As bloggers, we do what we do because we love this mode of expression. I'm betting that many die-hard bloggers were, years ago, the same folks who were hitting the chat boards.
But the problem with chat boards is that you can't really get into a topic the way you'd like. Unless you are a moderator, which takes tons of time, the conversation can wander in any direction, and the topic itself can be shut down at any time.
But blogging lets us set whatever tone we wish. And we can post topics at whatever pace works for us.
I'm willing to bet that most of us are hoping to get "discovered" as bloggers. That is, we'll suddenly be noted by someone in the MSM, on talk radio, or by other blogs.
I'll admit, I would love for that to happen. But what happened on February 14, when my latest post, "Bloglust?," was noted by CNN, was NOT what I had hoped or imagined.
Why?
Because CNN did what I thought noone would ever do (more a lack of imagination than anything) to my posts... They took one particular sentence of the post, and used it to make it look as if I was condemning other conservative bloggers for engaging in a swarm over Eason Jordan's idiotic comments regarding our troops in Iraq.
Granted, I wanted my post to be provocative. With that said, I didn't want to slam my fellow conservatives either. Rather, I wanted to initiate a conversation on the issue of swarming in the blogosphere and call out what one day might become a problem with the desire to go after people, "just because we can." I did not believe, and stated so in my original post, that the Easongate issue was an example of that, but I did use that issue to frame my point.
So, on one level, my post was appropriate. But I have regrets as well.
In the first place, the blogs who took on Eason Jordan were doing so because Jordan, as I mentioned above, slandered troops serving over in Iraq. He accused them of targeting the media, not because he had any proof, but because he is against the war in Iraq.
I would guess that, like so many liberals in the MSM, he was hoping that Iraq would become another Viet Nam. The fact that it has not, and will not, be another Viet Nam has them all in a tizzy.
If you look at what our troops have accomplished just in the past few years, you can't help but be impressed. In late 2004 and early 2005 alone, two new democracies were born; one in Afghanistan, and one in Iraq. And the US military played midwife for the birth of both those new democracies.
Article comments
1 - KOB
Nice post and good analysis, but I think the idea that bloggers are uniquely influential is off the mark.
The good bloggers are cut from the same cloth of columnists " one-man operations syndicating their work.
So, yes, someone who has good, verifiable information, or original analysis and publishes it (I don’t care what medium) can have substantial impact. Author Upton Sinclair, columnist Jack Anderson and pamphlet publisher Thomas Paine proved that many times over.
But blogger swarms, made up of people with nothing interesting or new to say, won’t have impact. Mob behavior is contemptible and incoherent. And my suspicion is most bloggers who weigh in on political issues find the idea that they are part of a “swarm” offensive.
2 - Deano
I'd be careful dancing too early over the events in Afghanistan or Iraq, as both are still balanced on the knife-edge, Iraq probably less so than Afghanistan because fundamentally Iraq has more strategic value, more US troops, more economic assistance etc. to the US and others, and so draws more attention and support.
Afghanistan has a long-standing ingrained habit of instability. My guess is that a significant percentage of the opposition in Afghanistan is waiting patiently for the US interest to wan and then, quite probably, it will be business as usual for the warlords,...unless Karzai, with foreign assistance, can build up enough of a military and alliance power base to control more than just the regions around Kabul.
Weirdly enough, despite probably being one of those "liberals" who you paint as unsupportive, I've always had decided mixed views on the Iraq war. I'm perfectly glad that Bush handed Saddam his head. Given the horrific abuses he has heaped up over the years on the Iraqi people, Personally I had no real qualms about his regime coming to a bad end and some type of democratic government emerging.
My main sticking points came from several areas: First, the blatant and deliberately misleading attempt by the Bush government to leverage 9-11 and WMD arguments to justify the war in Iraq. Although it is now being portrayed as a "noble enterprise" for democracy and shifting the balance in the Middle East (and it very well may turn out to be one - maybe), that is not and was never the primary (or even the secondary) reason behind the war.
The second reason was the devestatingly bad impact that Bush's actions have inflicted upon the international system and our own western alliance. While offending France might not seem to be a big deal to many (and they do tend to get offended if you so much as look at them sideways), the overall impact of Bush's actions have been to reduce much of the slowly built up, mutually beneficial system of alliances and international controls to disparate pieces. For the last 100 years, out of the ashes of WWI and WWII, the international system has built up a system that helps to place limits (albeit mostly self-imposed limits) on the actions of states with an objective to reducing the crippling tit-for-tat wars and alliances that permeated the last two centuries of history. The reason, bluntly, is we cannot afford another such conflict.
By placing the US outside of the purview of its allies or international institutions, the US is essentially now acting as a rogue state...because it can. How long do you think other nations will sit back and watch before in this brave new world that Bush has pushed forward, they start to act for their own interests, in an unrestrained manner.
Who cares, you ask? Well, if Bush is unsuccessful in mending fences and reestablishing international norms, in a few years you will start to see an arms race like you have never seen before...and if you think nuclear, chemical and biological weapon proliferation is bad now, wait and see.
So in the end, Bush's actions might have been great for Iraqi freedom and democracy, and wholly satifying in eliminating Saddam, but will it have a long-term impact on global security? I don't know. If he continues to spurn multilateral solutions and approachs, the long-term impact will almost certainly be negative.
3 - Steve S
They took one particular sentence of the post
Sucks when one side's methodology is used on them, I suppose.
He accused them of targeting the media, not because he had any proof, but because he is against the war in Iraq.
So has Nancy Grace asked you on her show yet to psychically read other minds?