Your Favorite Political Weblogs? 785
worm eater would like to know: "As the mainstream media is coming under closer scrutiny from the 'blogosphere,' and is having to actually respond to these journalists in pajamas, I thought I'd ask Slashdot: what are your favorite political blogs? Lately I've been reading Talking Points Memo, a liberal weblog by Joshua Micah Marshall, and a blog by Andrew Sullivan, a conservative writer. Where do you go when you want to see the mainstream media dissected and poked at?"
Drudge Report (Score:2, Informative)
michaelmoore.com (Score:2, Informative)
Spinsanity - sheds light on the insanity (Score:5, Informative)
Spinsanity [spinsanity.com] is a great site for articles that point out all of the spin from both parties.
They seem to do a pretty good job of showing the foolishness of both sides - which is refreshing, since IMHO both parties suck bad, and I therefore get very annoyed at sights that are focused on making one party or the other look bad, while ignoring their own parties major issues.
My 'Favorites' (Score:2, Informative)
IMAO [www.imao.us]
RWN [rightwingnews.com]
and musn't forget
Drudge Report [drudgereport.com].
Annenberg FactCheck (Score:5, Informative)
Blognarik!! (Score:2, Informative)
correction (Score:4, Informative)
Tom Tommorow's (Score:5, Informative)
Not exactly "favorite", but... (Score:3, Informative)
Sullivan (Score:3, Informative)
The Daily Show (Score:3, Informative)
The Daily Show with John Stewart. Its not a blog, its a comedy show on Comedy Central. But it seems to be one of the few places where politicians and the media have their stupid blunders pointed out. Plus its pretty entertaining.
Re:Not exactly "favorite", but... (Score:3, Informative)
Never retracted it, either. Which is a damn shame and more than a little ironic, if you think about it. I mean, even CBS has retracted their story now, but Markos Zuniga can't be bothered to retract a full-throated defense of something that turned out to be a massive lie.
Whatever you do, don't go to Markos' site looking for things that are true.
Re:I like... (Score:2, Informative)
I think IHBT.
blogs to read (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.instapundit.com/ - the king of all blogs
http://andrewsullivan.com/ - gone way down hill but still readable
http://www.allahpundit.com/ - good mix of political fun
http://claytoncramer.com/weblog/blogger.html - guns and fun
http://www.powerlineblog.com/ - more right slant fun.
http://www.iraqthemodel.com/ - differnt view inside Iraq
http://healingiraq.blogspot.com/ - more good insight in iraq
http://www.iraq-iraqis.blogspot.com/ - and again
http://cbftw.blogspot.com/ - used to be one of the best blogs in Iraq until the man cracked down on him. But MUST READ THE ARCHIVES!
mycal
Kos, WaMo... (Score:2, Informative)
The Daily Kos [dailykos.com] (Scoop software)
The Washington Monthly [washingtonmonthly.com] (Movable Type)
Chomsky's Turning the Tide [zmag.org] (pay to play: ironic? no, he's just to busy to respond to anonymous comments)
The Washington Note [thewashingtonnote.com] (MT; by a good friend of Josh Marshall [talkingpointsmemo.com])
Ed Fitzgerald's Unfutz [blogspot.com] (MT maybe; has the best poll aggregations)
Five I find insightful (Score:5, Informative)
Washington Monthly (by Kevin Drum) [washingtonmonthly.com]
Talking Points Memo (Josh Marshall) [talkingpointsmemo.com]
Atrios [blogspot.com]
Matthew Yglesias [typepad.com]
Digby's Blog [blogspot.com]
My favorites (Score:5, Informative)
The previously mentioned Talking Points Memo [talkingpointsmemo.com] is quite good.
Also see:
Washington Monthly [washingtonmonthly.com] (Kevin Drum, formerly of Calpundit)
Altercation [msnbc.com] (what liberal media?)
Daily Howler [dailyhowler.com]
Columbia Journalism Review [campaigndesk.org] de-spins the media.
Juan Cole [juancole.com] (very insightful Iraq commentary from this professor of history)
White House Briefing [washingtonpost.com] (political round-up)
Good Liberal blogs (Score:3, Informative)
- Daily Kos [dailykos.com]
- Eschaton (Atrios) [blogspot.com]
- Political Animal [washingtonmonthly.com]
- Pandagon [pandagon.net]
- Hulaballoo (Digby) [blogspot.com]
- First Draft [first-draft.com]
- Joe Conason (kinda a blog, it's hosted by Salon.com) [salon.com]
As mentioned in the post itself, Talking Points Memo is also excellent. Sorry I don't have any conservative blogs listed; I don't have a fondness for lies and general evilness.Instapundit hands down (Score:5, Informative)
It offers a nice round-up of links from the blogosphere, along with the his own commentary.
It's run by Glenn Reynolds [google.com], a University of Tennessee law professor, and social liberal, everything else conservative.
