莎拉裴琳準備2012年選總統? (Is Palin gunning for 2012?)
"Shorter or quicker is better, imo," says alpha blogger Dan Riehl of The Riehl World — Full disclosure: We co-blog there at Dan's discretion — in one of his longer, more extended blogposts, "A Post For New, Or Striving Bloggers." Check it out for some good advice if you're just jumping into the 'sphere. Setting the scene:
When I heard Gloria Allred mention Mark Van Der Hout in her interview with Mark Levin, it was a name I didn't know, one not previously affiliated with the story. So, I went to Google and started looking into him. That the housekeeper's immigration lawyer is a card-carrying Leftist activist, precisely the type to want to help Brown, advances the story as a likely partisan election smear. No so-called journalists bothered even looking into him at the time, if they even heard his name.
Going for the jugular:
Bloggers are limited in resources, but there are hundreds of news stories breaking every day, many of them with facts and personalities that present tangents for exploring to expand the story, instead of just ranting about it, or offering your special brand of insight, no matter how clever or witty you might think it is.
"Offering your special brand of insight, no matter how clever or witty you might think it is"? That one hit a bit of a nerve here till we remembered that's where we live. We're not about to be cowed by such dissing. Take it or leave it. Fun to participate in breaking news, as we did peripherally via Twitter yesterday with Stacy McCain's scooping the Todd Palin/Joe Miller pseudo spat. Among our proudest accomplishments have been those moments — blogging, twittering and on the ground — when we've been disintermediating the powers that be by promoting fresh, new candidates to facilitate "term limits by other means," from Scott Brown's retaking of "The People's Seat" last year onward and upward to our stout-hearted support this election season of Sean Bielat's RetireBarney.com campaign. No one's better than Dan at what he does, but that notwithstanding, we're a lumper, not a splitter, and our stock in trade is making connections between/among things normally seen as separate. Perfect example from Joshua Rothkopf's excellent review of "The Social Network" the other day where the author got it almost right:
… sparkling dialogue, thorny situations, soulful performances, and an unusually open-ended and relevant engagement with a major social issue of the day: how we (dis)connect.
Good as far as he went, but that "major social issue of the day" is hardly confined to our day. It's one of the great good-vs-evil über themes of human nature and human history — "the importance of being noticed" — that we are forever flogging here. Unfortunately, all too many people haven't a clue. Meghan McCain comes to mind.
Update: Michelle Malkin Buzzworthy link!
Crossposted at Riehl World View and Liberty Pundits.
I rarely read political blogs and have banished politics from my own meek endeavor.
I can barely stand more than 140 characters of politics (and that includes a link).
As for discussions, places like Althouse and Ambiance are still great IMO. But I love following you guys on Twitter!
Posted by: chickelit | October 06, 2010 at 08:17 PM
I know exactly what Dan is talking about. Many, if not most, bloggers merely link and elaborate on something someone else dug up. People like Dan, Michelle Malkin, Andrew Breitbart and a few others do a lot of digging which is what earns them their spot at the vanguard of movement conservativism. What is exciting for people like me is to watch other bloggers converge on a story making it go viral to the point of quickly intruding itself onto the MSM reporting where there are clearly behind their audience in learning of and understanding the story.
But everyone can't be a Malkin, Breitbart or Rhiel. A big part of their influence comes from those very bloggers who take their work and quickly spread it like a virus expanding, clarifying and otherwise reinforcing (ranting) the story so that more people hear of it and "get" it.
Posted by: Pasadena Phil | October 06, 2010 at 09:54 PM