty wages by shaking their begging bowls every now and then.

And now, nine years later...

From the New York Times:
Donald Trump, in Shake-Up, Hires Breitbart Executive for Top Campaign Post

Donald J. Trump has shaken up his presidential campaign for the second time in two months, hiring a top executive from the conservative website Breitbart News and promoting a senior adviser in an effort to right his faltering campaign.

Stephen Bannon, the executive chairman of Breitbart News LLC, will become the Republican campaign’s chief executive, and Kellyanne Conway, a senior adviser and pollster for Mr. Trump and his running mate, Gov. Mike Pence of Indiana, will become the campaign manager.
...
More on this later after I take a long walk and think about my life decision.  

12 comments:

Phil Perspective said...

Tossed under the bus they were, and very publicly at that, because their hiring made Bill "Cardinal Richelieu" Donohue and Michelle "Internment Camp Counselor" Malkin unhappy.



Progressives tossed under the bus because of conservatives bullshit complaints? A long history there!!

Tim said...

Where is Mr. Breitbart now? Dead. Very dead at the ripe age of 43.

Watching that video of this encounter again makes me think he was at this point a large lump of dead man squawking. It was only a matter of time given the look of things. Corpulent and filled with toxic bile - not a healthy mix.

Now take a look at the guy hired by Trump?

Unknown said...

"Dead man squawking". I'm going to steal that.

bowtiejack said...

I tell ya whatcha gotta do here driftyboy, get rid of that "integrity" thing - it's dragging your whole operation down.
Yere a talented guy, yere good with the pictures and all those details and facts and stuff. But dat's just it - nobody needs dat stuff.
Look at dis Drumpf guy, dis Brutebart guy, how does they succeed? They just make shit up! Easy peasy.
And if someone calls ya out on it, give it back to them, let the world know they're a dirty Communist! Wait, excuse me, wait a minute, make that "Islamist Mexican terrorist". Sorta dated myself there for a minute, huh?
But youse get my drift.


dinthebeast said...

I remember the day Breitbart died. I remember thinking too bad he couldn't take his whole foul operation with him, but that was just me letting my optimistic nature get the better of me.

-Doug in Oakland

Robt said...

Did we ever determine if Breitbart and Scalia death's were orchestrated by Obama and or Hillary? The main stream media nor the Blog-I_sphere talks about it. Why?

I saw a documentary on Gov't hiding alien life among us. The "Men in Black" ops rely on intelligence from the tabloids. Even the Breitbart internet GOP partisan tabloid.

If the Blogishere dies so too this great source of intelligence.

There is a right wing radio host in Wisconsin named Charlie Sykes. Seems he is going around in in circle making everyone dizzy. He claims that as a right wing nut job radio host over the years. he and his evil corporate minions took over by dissing the main-lame stream media to the point their conservative faithful base do not even believe the GOP elites words anymore. That he is "somewhat" responsible! For the hardship of accepting a fact by his gop base radio listeners. That he knows full well, that when and if he tries to correct a gop falsehood meme (like Benghazi). His radio listeners question his patriotism, conservatism and belief in God.
So he says he fears the loss of his listening minions. His "Cred" amongst these imbeciles he relies on to talk to and aim there anger at who he tells them to. Who he is paid to demonize at that.
Sykes it seems was a large factor in Scot Walker's hostile takeover along with the state house. He had no remorse for the Sis..Walker voter ID suppression.
Yet now, only remorse for not being able to cube the rubes in Ted Cruz;s favor.
He is "Never Trump conservative" who is frustrated that Trump has been able to walk into the Borg command post and assimilate the assimilated. Sykes has several other right wing radio nuts that have blasphemed and undermined America's press from it's noted Constitutional right to its key role of providing the information to make the best decision come election day.
This, their legacy of anarchy from democracy all in the name of political ideology and a tad of nancy Reagan's astrology.

So Sykes admits he and others like him, "went to far" in propagandizing Americans. To the point that now he lost control of them, and they will and have turned on him like he compelled them to in the utmost ugliest and blatantly mean spirited manner towards Democrats and Liberals and progressives and Snakes and snails and puppy dog tails.
Sykes is cruising the media circuit to tel this because he cannot do it on his radio air time. The Borg Horde has risen to assimilate Charlie Sykes and he is ringing the Bells and blowing the moose antler horn (Sarah Palin spike of) of Paul Revere to give warning that the Trumpster are coming.
--As those on the left did not know this. But Sykes like other right wingers found prominence and money for themselves more valuable than promoting America's Democracy.
The Giant over grown prehistoric Crocodile has come home for dinner...
---------------We have seen the movie...............

D. said...

Be with you as soon as I assemble a paragraph or so tying together the two huge quote chunks I just pulled out of a couple of blogs.

And by the way, sometimes your words keep me going. (Thanks.)

Unknown said...

If Trump's candidacy is the natural outgrowth of the Republican Party lying loudly for decades (among other things), it seems only proper that a master of the GOP 'spin it loud, spin it long' way of doing business should head that effort.

Bannon will make it ugly. Whether it'll be effective is another matter.

jim said...

Perhaps the most delight I've had yet from a post minus auto-play.

Unknown said...

This post frightened me a bit. I had completely forgotten the chicken shit firing of the two bloggers by Edwards. Me, who has railed often about the short memory of American voters. I'm already retired, but maybe its time to head out to pasture too.

RUKidding said...

I, too, had forgotten about those bloggers that Edwards fired. What a coward Edwards was. Giving in to the likes of Malkin. Ugh.

It's all of a piece of that era where the Dixie Chicks were close to financial ruin for making one rather low-key comment about not agreeing with Bush's Iraq War effort. The rightwing-o-sphere went nuts castigating them. There were Fahrenheit 451-style burings of their CDs promoted by rightwing Hate Radio shock jocks. All the Bubbas and BillyBobs swore to "get" them; death threats ensued, etc.

Nowadays we have Ghouliani actually lying that 9/11 ever happened, while Trump and his surrogates call for executing and/or assassinating Clinton. And what happens: crickets.

Breitbart - alive or dead - spews a ton of lies and has gotten away with a ton of bullshit. Yet there is that damn blog, and it gets more media attention than many of the more left-leaning factual blogs. Life isn't meant to be fair, but sometimes it's just ludicrous.

Thanks to Robt for his story about this Sykes character. I've never heard of him, but it's interesting if he's now fessing up to the outrageous lying propaganda that he and his ilk slung out there all in effort to keep the Rs in power by propagandizing the base to vote against their own interests. Thanks for nothing, Sykes. And then as you say, Robt, Sykes is mainly pissed off that his "main man" Dominionist Ted Cruz didn't get the nod. In many ways, Cruz is more frightening than Trump. And that's the big worry: I can see Cruz making a big push in 2020... and I figure the fundie evangelicals will rally 'round like never before.

The dog help us all.

moeman said...

Not sure how I can tell Drift how much I love his blog. I just did. Yeah!