The beauty of blogs is that Bias is readily apparent, and seldom denied, unlike oh, say, some cats in the mainream media. [ratherbiased.com]
Neal Boortz.... As he says, don't believe him ... (Score:3, Informative)
He always comes out and says it, do not believe a thing on his page or what he says unless you know it to be the truth.
Boortz is responsible for switching me to the Libertarian platform in most respects. I will even give him credit for my quitting smoking as he pointed out very correctly that it is for losers.
While I don't care for his show very much his written articles are hard hitting and even fairly accurate at times.
He leans right but that is a Libertarian trait. We have to be responsible for ourselves first and should not use the Government to exploit others for our own benefit.
He always posts a good selection of daily stories.
The short list.... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:My favorites, more blogs like Juan Cole's blog (Score:3, Informative)
No reference to Andrew Sullivan... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Not exactly "favorite", but... (Score:3, Informative)
You say Kos "had a quick but unfortunately wrong analysis of the now-thoroughly-discredited Rather memos."
This isn't quite accurate. "Fortune" implies some sort of luck was involved. But in actuallity, Kos mounted a furious and quite deliberate defense of something that he passionately believed should have been true. He was sure that anyone who believes anything different from what *he* believes must be a lying scumbag, and that attitude caused him to insist that his version of reality was true, in the face of mounting evidence to the contrary.
This contrasts with the behavior I saw on most conservative blogs. Even those who doubted the memos seemed to take pains to mention that there was still a dwindling chance they *could* be real. (Of course, they also noted that even if the memos *did* turn out to be real, Rather and CBS still came out of the whole thing looking terrible).
- Alaska Jack
Re:Andrew Sullivan != Conservative, but here are s (Score:5, Informative)
I disagree. Sullivan does focus heavily on gay rights (goshIwonderwhy,) but he's still very much a 'classic' conservative. While gay rights may be his biggest cause, he continues to make a lot of noise over things like fiscal responsibility, smaller government, keeping government out of private spheres, and accountability. He's decidedly gone out of step with Bush's neoconservatism, but frankly, I'd say that Bush is the one who left conservatism--not Sullivan.
For example, his current front-page articles include:
While it's fair to say that he's big on gay rights, it's disingenuous to dismiss him as single-minded and 'no longer conservative'. Andrew Sullivan is decidedly conservative, even if a lot of other conservatives out there would rather not count him among their numbers...
Re:DailyKos (Score:5, Informative)
> were they? Who alleges this? Did Bush himself do anything? Do
> Bush's FATHER do anything? Who is to blame for this.
> Unsubstantiated FUD. Troll.
Ben Barnes, then Lt. Governor of Texas, admitted he got Bush into the National Guard:
> "I got a young man named George W. Bush into the Texas
> National Guard when I was lieutenant governor, and I'm not
> necessarily proud of that. But I did it.
Bush was son of a then senator and former ambassador. He served in what many called the "champagne" unit in the Texas National Guard. Bush admitted he had no experience to get him into the guard, and he scored in the bottom 25% on the pilots' test. Bush's records admit this.
> Guess you haven't been watching the news recently when
> Staudt and others in the guard and of the guard went on TV.
> That's how fast the liberla media jumped on this story once
> they thought they had something they could run with
The questionable documents have done a lot to muddy the waters, but the fact remains that the crux of the question of Bush's service was not dependent on a single document. I agree that CBS News should have fact-checked better. However, it would be nice if the Bush supporters as charged up in determining the authenticity of a now-shown fraudulent document that lead us to war [boston.com].
But that doesn't absolve Bush from not finishing his duty, which has been corroborated in ways apart from the documents. For example, in Bush's records, Bush flew only 22 months of the 53 he owed. Salon has more details [salon.com] on the documents that Bush should have filed but did not when he decided to stop flying:
--Quote--
> Bush flew for the last time on April 16, 1972. Upon entering
> the Guard, Bush agreed to fly for 60 months. After his training
> was complete, he owed 53 months of flying.
> But he flew for only 22 of those 53 months.
> Upon being accepted for pilot training, Bush promised to
> serve with his parent (Texas) Guard unit for five years once he > completed his pilot training.
> But Bush served as a pilot with his parent unit for just two
> years.
> In May 1972 Bush left the Houston Guard base for Alabama.
> According to Air Force regulations, Bush was supposed to
> obtain prior authorization before leaving Texas to join a new
> Guard unit in Alabama.
> But Bush failed to get the authorization.
> In requesting a permanent transfer to a nonflying unit in
> Alabama in 1972, Bush was supposed to sign an
> acknowledgment that he received relocation counseling.
> But no such document exists.
> He was supposed to receive a certification of satisfactory
> participation from his unit.
> But Bush did not.
> On May 26, 1972, Lt. Col. Reese Bricken, commander of the
> 9921st Air Reserve Squadron at Maxwell Air Force Base in
> Alabama, informed Bush that a transfer to his nonflying unit
> would be unsuitable for a fully trained pilot such as he was,
> and that Bush would not be able to fulfill any of his remaining
> two years of flight obligation.
