Assorted snark, where have I been and congratulations edition

I've been blogging about objectivity in the classroom and Diana DeGette today at SquareState.

Congrats to Drinking Liberally for being bipartisan and popular. And congrats to CoCo, Wash Park Prophet, Progress Now Action, Colorado Media Matters, ColoradoPols and Coyote Gulch for also being very popular.

Colorado Democrats launch blog

Here it is. I heard it first from Dan Slater. CoCo also has a story online.

CoCo saves Steve Durham from the Internet

The intrepid Cara DeGette does a good deed.

Trustworthy media emerges in Colorado

The mainstream media won't report the truth about Colorado GOP chair Dick Wadhams. And it's "rigged" against Democrats. But there is hope. The Craig Daily Press reports that Colorado Confidential has earned Colorado Press Association credentials.

Prominent national conservative blogs disavow Coulter

When Ann Coulter calls a leading Democrat a faggot (and she's done it twice), it's natural to have an emotional reaction. For some of us, that reaction is outrage. For the GOP sycophants at the Post, that reaction is to blame the victim. But both of those reactions are wrong. Because neither Ann Coulter or John Edwards should be the story.

The story is the fact that the crowd at the Conservative Political Action Conference applauded her statement.

Spinning is different than lying. Partisanship is different than hate. Calling Bob Beauprez "Both Ways Bob" is different than calling Edwards a "faggot." Ann Coulter can say whatever she wants. But mainstream voters should think long and hard before casting votes for representatives of a party that openly celebrates Ann Coulter.

Everyone in the media seemed to gloss over this point. Fortunately, a few rightwing bloggers are trying to do the right thing. The Politico carries the full text of a letter that a "group of some of the most prominent conservative bloggers" sent to CPAC. The letter reads, in part:

Ann Coulter used to serve the movement well. She was telegenic, intelligent, and witty. She was also fearless: saying provocative things to inspire deeper thought and cutting through the haze of competing information has its uses. But Coulter's fearlessness has become an addiction to shock value. She draws attention to herself, rather than placing the spotlight on conservative ideas...

One of the points of CPAC is the opportunity it gives college students to meet other young conservatives and learn from our leaders. Unlike on their campuses - where they often feel alone - at CPAC they know they are part of a vibrant political movement. What example is set when one highlight of the conference is finding out what shocking phrase will emerge from Ann Coulter's mouth? How can we teach young conservatives to fight for their principles with civility and respect when Ann Coulter is allowed to address the conference? Coulter's invective is a sign of weak thinking and unprincipled politicking.

The letter was apparently signed by Captain's Quarters, among others.

It's good to know that the GOP still has a spine. And it is unsuprising that it's found not among the party hierarchy, but in the blogosphere. Here's hoping the bloggers inspire the GOP elite to action.

Staying positive through clenched teeth

I'm not going to violate the spirit of Coloradolib's 2nd All Positive, All The Time Week. But the Rocky really blew it this morning. I melted down at SquareState.

The Internet is a good thing for politics

And I ain't just talking about Presidential politics, although it is. I didn't even realize that Colorado Democratic House Speaker Andrew Romanoff had a blog. And, of course, HD38's Morgan Carroll has one too.

But I digress. This post - in the spirit of All Positive, All The Time Week - is all about giving a shout-out to this post, in which an intrepid blogger sits through a townhall with several elected Republicans, reports on the bills they are carrying, and even catches them fibbing. It's the type of thankless but important journalism you're just not going to find in the Post, folks.

More about the fake blog of the day: I'm not buying it

SquareState, among others, has linked to a brand-new blogger who takes responsibility for the disgusting site I wrote about here and here. The blogger claims to be a left-wing college student who doesn't think Ed Perlmutter is anti-Iraq War enough.

As of this moment, I'm not buying this story. Partially because Perlmutter is anti-Iraq War. Very.

But I may be wrong. I am cynical because the Colorado GOP has a history of using the blogosphere to pull deceptive stunts like this. Starting with Students for Beauprez. Including the Beauprez Witness. And continuing all the way up to Colorado GOP chair Dick Wadhams. (Who, incidentally, I never asserted had any hand in this specific dust-up.)

My guess is that something fishy is going on. If the actual blogger wants to out himself or herself by name, I will post a retraction.

The incident points out a fundamental flaw of the blogosphere. To the unsavvy, anonymous bloggers who post lies and conjecture appear to have the same credibility as pseudonymous bloggers who link to sources, provide analysis, and mark rumors as such.

Even those of us who spend a large amount of time blogging get swept up in the story of the day. Overall, this is a good thing. We jump into the line of fire, so that our candidates don't get Swiftboated. But sometimes we get hit, tricked into perpetuating a story that has no merit.

Perhaps this is one of those days.

