Idiotblogger “Digby” has a piece of “writing” in the left wing journal In These Times, in which he states boldly that I was “wrong as to the details” of the faked CBS National Guard memos—but completely fails to demonstrate why: The Blogosphere: Insiders vs. Outsiders. (Hat tip: NC.) The point of this ridiculous article is that the leading voices of the “right wing” blogosphere are all connected to the Republican “message machine,” via think tanks, newspapers, etc., while the left wing blogosphere is pure, idealistic, and free of any taint.

In the days after the infamous September 8, 2004 broadcast, PowerLine was among the first to point out the anomalies in the alleged National Guard memos. The notoriety stuck, although a later investigation by the Columbia Journalism Review revealed that the PowerLine bloggers—as well as others who gained national media attention, like Buckhead from Free Republic and Charles Johnson of LittleGreenFootballs—were uniformly wrong as to the details, and only right in the larger sense that the memos could not be authenticated.

Nonetheless, from that point on, the right-wing blogosphere became the go-to place for nifty blog stories, leaving the less-celebrated lefty blogs largely ignored by the mainstream media.

What most journalists and others who observe the new phenomenon of political blogging fail to understand is that the “blogosphere” is actually two rather sharply distinct spheres. These roughly mirror the country’s political divide and are organized in very different ways.

The right blogosphere operates largely as part of the greater Republican message machine. Many of its bloggers are already part of that infrastructure, working as journalists for conservative publications, writing books and lecturing. Independent bloggers on the right hail from all walks of life, but the leading voices are either part of the political machine itself, like Mike Krempasky of RedState, or closely connected to the conservative media and think tank infrastructure, like Hugh Hewitt, Michelle Malkin and the PowerLine bloggers. The right blogosphere is a reflection of successful top-down Republican message control, and as such these bloggers are welcomed warmly into the fold. ...

By contrast, the left blogosphere is populated by “citizen bloggers,” who work in non-political occupations for a living and blog for reasons of personal interest. This sphere actually operates as a unique and potentially powerful political constituency rather than a part of the Democratic Party apparatus. Unlike their counterparts on the right, the lefty blogs have had to crash the party, but because they did it with energy, votes and money, they are making themselves a power in their own right.

This is the worst kind of disingenuous garbage, a complete inversion of reality. Markos Zuniga of Daily Kos is a paid political consultant for Howard Dean and other campaigns. Joshua Micah Marshall, Kevin Drum, and Matt Yglesias all get paychecks from liberal publications. Duncan Black (Atrios) works for George Soros.

At Little Green Footballs, on the other hand, I work for no one but myself and I have never accepted money from any political campaign except for one or two advertisements that ran at LGF. I do not get tipoffs or talking points from Karl Rove, Ariel Sharon, or any other scary right-wing and/or Zionist figure. (I can’t speak for other bloggers, so I won’t.)

I used to get irritated by moronic, dishonest smear jobs like this one. Then I realized that having enemies who are so completely wrong about me that they need to invent stories and bogus charges about payoffs and collusion is the best possible situation. Because I have no illusions about where they stand.

UPDATE at 4/16/05 6:17:45 pm:

“Digby” cites an “investigation by the Columbia Journalism Review.” He/she/it is referring to the equally dishonest and inept piece by Corey Pein that I answered in detail here: An Inept Smear at Columbia Journalism Review.