Donald Trump at CPAC: 'Ron Paul Can't Get Elected'

I'll have more CPAC pictures posted later, but Fox & Friends just interviewed Donald Trump, and no doubt his CPAC turn yesterday generated some buzz. For example, at ABC News, "Donald Trump: If I Run For President ‘This Country Will Be Respected Again’" (via Memeorandum):

During his speech, which was added to the CPAC agenda at the last-minute, Trump hinted that the time may be right for him to run for president, arguing that he had had at least as much experience as President Obama.

“Our current president came out of nowhere,” Trump said.

He laid out his policy viewpoints in straightforward terms: “I’m pro-life. I’m against gun control, and I will fight to end Obamacare and replace it with something that makes sense for people in business and not bankrupt the country.”

Trump added, “If I decide to run, I will not be raising taxes.” He also pledged to help America re-gain a competitive advantage with China and other countries that he said “are screwing us.”

I liked it!

And my full report is here: "Updates from CPAC — Donald Trump Disses Ron Paul!"

More CPAC reporting later!

Updates from CPAC — Donald Trump Disses Ron Paul!

Apologies for the non-existent CPAC updates. The Internet connection inside the bloggers' lounge completely sucks. I had a full day nevertheless, and I'll provide a more detailed report later. For now I wanted to get this photo posted. The bloggers' lounge includes a balcony overlooking the main ballroom at the Wardman Park Marriott. Once I saw Donald Trump on the television monitors I went out to take a few photos. Just as I did, Trump announced that "Ron Paul cannot get elected." The next thing you know the whole left side of the ballroom erupted in boos. At the picture, Trump is responding back, to his right, to the huge cohort of unruly Ron Paul supporters. It was an amazing moment. The Hill's got the story, "Trump: Ron Paul a 'good guy,' but 'has zero chance' of being elected president" (via Memeorandum):

Business mogul Donald Trump said Thursday that Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) could not possibly win the 2012 presidential race.

"By the way, Ron Paul cannot get elected, I'm sorry to tell you," Trump said at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) on Thursday. "I like Ron Paul, I think he's a good guy, but honestly he just has zero chance of getting elected."

Both Trump's names and Paul's have been mentioned as possible candidates for the 2012 presidential race.

Trump, who was a late addition to the speech schedule at CPAC, said in the same speech that he is considering running for president and would make an announcement if he decides to run in the first half of this year.

Bonus: Apparently the same crowd heckled Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, seen below. The former vice president is not falling asleep. Rather, he's reading his notes:

At any rate, Talking Points Memo has the video: "Paul Supporters Hijack Cheney-Rumsfeld Reunion."

Pamela has more: "Where Have all the Rumsfelds Gone?"

More on Sarah Palin and CPAC

Earlier it was her comments on GOProud. Now she responds to Rick Santorum. This post has all you need, seriously: "Did Rick Santorum ‘Knock’ Governor Palin? UPDATED: Santorum Responds, Barr Fights Back – Further Updates – ADDED Palin/Santorum Reactions."

Politico's getting some mileage out of it: "Santorum's Twe-eating his Palin words" (at Memeorandum).

I'm off to CPAC.

Check my Twitter feed for instant updates, when I can get them posted. I'll try to post pictures to the blog as well.

CPAC Socializing

I think Tania's gonna bust me, since the flash is way too bright on this picture. But this will have to do until I can get a few more choice shots tomorrow:

I just happened to see Tania, as I was checking out the registration desk. We recognized each other immediately. It was also a pleasure to meet John Ruberry, a.k.a, Marathon Pundit, who was hanging out as well.

Tania arrived early Wednesday. She's got another report: "The CPAC 2011 Experience – In The Beginning."

And I'm seen here with Herman Cain and Pamela Geller:

More reports tomorrow.

Made it to CPAC!

And all you get is this Boeing 737!

(That's a few minutes prior to boarding, at John Wayne Airport, about 7:00am.)

Well, at least for now. I'm at the Henley Park Hotel in downtown D.C. I'm guessing it's just about 5 minutes or so from the Marriott Wardman Park, the conference hotel. Robert Stacy McCain just tweeted.

Look for a report in the morning.

