Conservative Blogs More Effective Than Liberal Blogs

From The Democratic Daily:

http://blog.thedemocraticdaily.com/?p=1353


Editor and Publisher looks at an upcoming article in the New York Times Magazine which finds conservative blogs to be more effective than liberal blogs in political influence:

In fact, Crowley admits that his argument for conservative blog supremacy may seem “counterintuitive,” noting the Howard Dean phenomenon in early 2004 and heavy Web traffic numbers for liberal blogs such as DailyKos. (He does not mention that studies of online traffic show that, overall, there are more highly-popular liberal blogs than conservative ones.) But he explains that “Democrats say there’s a key difference between liberals and conservatives online. Liberals use the Web to air ideas and vent grievances with one another, often ripping into Democratic leaders….Conservatives, by contrast, skillfully use the Web to provide maximum benefit for their issues and candidates.”

We would never want liberal blogs to repeat their party’s talking points without thought or fact-checking as regularly occurs in the conservative blogs. On the other hand, what we do see in the liberal blogosphere is often no better. Instead of repeating the party line without thought, we have certain liberal blogs, such as Daily Kos, which regularly post irrational attacks on the party’s last nominee without thought or fact checking. The ditto heads at these sites are every bit as bad as the Limbaugh ditto heads in repeating their false claims such as that Kerry supported the war or repeating their totally irrational mantras that Kerry conceded before all the votes were counted.

Attacking the party leadership when wrong is one thing. Repeating the campaign slogans of a primary opponent long after the primary is over, especially those which were blatantly untrue, is totally counterproductive.

There is no way to penetrate ignorance. The only way to counter ignorance is to try to enlighten. Since I don't believe that most of the attacks from the left or right result from ignorance---I believe they are linked to agenda and motive---no amount of fact-checking can be used to penetrate their thinking and eradicate such attacks.

Even if facts stops them in their tracks for a moment, they always come back, and with the same crap.

Kos certainly has a personal vendetta against Kerry, and the facts will never change this.

However I think that many of the people who repeat this nonsense didn't start out being anti-Kerry but were biased by what they read. If they ever really looked at the facts objectively some might change. The problem is that they have been hearing the same nonsense so much that they care convinced this is true and do not even look at the facts.

the people who "attack" are not usually the ones who are misled or simply uninformed. The attackers are the ones pushing to distort the record---to change minds by spreading lies.

The people who launch most of the attacks for the most part do not care about the truth.

It is harder to say with the people who join in. I think many are just people who read the same bull so many times that they believe it.

In pointing out the lack of fact checking by those who go along with these attacks, my main intent was to point out the inaccuracy of their statements, not necessarily to say that by correct ing their errors they will all shut up. Obviously that will not happen.

Besides, it is far easier to question their accuracy than motives. When they repeat the same bull we definatley know their facts are wrong. We can suspect their motives, but short of doing a Vulcan mind meld we cannot prove whether they are just misinformed or intentionally spreading falsehoods.

Pretty much futile to question their motives, unless you want to spiral into a conversation from hell.

Best thing one can do, as you said, is keep them in check with the facts.

The facts were very clear and easily found on either of the 2 issues mentioned. To anyone looking at statements made, Kerry was always against going to war, except as a last resort. There still is no clear cut evidence that can be taken to court that there was massive election fraud.

On DU, the facts on these 2 issues have been posted thousands of times. The same people repeat the same lame attacks - and some when pushed have admitted it's because they don't want him to run again. The idea that in doing this they may be weakening a strong spokesman for the party.

What bothers me is that it wasn't just the bloggers but the leaders. Howard Dean still feels a need to tout his early anti-war stance (that wasn't) and Feingold, who I like, was stating on Randi Rhodes earlier this week that everyone knew the IWR was a vote for war - even through the President said it wasn't 2 days before. I realize he is doing this to differentiate himself from other possible candidates, but it gives a pass to Bush. It made me think less of him. If the party leaders can't act responsibly, it's hard to expect the bloggers to.

The post at Democatic Daily so far has received links from Daou Report and Memeorandum. The discussion over there is already heating up, primarily over whether Kerry supported the war.