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)
Re:Drudge Report (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Drudge Report (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Drudge Report (Score:4, Insightful)
As with anything, be critical of what you read, but Drudge has proven himself right more times than the elite media cares to admit.
Re:Drudge Report (Score:3, Insightful)
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 deci
Re:Drudge Report (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Drudge Report (Score:3, Insightful)
As a matter of fact I do read the DrudgeReport and it is not unbiased. Few organizations really are unbiased--bias is what reporting is mostly about today. In the case of the DrudgeReport it was fueled primarily by leaks from the conservative movement and as such has right-leaning tendencies. Nothing wrong with that at all--just isn't my taste.
My biases tend to make the DrudgeRETORT more entertaining and a better
Re:Drudge Report (Score:4, Funny)
You mean he relents?
Or is this like "Disirregardless?"
Re:Drudge Report (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Drudge Report (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Drudge Report (Score:4, Insightful)
Actually, no. I don't waste my time with his site anymore. I get my news from outside the US, like a mirror I find it's a very revealing reflection of how others view us as well as exploring news topics commonly overlooked on home ground because we tend to be too fascinated with scandal and innuendo to pay attention to what's really happening. Learn to spot high profile political issues as the sucker bait that they really are.
I'd rather read the Onion than Drudge.
Re:Drudge Report (Score:3, Funny)
I get my news from outside the US
But then you're getting your news from a bunch of people who have absolutely no idea what's actually going on in the country.
Re:Drudge Report (Score:5, Insightful)
Really? If you think that, then you must think that Fox News has no idea what is going on in the Middle East.
Re:Drudge Report (Score:5, Interesting)
You missed my point. The poster was questioning why certain slashdotters were using non-US media sources as their primary source of information. The poster said that journalists from non-US countries could not understand the US. From which, one could insinuate that we would be better off only listening to US sources for news on the US.
Therefore, I pointed out that if we could only use US news media to understand US news, then how could we trust the US media to understand the middle east?
I did only use Fox as an example, but that was because I was playing on the OPs sig on being part of the "right-wing conspiracy". However, I wasn't picking on Fox. I was picking on the OPs idea that only reporters that are from the US could possibly write good and valid articles on the US.
In other words, you can't just limit your news sources to domestic (US) news sources. There are good journalists from other countries that do a great job of reporting on the news here in the United States. Just like the fact that there are good journalists here in the US that do a great job of reporting from other spots around the world.
Re:Drudge Report (Score:3, Insightful)
I would argue the exact opposite. People outside the U.S. are far more likely to understand the positions of the presidential candidates (to take an example) than are Americans who are only exposed to media from their own country. The BBC, for example, is one of the most credible sources for American poli
Re:Drudge Report (Score:3, Interesting)
That is why the BBC and others have foreign correspondents to report back from the US.
During Rove's 'mission accomplished' farce on the US Liberty the US media duly reported back the images with the approved Rove spin. The BBC reporters correctly saw the pantomime as more likely to be the embarassing liability it has become rather than the masterstroke the US media reported it as. As I and others pr
Re:Drudge Report (Score:3, Funny)
Yeah, that's nearly as crazy an idea as some Frenchman writing an enduring classic about American democracy [wikipedia.org]. There's plenty of good foreign-press coverage of the US. A prime example is The Economist [economist.com].
Re:Drudge Report (Score:3, Interesting)
Cry me a river, why don't you.
The very fact of the matter is that people outside the U.S. have little grasp of what America is like -- its politics or its people. All you see of our people
Re:Drudge Report (Score:3)
Would you mind explaining how the Fairness Doctrine (or lack thereof) affected newspapers or magazines?
According to him, everyone across the political spectrum- practically without exception- is livid about this election.
So? Tough shit.
In fact, I would submit that he who pisses off the Europeans most is automatically the best choice as President.
