blogosphere

Within an hour of finding out the lunatic rantings of James J. Lee, the man who stormed the Discovery building earlier this week, blogs on the left and right took to the partisan hits. To the left he was a right wing extremist and to the right he was some left wing extremist. Today The New Republic takes issue with both sides being so quick to jump the partisan gun:

Lord have mercy. These days, a man can’t even strap on a bunch of explosives, take a network building hostage, and get himself shot dead by police without touching off a partisan slap fest.

Before I fired up my computer this morning, I assumed that conservative partisans would have been busy little beavers during the night. Sure enough, not one but two e-mails awaited me, crowing about James Lee’s environmental extremism. Since then, I’ve run across plenty more Web posts with headlines dubbing Lee a “Violent Liberal Environmentalist” or a “Liberal Ecoterrorist” or otherwise crowing about his not-a-conservative status.

It’s amazing. The big media types all jumped on that ACORN video earlier this year, despite it being edited to be taken totally out of context. Now we this story of Shirley Sherrod, someone who has lost their job due to the journalistic malpractice of one Andrew Breitbart.

Over at the San Francisco Chronicle, a strong case is made to bring Breitbart to justice over this:

While he says he intended to harm the NAACP, he picked Shirley Sherrod to do it. She did not ask for this. Breitbart altered a video to twist her words.

Andrew Breitbart may be a target for the U.S. Department of Justice' Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section ("CCIPS") which is in the Criminal Division. The website, which was forwarded to this blogger by the DOJ on another issue, covers various types of crimes that involve a computer.

If Breitbart altered the video of Shirley Sherrod to make it look like she was making a statement he then called racist, he's certainly guilty of defamation of character against Shirley Sherrod.

Breitbart may also be guilty of Internet harassment. He certainly should be made a high-profile example to discourage others from these uses of the computer and The Internet to harass a person. Enough is enough.

There have been cases against internet commenters, let alone the publisher of an internet “news” site.

If in the “new media” age we want to be treated the same as traditional media, then all bloggers should get behind any legal action against Andrew Breitbart. He hurts the blogosphere as a whole by his intentional lies and smears published on his sites. Sure the left and right blogosphere disagree and they must to thrive, but to resort to such lying in order to advance an agenda and your own site; well that is unacceptable no matter if you are the most liberal or conservative of blogger.

Yesterday on Hardball I heard the most amazing spin/lie I think I have ever heard. While discussing the new law in Arizona that says candidates must show their birth certificate to be on the ballot, Rep. Brian Bilbray (R-CA) decided to totally twist the reason for the new law and declare that it is aimed at John McCain:

This is a very interesting statement, and one that follows politics at all knows to be false. John McCain has been on the ballot in Arizona for over three decades and it was never an issue before. It didn’t become an issue until the crazy birthers came out questioning President Obama’s citizenship – something that has been disproven time and time again.

I’ll hand it to Matthews for handling this idiot rather well. I am also kind of shocked this exchange hasn’t gained more attention in the blogosphere. I doubt Bilbray is just speaking from the crazy corner of his brain. I got a feeling this is the kind of spin we will hear a lot more as people talk about Arizona’s transformation into a police and birther state.

I think we are seeing a pattern emerge showing that the right is starting to get worried about the increased violent and slanderous rhetoric from some of their extremes. Let me give a couple of examples pointing to this.

First we have Tom Coburn this weekend. Coburn has never been considered what one would call a “nice guy” when it comes to discussing the opposition, however this weekend he did something that shocked a lot of political observers – he defended Nancy Pelosi and blasted FOX News.

But in a recent town hall meeting Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) offered some kind words for her, saying "she's a nice lady." Coburn added that although he and the Speaker differ on policy issues, she's a "good person."

Perhaps even more stunning than Coburn's conciliatory words for Pelosi was his criticism of Fox News.

"What we have to have is make sure we have a debate in this country so that you can see what's going on and make a determination yourself," he said, adding: "So don't catch yourself being biased by Fox News that somebody is no good. The people in Washington are good. They just don't know what they don't know."

Then yesterday we got news of the FBI arresting Charles Alan Wilson, a 64 year old Washington state man who phoned some very threatening calls into Senator Patty Murray’s office. Here are some of his rants against a sitting U.S. Senator:

"I hope you realize there's a target on your back now. There are many people out there that want you dead," one message said. "Now that you've passed your health care bill let the violence begin."

Another message included this threat: "I want to (expletive) kill you."

In an article talking about Tuesday’s race, the Boston Globe decides to talk to one single “liberal blogger” to gauge the feel of the entire blogosphere:

Liberal blogs are loaded with complaints about Obama and demands that the president move to the left. During the campaign, “they energized enthusiasm among people who were really jazzed about voting for change. When you look at what happened, there’s not much change,’’ said Jane Hamsher, who pens a left-leaning blog, FireDogLake

Jane does not represent the progressive blogosphere as a whole. As matter of fact she don’t even represent a majority of it. Her representation of what the progressive blogosphere stands for has been reduced to a slither.

Sure some of us have been disappointed in what hasn’t been done this past year, but most of us are realistic. We know that Obama’s hands were tied by an unprecedented obstructionist minority party. It’s also only his first year in office and he had a lot more on his plate than any former President in recent history. But to use Jane as a voice for us while she is out trying to join forces with groups like the tea party is absurd.

Jane Hamsher and Firedoglake in no way represent this liberal’s views and I think a lot more bloggers are going to be echoing this exact sentiment very soon.

When Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs split with the right, it sent shockwaves through the blogosphere. Now it looks like some of those wingnuts are actually going to the extreme:

In Johnson's mind, he has not really changed but merely shifted his focus. Where once he was preoccupied with national security, staking out a hawkish, pro-military position, he now spends more time focusing on his liberal social views, and gripes with conservatives who disagree. "I like to think," he told me this week, "I am pretty independent of [the] political winds."

But not totally immune. As I talked to Johnson in his office, an alert flashed on one of his two giant computer monitors. An angry screed targeting him on another website concluded: "I think a visit to Mr. Johnson's home might be warranted. Anybody got his address?"

Such veiled threats are at least one reason why Johnson, 56, relocated not long ago. He remains in the Los Angeles area, but now is in a gated community.

The man who once decried vitriol spread on liberal websites now says: "The kinds of hate mail and the kinds of attacks I am getting from the right wing are way beyond anything I got when I was criticizing the left or even radical Islam."

Threats from the wingnuts is nothing new and it’s good to expose them to the general public. Hopefully one day the owner of the sites that provoke this outrage will start taking responsibility and denouncing such attacks.

So much contention over the past several days has occurred within the progressive blogosphere. It’s time to do another post calling it out.

First on the agenda is the issue of President Obama saying that he never campaigned on the public option. This was a false claim, no matter how some want to spin it. It may have just been a “gaffe”, but it is something he needs called on none the less.

A lot of us are rightfully pissed over this comment, but being pissed doesn’t mean we don’t want President Obama removed from office, as some in the progressive blogosphere are claiming. To say that holding President Obama accountable to his promises is somehow calling for his impeachment is highly dishonest, and I am putting that very nicely.

The very fact that I supported President Obama means I will fight to hold him to a higher standard than someone like Bush. I have spent the last 8 years watching George Bush go against every thing conservative, yet conservatives backed him to the end. Once that end came they turned to flat out insulting him. It’s because of that damn Reagan “11th commandment” that goes “Thou shalt not speak ill of any fellow Republican”. That is a horrible mantle to hold in a democracy. Our country was built upon questioning our leaders and holding them accountable, and I sure as hell don’t want to see my party start following that highly flawed logic. If we do then we are no better than the other side.