One of the people with whom I had a chance to spend some time was Kevin McCullough, a radio talk-show host in New York as well as a columnist for WorldNetDaily and a blogger to boot. Kevin invited me on his show and I had a great time talking blogs for a quick segment. Kevin wanted me back later, but unfortunately pressing schedules for both of us made that impossible. However, Kevin spent a lot of time at Bloggers Corner and we had some great conversations regarding media and the dawn of the blogosphere's political influence.

In yesterday's WND column, Kevin reviews the media response at the RNC and has especially harsh words for Salon and Mark Follman's superficial and transparently self-serving flagellation of the RNC bloggers:

On Tuesday, Mark Follman of leftist news website Salon.com released an op-ed that raged of "Internet traffic envy." Follman, obviously put off by the fact the RNC had credentialed a new form of media this year, "Blogger's Row," took his frustrations out on the bloggers in his piece and accused them of being self-serving, sexist, shallow and – the biggest insult of all – sorry excuses for journalists.

There is only one problem though -- they don't claim to be journalists. Follman's lack of ability to even understand what blogging is or why it is as popular as it is proves only that this "Internet journalist" himself is envious of the size and scope of the audience the RNC bloggers enjoy. Follman didn't get that these guys are keeping journals, written from their perspective and to an audience that they cultivated completely without the assistance of Salon.com. True, they did get profiled in the Wall Street Journal and promised to deliver big scoops. And they have, for it was the RNC bloggers who in fact broke the story of Gen. Tommy Frank's official endorsement in the 2004 presidential race.

Kevin also notes that it was Bloggers Corner who first released the pictures of an out-of-control Al Franken attempting to assault a Laura Ingraham show producer for stating that Franken had reneged on a promise to appear on Laura's show. In fact, we all have copies of several pictures (and they've been posted at Wizbang), and I will make sure I hang on to them, just in case Franken makes good on his threat to run against Norm Coleman in 2008.

Make sure you read the rest of Kevin's article, and check out his blog, too, while you're at it. He's a great guy, and I'm looking forward to the day his show goes national.

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