Meanwhile, at Politico, "At CPAC, the race for second place as Paul goes all out" (via Memeorandum).

CPAC 2011

As this post goes live I'm probably on my way to John Wayne Airport. My plane is scheduled for take off at 7:30am.

I haven't missed a day of blogging since John McCain won the GOP nomination in 2008. Readers may remember, but my wife and I took the boys to Las Vegas for a little vacation --- and I did without the blogosphere for a few days. It probably won't happen again this weekend, but if posting is erratic folks will know why. This is my first trip to CPAC. I plan on taking loads of photos. I'll post some updates as soon as I get a bit of extended downtime. At any rate, I have a hunch there might be some controversy over gay rights again this year. Not so much a Ryan Sorba-style showdown, but perhaps something with the GOProud crew. Seriously. Why is GOProud's Chris Barron talking to Lawrence O'Donnell on the eve of the convention? C'mon. MSNBC? It's not like those folks wish conservatives well. Something doesn't add up, to say the least, and perhaps this indeed confirms the warnings of the American Principles Project:

See what I mean?

So, until later, a little reading from the right --- from the really, truly genuine right:

* Douglas Feith, "Dictators and Hedgehogs."

* Douglas Murray, "Cameron's Multicultural Wake-Up Call."

* Henry Olson, "After the Republican Wave."

* Kay Hymowitz, "Sarah Palin and the Battle for Feminism."

* Lila Rose, "Planned Parenthood NY: Giving Pimps Discounts, on the Tax Payers’ Dime."

And until later, see Midnight Blue's CPAC updates.

Borders Bankruptcy

Or near-bankruptcy.

See LAT, "Is Borders heading for its final chapter?"

I used to think about how much the big-box bookstores improved my quality of life. When I was in graduate school (UCSB) I used hang out at Borders on State Street all the time. Especially memorable were the times I met Dr. Michael Gordon, my dissertation advisor, for bread and coffee. It was a lot of fun. Of course I should add that I'm not necessarily crying about this. Both Barnes and Noble and Borders savaged local booksellers, so among a lot of Bohemians (including my mom), they won few friends. Still, there's something in the convenience of always being able to find a good quality bookstore at the neighborhood mall. Strange, in any case. Markets working, and all that.

More at Pat Austin's, "The End of Dead Tree Books Is Nigh."

Palin Derangement Syndrome — In the Mold of Ronald Reagan Edition

From the lead letter to the editor, at today's Los Angeles Times:

Only one Reagan

Re "Palin casts self in Reagan mold," Feb. 5

Sarah Palin's attempt to cast herself in the Reagan mold is laughable at best. Her anti-intellectual position is nothing more than another of the ad hominem, bandwagon, emotive arguments for which she is so famous, stirring up "mob mentality" by attacking the present administration.

The "small government" Palin advocates would be far more authoritarian than anything proffered by the Obama administration. Indeed, a Republican (or "tea party") government would basically annihilate Social Security, Medicare and the Environmental Protection Agency, remove a woman's right to choose and promote some extremist brand of Christianity, autocratically removing more and more of the freedoms we currently enjoy.

Palin stands for nothing more than promotion of Sarah Palin. The fact that so many people are actually convinced by her brand of argumentation is truly frightening. She is most definitely not Ronald Reagan.

Rebecca S. Hertsgaard

Palm Desert

That's pretty classic Palin derangement, and it's especially interesting that the Times gave this woman's letter top billing in today's edition.

Also interesting is the latest CNN poll out today, "CNN Poll: Republicans want winner over ideology in 2012" (via Hot Air and Memeorandum). And I'll be perfectly honest: If Palin's a candidate I'll personally pull out the stops for her to win the nominiation. Yet, while others might not say so, I do have some concerns about her general election viability. I spoke with my department chairman yesterday, mentioning that I was attending CPAC, and he didn't flinch in announcing Palin as his pick for the nomination. But we both agreed that she could have some problems winning voters at the middle of the spectrum. At any rate, the CNN survey shows some weaknesses for Obama. He's got just 25 percent of voters that would definitely vote for him, and a majority of 51 percent said they think he'll lose reelection in 2012. As for Palin chances, a new Rasmussen horse-race poll shows that right now Obama beats Palin 49 to 38. Of the prospective GOP hopefuls cited, only Mitt Romney currently leads Obama, 44 to 42 percent. See, "Romney, Huckabee Even With Obama, Other GOP Hopefuls Trail."