The French in particular can be guaranteed to be found on the wrong side of
Re:Drudge Report (Score:5, Interesting)
For all the shit it's going to create, I will say that the American population is to blame for the terrorist attacks. We twice elected Clinton, who while not completely inept concerning terrorists, did make some bad calls. He decided to strike at training camps at the same time he had to sit in front of congress about Lewinsky. Whether or not his decision was based on that timing is still debated today, but nobody will say that hitting Al-Qaeda training camps was a bad decision. We weren't in the position to send in troops, so missiles and bombs were the only plausible action. The really bad decision was to give up when the press criticized him for trying to deflect attention away from the scandal. Again, the people were to blame for electing the man, and again for criticizing his decision to attack.
Then we elected Bush, (many will still debate the election itself) who completely ignored all terrorist threats before the attacks, like the now famous memo that he received on August 6, 2001 titled Bin Ladin Determined to Strike in US. Here [thesmokinggun.com] is a scan of the original document. Here we are more than 3 years since that memo was written and the WTC attack; Bin Laden is still free, we're stuck in Iraq with the situation getting worse every day, and a whole new generation of Islamic extremists has even more reasons to hate us. We the people, not the president, have ensured that the vicious circle of hate, fear, and violence continues for another generation.
We bring it all on ourselves as long as we value charisma over substance.
Re:Drudge Report (Score:4, Insightful)
As long as we are choosing between a Republican and a Democrat for every single office, we do not get such a meaningful choice.
Re:Drudge Report (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh, you mean like that "bimbo eruption" he tried to pin on Kerry [politicalwire.com] back in the primaries that turned out to be such a load of hooey he ended up apologizing [cyberjournalist.net] to the woman he pointed the finger at?
Yeah, he's a real Beacon of Truth, all right.
Informed Comment (Score:2, Insightful)
michaelmoore.com (Score:2, Informative)
Re:michaelmoore.com (Score:5, Funny)
...and who said he doesn't have a sense of humour!
Propaganda (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:michaelmoore.com (Score:3, Insightful)
They'd be even funnier if the aforementioned link contained Moore's opinion, rather, it is him linking to other news articles hosted by various news agencies.
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.
Re:Spinsanity - sheds light on the insanity (Score:2)
Re:Kos, WaMo... (Score:3, Insightful)
Kos suffered from a case of "Baghdad-Bobia", a rare condition where their shear willingness to believe blinds them to facts that are evident to everyone else. To the Kos, the CBS forged memos were real and still are. During the debate over typesetting, it was enough to show a typewriter with proportional spacing while everyone else was performing technical analysis on different spacing technologies.
The Washington Monthy seems alright though. Chomsky suffers from being Chomsky. And no one suffers from it mo
Re:Kos, WaMo... (Score:3, Interesting)
Indeed. Allow me to quote Hunter in the article you linked to...
Bush acts like recovered alcoholics usually act. (Score:3, Insightful)
"... Bush is now alarmingly clean and sober..."
In my opinion, Bush acts exactly like recovered alcoholics usually act: The psychological effects of alcoholism provide a framework for understanding the Bush administration. [futurepower.org]. See points 1 through 13.
My guess is that you don't recognize the symptoms because you are not an alcoholic and don't know any. I'm not an alcoholic, but I had a friend who is. He taught me a lot, and then I asked numerous other alcoholics.
There's a saying at AA meetings: "Onc
Re:The most arrested President and VP in history. (Score:3, Insightful)
BUT. If Bush has lied in the present about his past; if he used his powers as governor of Texas to cover up embarrassing details of his TXANG service and "scrub" his record, Then I do care about it.
The misleading statements about TXANG aren't big lies Bush has told, but they're lies. And the coverup is a bigger deal. Both the coverup and the lies speak about Bush's character. Since Bush h
Re:The most arrested President and VP in history. (Score:3, Interesting)
1. "For the most part no one wants to know about the exploits of anyone else's penis unless they're scripted and in a porno movie"
Or they involve a man in a position of power taking advantage of a subordinate. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying Lewinsky was some sort of naive ingenue. But it is precisely these sort of relationships that were of great concern to a large segment of the feminist establishment -- at least, until one involved a p
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)
Re:Annenberg FactCheck (Score:4, Insightful)
MensNewsDaily.com [mensnewsdaily.com] collects pretty good commentary from a number of contributers on a number of issues that aren't forefront on the MSM. Their articles are short and poigniant. They have a forum you can discuss the articles in, so I would call that a blog.