> But Bush pressed on with his transfer request nonetheless.
> Bush's transfer request to the 9921st was eventually denied by
> the Air Reserve Personnel Center in Denver, which meant he
> was still obligated to attend training sessions one weekend a
> month with his Texas unit in Houston.
> But Bush failed to attend weekend drills in May, June, July,
> August and September. He also failed to request permission
> to make up those days at the time.
> According to Air Force regulations,
Newbies: The major conservative/libertarian blogs (Score:5, Informative)
1. Instapundit. [instapundit.com] Written by a Glenn Reynolds, a libertarian law professor at the University of Tennessee whose expertise is in second amendment issues, technology and communication. Perhaps the most influential and widely read blog.
2. The Corner [nationalreview.com]. National Review's group weblog. Lots of contributors, who vary widely in tone (after you read it a while you come to recognize who the various authors are, and what points of view they hold). If you're not a conservative, you should check it out -- you won't agree with most of the stuff, but after a while you might learn that the folks on the "other side" aren't a bunch of moronic power-mad nazis: They actually have coherent reasons for believing what they believe, and can ably articulate those views. Understanding their arguments will help you sharpen your own.
3. The Volokh Conspiracy [volokh.com]. A group weblog of libertarian and conservative law professors. The lead conspirator, Eugene Volokh, is a computer programmer-turned UCLA law professor; he is an expert in free speech issues, with some expertise in the second amendment as well. A lot of bloggers could learn from the civil tone of this blog -- i.e., no yelling, taunting or name-calling. Volokh believes writers should try to persuade others, not alienate them with overheated rhetoric.
Note that Volokh, like Reynolds, is a true libertarian: Conservatives are unlikely to agree with either of them on things like abortion and homosexuality.
4. Andrew Sullivan [andrewsullivan.com]. An influential writer for Time, The New Republic and other print outlets. Perhaps the best-known openly gay conservative.
5. Kausfiles [msn.com]. A moderate-to-conservative Democrat, Mickey Kaus is utterly unsparing (and occasionally downright brutal) in his criticism of liberal excess, fellow democrats and the media. Doesn't write a lot, but is witty and sometimes offers extraordinary insights you won't get anywhere else.
6. Best of the Web [opinionjournal.com]. The Wall Street Journal's blog, written by James Taranto. A once-a-day read, it sums up a lot of current issues from a conservatives' point of view.
Yes, there are many many many many others. But if the conservative/libertarian blogosphere is like a tree, these are the trunk.
- Alaska Jack
Re:Some of my picks: (Score:4, Informative)
I wouldn't call them original (Score:2, Informative)
It wasn't nice then, it isn't nice now. I bet there weren't any liberals complaining about it in '99 though.
Re:DailyKos (Score:1, Informative)
I quote Josh Marshall [talkingpointsmemo.com] in the following post [talkingpointsmemo.com] on the matter:
"The Barnes story isn't a new one. And the relevant dates of it and the office Barnes was serving in at the time have never been questioned. It happened during the time Barnes was Speaker of the House in Texas. In the past, he went to great lengths to avoid discussing. But after being forced to discuss it in a civil suit deposition in 1999, he made a brief public announcement. See this clip from the Houston Chronicle from September 28th 1999 ...
In fact, not only has Barnes been consistent and his account not been questioned, even Bush himself and his campaign have accepted Barnes account. All they have insisted on -- though it is quite improbable -- is that they did not know at the time about his actions and were not involved in any way in requesting it.The president even went so far as to thank Barnes in a personal note for being clear that he had no direct, personal knowledge that the Bush family had contacted the intermediary who contacted him. Consider this clip from a September 27th, 1999 Associated Press story ...
There's a rich backstory to why the subject came up in that civil suit. But as you can see Barnes went to some lengths not to make trouble for Bush; and they were, wellRe:Andrew Sullivan != Conservative, but here are s (Score:3, Informative)
Further, what the documents said was true, even if the documents themsevles were not actually the originals.
Re:My favorites (Score:3, Informative)
Here are some blogs I like that are often political, but not stupidly partisan, such as:
In case you haven't heard, BlogLines [bloglines.com] is a great way to read blogs online.
Re:Drudge Report (Score:3, Informative)
There have been a number of different surveys that support his point, although not in the exact terms he stated:
http://www.mrc.org/biasbasics/welcome.asp#how [mrc.org]
Keep in mind that the Media Research Center is a conservative organization, so they have their own axe to grind. But, this should give you enough references that you can find the data for yourself and decide if their spin is justified.
Re:Andrew Sullivan != Conservative, but here are s (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Drudge Report (Score:2, Informative)
The middle-east coverage is a bit different because the US military is actually *IN* the middle east at this very moment. The coverage is syndicated between various international networks. The same thing can't be said of coverage of internal US issues because they simply aren't as important as Iraq (war...).
Billmon (Score:3, Informative)
Check the archives though. It's worth it. It'll take weeks just to read through it all and each one is as good as the last.