A number of bloggers took the New York Times Magazine to task for a slanted and superficial look at bloggers in yesterday's edition, or in a strange surrender by Billmon of the Whiskey Bar in yesterday's LA Times. ABC provides much the same slant in a Kate Snow piece from yesterday about political bloggers that treats the Daily Kos with a lot more respect than Power Line:

That same day, Sen. John Kerry saluted as he walked onto a stage in West Palm Beach, Fla.

The gesture drew immediate ridicule online.

Someone calling himself "Hindrocket" posted a photo of the salute on a blog and wrote a warning to Kerry: "Every time Kerry brings up Vietnam, he opens himself to further body blows by the Swift Boat Vets."

Someone named Hindrocket? John Hinderaker identifies himself by name on his blog (although not on his posts), which should have made identification rather easy. If that was too hard for Snow, she could have taken the time to open up a copy of Time Magazine, where the "someone" she can't be bothered to identify and his blog are prominently featured in an article about the demise of CBS News -- a demise in which Power Line played the leading role. Or Snow could have turned on her television and watched John in any of at least a half-dozen appearances over the past two weeks on Fox, CNN, and local channels.

The fact that Snow has no idea who "Hindrocket" is or the blog for which he writes should automatically disqualify Snow from ever writing on the subject again.

However, when it comes to the Left, Snow suddenly appears much more hip to the blogosphere, and to the common courtesy of interviewing the subjects of her article:

Markos Moulistsas runs one of the most popular liberal blogs, called the Daily Kos.

"I was driving my family and friends and co-workers crazy ranting about the injustices that I saw everyday," the former Army veteran explains.

He also says bloggers act as gatekeepers to the overwhelming mass of information now available to anyone surfing the Web.

"It's very difficult to find the information that you, yourself are particularly interested in — and that's what the blogs do, they provide that filter."

The Daily Kos now has more than 200,000 readers a day. It is so successful, in fact, that conservatives say they're trying to emulate it.

Perhaps Redstate.org said they wanted to emulate Daily Kos, although I rather doubt they meant anything except Kos' traffic. No one on the right thinks too much of Markos Moulitsas any more since his "screw 'em" reaction to the butchery of four American contractors in Fallujah last April. Nor do too many of the lefty bloggers impress anyone, either, and Snow unwittingly demonstrates why in her piece. Here are a comparison of the big achievements on right and left in the blogosphere this year:

This past week, bloggers pushed hard on the story about controversial documents uncovered by CBS that spoke to President Bush's National Guard service. Many analysts believe all the talk on Weblogs played a part in forcing CBS to re-examine the issue and ultimately issue a statement.

Earlier, during the Republican convention in New York, a Republican congressman decided to drop his bid for re-election after a blog suggested he was gay. That blog is actively trying to out other members of Congress and staffers.

So while the conservative bloggers busily built a case showing that a major news organization perpetrated a fraud onto the American electorate and attempted to lie their way out of it, what did the port side of the blogosphere do? They managed to smear a Republican out of office by spreading gossip about his sexual orientation. What are they doing now? Looking for more of the same, when they're not all claiming that Karl Rove forged the Killian memos they continue to insist are "accurate" if not authentic.

Maybe ABC put Snow on the case to covertly undermine the credibility of lefty bloggers after all, as well as their own when it comes to political blogging. That leaves us with a critical issue: When did Karl start running ABC News, and doesn't that present a clear conflict of interest with his leadership at Fox? (hat tip: Jim W.)

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"I was driving my family and friends and co-workers crazy ranting about the injustices that I saw everyday," the former Army veteran explains. [My emphasis] So, Moulistsas used to be a veteran, but now he's a non-veteran? [Read More]

Tracked on September 27, 2004 8:07 PM