Powerlineblog.com [powerlineblog.com] is pretty reasonable for commentary and was one of the big players in Rathergate. INDCJournal might be less reasonable but they have the quickest footwork in the business. They'll be the ones to call the sources, call experts, etc... Footwork that is a lost art in journalism. But their commentary is a bit off-balance and can often trip themselves up.
Little Green Footballs is often misunderstood, but I like them. They do their job very well. Even better though is Watch [windsofchange.net] which is devoid of the sophmoric commentary.
But then there is an upper eschelon, which FactCheck belongs to, as does Belmont Club [blogspot.com]. When Belmont treats an issue, you've got gold.
But the absolute MOAB of the blogosphere is Bill Whittle. He posts seldomly, and when he does it is incredibly long. But there is no better writer on the Internet that I've found. As it says on his website: If Steven den Best is Spock, he is the Captain Kirk [ejectejecteject.com]. Seriously there is no finer work on the internet than his "Strength" series, followed closely by "Empire".
For humor, Scrappleface and CoxandForkum are great. They not only give you the humor but they give you the stories that inspired it.
I'm voting Robocratic (Score:2)
Blognarik!! (Score:2, Informative)
DemocraticUnderground.com (Score:2)
THis is the blog for most of the Democratic party activists. Some very informed people there. Also, some real leftists, although most are just typical centrists.
Also, kuro5hin.org
Originaldissent.com is also OK.
Watching capitalism fail (Score:2, Interesting)
from the sidelines
http://oligopolywatch.com/ [oligopolywatch.com]
there can be only one, then it is the end.
Fafblog! (Score:4, Interesting)
fafblog.blogspot.com
Anyone else know of it?
Fix the link, please (Score:2)
sensible election (Score:2)
I mean sensibleelection.com
DailyKos (Score:5, Insightful)
politics.slashdot.org is rapidly turning into one of my least favorites because I've noticed that the moderation system is running amuck! Never before have I seen such a split in moderations where a single comment can be rated "informative" and "troll" numerous times in the same story. And many moderators with a chip on their shoulder start using "offtopic" and "overrated" to try to protect their own karma during metamoderation. Here's an example [slashdot.org] of where it happened to me recently. And it's not just the political posts (though I suspect it happens there most often), but in a Star Wars story. I still can't believe this post [slashdot.org] got called a "troll"! I'm sure many others can come up with their own examples.
It seems that there may be too many people moderating these days, and little accountability, a single person doesn't have to have an agenda [slashdot.org]; you can have a group of likeminded people who want to squelch dissenting opinions pummel a relatively decent post down into the noise of hot grits posts.
DailyKos has a better system where moderations aren't anonymous, so you can see how people are moderating. Then again, if DailyKos had the same traffic as Slashdot, maybe its moderation system would get corrupted too.
Maybe the ultimate problem is that people don't respect others' views, or they prize too highly the views of people that they may agree with but use bad logic or specious reasoning. It's probably indicative of the growing polarization in our country. As people start migrating to sandboxes where only likeminded people congregate (which blogs, especially political ones, can lead to), they become less tolerant of opinions that challenge their own.
Re:DailyKos (Score:3, Insightful)
And it happens from both directions - I've seen some perfectly rational discussion by some clearly right wing people get buried as Flamebait or Troll for no apparent reason. However, that said, I've noticed that the people who get the shortest end of the stick are Greens and Leftists, especially when they
Re:DailyKos (Score:5, Insightful)
sentence #1 It is completely ridiculous to suggest that the press has spent more time investigating Bush than they did giving free press to the lying SBVT group.On the other hand, Bush has gotten a free pass for
a) Using political connections to get in to the National Guard, when he was far from the best candidate to get in
b) Not fulfilling his duty once he was in there
c) Lying about his service and claiming he flew with his unit for years
a) You assume some political connections were used? What 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.
b) Not fulfilling his duty...who knows, I'll give you that one.
c) "Lying about his service and claiming he flew with his unit for years" Show me that he didn't fly? Probable troll.
