Barone: Blogosphere Politics
Michael Barone spells my name right (which isn’t too difficult) in a good piece on Blogosphere Politics.
Within four hours, a blogger on freerepublic.com pointed out that they looked as though they had were created on Microsoft Word; the next morning, Scott Johnson of powerlineblog.com relayed the comment and asked for expert views. Charles Johnson of littlegreenfootballs.com showed that the documents exactly matched one he produced using default settings on Microsoft Word. CBS defended the documents for 11 days, but finally confessed error and eased Rather out as anchor. MSM tried to defeat Bush, but succeeded only in discrediting itself. The Pew Center’s post-election poll showed a sharp decline in the credibility of newspapers and broadcast TV, and a sharp increase in reliance on cable news, especially Fox News, and radio.
So what hath the blogosphere wrought? The left blogosphere has moved the Democrats off to the left, and the right blogosphere has undermined the credibility of the Republicans’ adversaries in Old Media. Both changes help Bush and the Republicans.
And for the record, Scott Johnson and I are not related.