UPDATE: Both blogs discussed have either been deleted or made private.

More about the fake blog of the day

The blog in question put up a new post smearing another congressperson's kids. Except it's not a new post at all. It's a link to a Wonkette post from June 19 of last year. That's not even a credible try. No sane person would believe that the planned follow-up to a post featuring an apparently forged Abby Perlmutter Facebook page would be a post linking to an ancient Wonkette story. The site currently appears to have been a targeted and false attack on the child of a Colorado Democrat.

My original story here. More at SquareState and Janus Online.

Republicans bad, Democrats good

I know there are some good folks over on the other side of the aisle. But, oh man, they're really pushing it today:

• Lamborn is a partisan hack.
• The White House is impeding justice.
• A GOP blogger is smearing Ed Perlmutter's kid.

It's that last story that has me really upset. Whoever posted the lies about Abby Perlmutter should be ashamed. And the Perlmutter family should be very proud. Ed's record is so clean, a GOP blogger turned on Abby. And she's so clean, the GOP blogger apparently made up a story about her.

Colorado GOP Internet guru Dick Wadhams has a history of using the blogs to beat "the media into submission." I'd love to get his take on this story.

But I digress. Let's check in with Colorado's Democrats to see what nasty, partisan tactics they're employing today:

• Ritter is reaching out to business.
• Udall is reaching out to hunters.

So we have the scorched-earth, nonstop campaigning of the GOP vs. the bipartisan solutions offered by Democratic leaders.

I know it's not always this simple. But today it really, really is.

TalkLeft gets prime real estate on Hillary's blog

Nice, Jeralyn.

Colorado Confidential wins awards for journalistic excellence

The Colorado Society for Professional Journalists confirms what we already know. Congratulations, CoCo.

Three strikes and I'm boring

This is the third time I've done a long interview with a Post or Rocky reporter without getting any quotes in the paper. Worth the read anyway, though.

UPDATE: SquareState reports that the Post's editor "demanded defunct righty blogs be listed, even after [the reporter] pointed out their lack of activity."

UPDATE: The Post's reporter told me that her story included a sidebar with a link to Coloradolib. Her editor deleted the link in favor of links to the aforementioned rightwing blogs. Hm, wonder why.

Edwards: "We're beginning a great debate about the future of our country, and we can't let it be hijacked"

John Edwards did the right thing. (Edwards, Fix, Kos)

Why I'm all worked up about the Edwards bloggers

There are two things about this issue that bother me:

1. Marcotte and McEwen may be controversial. But much worse has been written on the Internet by anonymous bloggers who publish unsourced assertions and vile speech while hiding behind pseudonyms. (I mention some local examples here, here and here.)

2. Republican Senators like John McCain and John Thune have also employed controversial bloggers. They got away with it because they kept their relationships secret, and were never questioned by a credulous media.

In the end, the debate is larger than John Edwards. If the radical right and the mainstream media have their way, honest, controversial commentary may disappear. In its place will be the deceitful, anonymous, clandestine Internet of John McCain and John Thune. And that'd be a very ugly Internet indeed.

(Media Matters: 1, 2, 3, 4)

John Edwards fires, fires and rehires, or doesn't fire bloggers

An update on my post "Social conservative attacks Edwards bloggers."

The Edwards campaign has not officially responded. But Salon suggested the bloggers may have been fired. Meanwhile Chris Cillizza noted the difficulty of hiring anyone whose every political opinion had been cached on the Internet. But the prize for best insight and analysis goes to Glenn Greenwald, who pointed out controversial remarks made by a blogger for the John McCain campaign.

This point is important. McCain's blogger didn't get his candidate in hot water is because he reportedly concealed the relationship. Edwards, on the other hand, offered America honesty. And it appears America may make him regret it.

Social conservative attacks Edwards bloggers

CNN reports that a prominent social conservative, Bill Donohue, is attacking the John Edwards campaign for employing bloggers Amanda Marcotte and Melissa McEwan who, prior to working with the campaign, had been critical of the religious right.

There is a campaign to save Marcotte and McEwan's jobs launching here.

Donohue has a history of hysterical rhetoric. He has opined that child abuse in the Catholic church was "a homosexual scandal, not a pedophilia scandal" and that "Hollywood is controlled by secular Jews who hate Christianity." [Source] Donohue has also stated that, "'If you asked' some Hollywood actors 'to sodomize their own mother in a movie, they would do so, and they would do it with a smile on their face.'" [Source]

How John Edwards responds to Donohue will tell us a lot about how serious the candidate is about freedom of speech. I have been enormously supportive of Edwards. I hope his sense of right and wrong outweighs his political instincts.

Cross-posted at SquareState.