Official National Guard records, including those released by the White House, contradict Bush's statements. Others in the National Guard corroborate the fact that Bush did not fulfill his duty. To this day, Bush has been incapable of naming a single person who saw him in Alabama when he was supposed to be training there. Bush claims he signed up for a unit up north (Connecticut, I think), but he never showed up to that at all.
Guess you haven't been watching the news recently when Staudt and others in the guard and of the guard went on TV. Troll.
The national media ignored Bush's stint with a champaign unit in the National Guard during Vietnam, with small exceptions, during the 2000 campaign. I know many Bush supporters would like to believe otherwise, but it's fact.
It hink the bigger point is "who cares at all?" and if anyone cares, is there any evidence to prove it? There is not, as the extremely poorly forged documents of this last month show, most recently. That's how fast the liberla media jumped on this story once they thought they had something they could run with--did no basic fact checking (re, Staudt) and couldn't even realize that the documents were CLEARLY forged on MS Word.
Then I did a search for "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth" and "John Kerry" and "Vietnam" in the past six months. How many hits? 248!
I'll take this slow for you. How many times did Bush say that he should be president because of his experience in the guard? How many times did Bush campaign on ANYTHING he did in his youth? Never. Quite the contrary, Bush is a man reborn and he was not running on his record of 30 years ago. Kerry on the other hand "Reporting for duty!" (DNC) based his entire campaign on his Vietnam experience and rarely faield to mention Vietnam in his speeches. IT's only natural that he comes under attack for this stance.
Is Bush's Vietnam record (or lack of it) relevant to today? To some extent, no. The war was more than 30 years ago. But for a president who calls himself the "war president", who insists he was for the Vietnam war, who started an elective war under false pretenses and shifting reasons, and who is dangerously stretching our military resources, it is important to know what that person was doing when it was their time to serve.
He's a war president because the country went to war, not because he fought in some war 30 years ago. Were Eisenhower or Grant war presidents? No? Roosevelt? Who? Troll. False pretenses? THe pretenses were false only in that the CIA, British intelligence and others dropped the ball. Is there any evidence Bush himself knowingly lied? Troll. And you're absolutely right, it is important to know what did when they were called up to serve--thus the Swift Boat Vets. You can't say it's important and try to suppress them at the same time. Troll yet again.
Does anyone else find it distasteful when a draft dodger calls into question the medals of a war hero?
and that is why you were trolling (lies!)
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,
Ian Lyon (Score:2)
correction (Score:4, Informative)
Anyplace... (Score:2)
Try going to DrudgeReport and then clicking on any of the columnists - they usually do a good job of ripping the mainstream (i.e. Liberal) media.
But it doesn't matter - we're all gonna die anyway.
Re:Anyplace... (Score:5, Interesting)
Don't get me wrong, I've recently seen the light and realized once again that -all- politicians suck after a brief fling with the belief that the Democrats were On My Side. But, Drudge just seems to be out for a slanderous story, and well, it doesn't even have to be true to generate some traffic now does it?
Of course, this website is not the only one, nor is it a factor of it being right-leaning (Michael Moore anybody?) but there you go.
Tom Tommorow's (Score:5, Informative)
Wonkette (Score:3, Funny)
Favorite political blogs (Score:2, Interesting)
News Hounds (Score:4, Interesting)
Their motto is "We watch FOX so you don't have to." They monitor the political slant of FOX News. The people that run this blog are the media monitors from the movie "Outfoxed" by Robert Greenwald.
"let us think for you" (Score:4, Funny)
The same kind of thinking that just got CBS into deep, deep doodoo.
You're mistaken, Fox DID say the photo was fake (Score:5, Insightful)
Merely repeating a lie doesn't make it true. Fox has said several times the photo was false, as did National Review and several other conservative sources.