Diana DeGette teaser post

I just returned from a media luncheon with Diana DeGette. Also in attendance, johne and TakeBackTheHouse from SquareState (which is inconveniently down right now); the intrepid Erin from Colorado Confidential (shown taking notes in this photo); and writers from various media outlets including NPR, La Voz, Clear Channel, The Denver Business Journal, and The Colorado Statesman. I'm going to do a write-up tonight. Stay tuned.

2008 presidential campaigns take to the web: Part 2

The righties at Patrick Ruffini think John Edwards has the best campaign website. They don't know how right they are. Edwards' site is more than just a pretty package. It offers tons of content and tools users can employ to set up their own communities and action plans.

Consider the websites of the 2006 Colorado governor's race. Bob Beauprez's website and blog were gorgeous. But Bill Ritter's ruled when it came to content - breaking news, dozens of white papers, on-the-scene updates, PDFs, YouTube links, and a blog that allowed comments. At the end of the day, voters chose content over packaging, substance over style.

Minor changes at Coloradolib

Most of the posts at Coloradolib are what I call "link plus snark." But I make occasional attempts at analysis and reportage. Starting now, these posts will be labeled "punditry" and "frontlines," respectively. I added the appropriate links to my sidebar. While I was at it, I added Haley's Comment, Ave Cassandra, Denver Ozone and Coyote Gulch to my blogroll. And changed my archiving system from weekly to monthly.

The award for Saturday's most misleading post, part two

Apparently attempting to outdo itself, the conservative blog The Outlander lied twice in one day:

Bill "Slick Willie" Ritter undertook what he promoted as a whistle-stop tour of the state today. How much did that cost the Colorado tayxpayer? The objective news media did not ask, and they probably will not do so. But had this been a Republican they would have demanded the original receipts for all expenses incurred.

In 10 seconds of Googling, I found stories in the Rocky and 9news.com reporting that the total cost of inauguration activities - including the whistle-stop train tour - will be $750,000, financed primarily by ticketholders and corporate sponsors, not taxpayers.

The award for Saturday's most misleading post

The conservative blog The Outlander wins this one far and away with this unsourced piece of foolishness:

Molly Hughes, blinded by her sycophantic love and adoration for Bill "Slick Willie" Ritter, let it slip that the security for the forthcoming DNC in Denver will cost at least 35 million dollars. This is in addition to the upfront payola to the Democratic Party of at least fifty million dollars.

Which means, even before anything is done the taxpayer is expected to pay almost one hundred million dollars for this nonsense. Yet the Democrats complain endlessly about how much the war in Iraq costs. Furthermore, there is no way the City and County of Denver can break even on this waste of money and resources.

I would've liked to respond to this on The Outlander, but comments there are closed to people without blogstream IDs. I hate linking to posts this flawed, because I don't want to give them any blogxygen. But I have no choice. Because I really want to point out just how silly the right's arguments have gotten:

1. Colorado is spending $85 million - not "almost one hundred million" - to get an event that will inject $150 million to $200 million into the Colorado economy. This is what's known as an investment. The tourism industry is ecstatic. In the unlikely event the convention loses the city money, it will still promote the city to conventioneers across America.

2. The taxpayers did not pony up all the money spent to win the convention. See The Rocky Mountain News:

In late September, the Denver host committee submitted a detailed final bid document. Denver's ability to raise the $80 million needed to put on the convention was the big question mark. Just a few weeks later, though, Qwest announced it would commit more than $5 million to support the convention... Fundraising quickly picked up, with Xcel Energy, Molson Coors and other companies making commitments.

3. The $85 million it cost us to land the convention is nothing like the $9 billion a month we're spending in Iraq. It's not even remotely close. At all. Even a little.

I expect spinning and partisanship in the blogosphere. Heck, I participate in it. But Colorado's rightwing blogs - with a few notable exceptions - cross the line into deceit with disturbing regularity.

Ideology hampers the Blue Ribbon Commission for Healthcare Reform

Ave Cassandra's post on healthcare, ideology and Colorado's Blue Ribbon Commission for Healthcare Reform deserves your time.

The first fake blog of 2007?

Run Wayne Run? It's a joke, right? Like the hilarious Students for Beauprez hoax? ColoradoPols thinks Scott McInnis is already campaigning for Allard's soon-to-be open seat:

Former Rep. Scott McInnis has apparently decided that he will be a candidate for the U.S. Senate in 2008 provided that Sen. Wayne Allard retires. McInnis is holding off on any announcement until official word comes from Allard, who is not expected to run for re-election.

The hat-tip for the link to the Allard site goes to ToTheRight, as much as I hate to admit it.

The migration problem

That's "migration." Not "immigration." As in, "I just migrated Coloradolib to the new Blogger." The change should let me add tags and update my template. But if anyone has problems viewing or posting, let me know.

Congratulations to TalkLeft

Our friends at TalkLeft are best of the top 250.