Buzzmachine.com by Jeff Jarvis (Score:4, Interesting)
Not exactly "favorite", but... (Score:3, Informative)
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:Not exactly "favorite", but... (Score:3, Insightful)
Exactly. You seem to have misunderstood what I meant and read it as an equivalent to "when did you stop beating your wife". I meant that if the order had never been give
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 versio
Re:Not exactly "favorite", but... (Score:3, Insightful)
He wasn't, because he never said that the documents were genuine; he simply pointed out that the people who were arguing that they were forgeries were, frankly, full of it. In the long run, they may have been right, but their arguments weren't -- their arguments involved a great number of claims about what was and wasn't possible wi
Like Kryptonite to Stupid (Score:2)
A little too extreme at times, but overall a very down-to-earth and likable guy.
If you want to make them mad, you could say the people over at metafilter [metafilter.com] (currently down) make for a good political blog. (snicker)
Antiwar.com (Score:2)
This site is really my favorite political news source.
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.
Take it from a professional... (Score:2)
If you're uninformed or just love long lists of candidates and political parties across the nation, as well as the best commentary around, read...
Politics1 [politics1.com]
...and if you're a liberal...which you are, RIGHT?
Check out...
DailyKos [dailykos.com]
Wait a minute, wait a minute... (Score:2)
Jerry Pournelle (Score:4, Interesting)
Web site:
http://www.jerrypournelle.com/mail/current
Re:Jerry Pournelle (Score:3, Insightful)
--
Evan
Jesus' General Of Course! (Score:5, Funny)
Noam Chomsky (Score:2, Interesting)
Electrolite (Score:2)
My favorite political weblog? (Score:4, Insightful)
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
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)
Re:My favorites, more blogs like Juan Cole's blog (Score:3, Informative)
Re:My favorites (Score:3, Informative)
There's another blog called Oh, That Liberal Media [thatliberalmedia.com].
Here are some blogs I like that are often political, but not stupidly partisan, such as:
Some of my picks: (Score:4, Interesting)
I tend not to read conservative blogs because I like my blood-pressure where it is. And, really, I read enough conservative BS when I read the stories that are run in the normal "liberally biased" press. In their zeal to be "balanced", news outlets feel they need to print a bunch of lies & distortions from the right in order to balance anything not from the right.
Re:Some of my picks: (Score:4, Informative)
Andrew Sullivan != Conservative, but here are some (Score:5, Insightful)
If you really want to read a high-quality conservative blog, here are two from National Review Online [nationalreview.com]:
- The Corner, [nationalreview.com] a braided-blog with constributions by many of NR's writers, run by Kathryn Jean Lopez, and
- The Kerry Spot [nationalreview.com], penned by Jim Geraghty, whichs follows Kerry and his campaign closely, as well as related subjects. (The Kerry Spot was one of the best sites to follow for updates on Rathergate.
Speaking of Rathergate, a seminal blogsphere watershed that Slashdot has not chosen to feature on its front page, here are some of the key blogs which helped break open the Rathergate story:Well, that should get you started. in truth, except for the NR blogs, I was only an occasional readers of the others before the Rathergate story broke, but now I'm much more of a regular reader, much to the detriment of my productivity...
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: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:Andrew Sullivan != Conservative, but here are s (Score:3, Informative)
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]
Re:Instapundit hands down (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Swingstates. (Score:3, Interesting)
No reference to Andrew Sullivan... (Score:3, Informative)
Eric S. Raymond ... (Score:3, Interesting)
http://esr.ibiblio.org/#154 [ibiblio.org]
Other blogs worth checking out:
Best Poli-Blogs (Score:3, Interesting)
Economics: Brad DeLong [j-bradford-delong.net] He's a PhD economist and a former economic advisor to the Clinton administration
Social Policy: Body and Soul [typepad.com] She blogs the uncomfortable places where others won't go.
Politics: Atrios [blogspot.com] The man reads everything. This site is especially good for U.S. politics.
Snark: Sisyphus Shrugged [livejournal.com] This woman has it. Her recent posts on Nader are vicious and painfully accurate.
Satire: Fafblog!!! [blogspot.com] The world's only source of Fafblog. Do not drink while reading. Your keyboard will thank you.
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
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.
Re:ummmm... (Score:2)
Re:You telling me that... (Score:3)