Bottom line: Obama's deeply vulnerable, and Sarah Palin would be a fool not to announce her candidacy. The electorate will sort things out, and there's still lots of time for things to develop.

More later ...

RELATED: "Heading to CPAC Tomorrow!"

Heading to CPAC Tomorrow!

I'm flying out in the morning. I'll post an announcement with some tentative plans for blogging.

Meanwhile, from Tania Gail, "The CPAC Experience: Conference Survival Tips For Everyone."

Also, a behind-the-scenes video from the folks at CPAC:

(UN)RELATED: At The Other McCain, who I'll be hanging with, "LIVE AT FIVE – 2.8.11."

Julian Assange's Prosecutor Accused of Anti-Men Bias

The surprise of the century, no doubt. At Time, "Courtroom Conflict":

The extradition hearings in London Monday of Wikileaks founder Julian Assange drips with intrigue: a mysterious Australian hacker accused of sex crimes by two Swedish women. Now add this to the mix: Monday, a retired female judge accused the female Swedish prosecutor attempting to extradite Assange of having a "biased view" against men.

As part of the two-day hearing to determine whether Assange should be taken to Sweden to face sex-crimes charges, retired Swedish appeal court judge Brita Sundberg-Weitman launched an outspoken attack on Swedish prosecutor Marianne Ny. Sundberg-Weitman was flown to London by Assange's legal team to give evidence supporting their argument that Assange's extradition would be a "flagrant denial of justice".

They got their money's worth, as Sundberg-Weitman a published academic and associate professor at Stockholm University, accused Ny of having a "rather biased view against men," according to an account by Britain's Press Assocation.

More at the link above, and at Telegraph UK, "Julian Assange extradition hearing: Swedish prosecutor 'is biased against men': Julian Assange, the founder of the WikiLeaks website, is the victim of a "malicious" attempt to extradite him by a Swedish prosecutor who is "biased against men", a court has been told."

I've been meaning to update my reporting on this, but once Phyllis Chesler weighed in I paused a bit to think it through. See, "NewsReal Faux Feminist Naomi Wolf Joins Assange in Crusade to Bring Down America."

I still might have some commentary, perhaps reconciling the dual strands of feminism animating the case.

Sarah Palin's Comments on CPAC and GOProud

The clip's at Breitbart's, "Sarah Palin Throws Support Behind GOProud Participation at CPAC." And a teaser:

Well, I’ve never attended a CPAC conference ever so Sarah Palin Throws Support Behind GOProud Participation at CPAC." And quoted there: I was a little taken aback this go around when I couldn’t make it to this one either and then there was a speculation well I either agree or disagree with some of the groups or issues that CPAC is discussing ... perhaps what it is that you’re suggesting in the question is should the GOP, should conservatives not reach out to others, not participate in events or forums that perhaps are rising within those forums are issues that maybe we don’t personally agree with?

This has generated a little controversy. Shane D'Aprile reports, "Conservative group wants answers from Palin on gay rights":

The conservative American Principles Project, which is already boycotting this week's Conservative Political Action Conference over the inclusion of a gay GOP group, is now demanding "clarity" from former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.

The organization wants to know exactly where Palin stands on the inclusion of GOProud as one of CPACs sponsors and wants clarity on her stance on gay marriage after Palin suggested over the weekend that she supports the group.

Asked about the controversy over GOProud's presence at CPAC, which has led to a boycott of the event by several leading conservative groups and Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.), Palin told the Christian Broadcasting Network that she desires a "healthy debate."

"Should conservatives not reach out to others, not participate in events or forums that perhaps arising within those forums are issues that maybe we don't personally agree with?" Palin asked. "And I say 'no.'"

Palin's comments to CBN were highlighted by Andrew Breitbart, who is a member of GOProud's board and will take part in one of the group's events during CPAC later this week.

But the interview raised the ire of APP's President Frank Cannon, who demanded answers from Palin on Monday.

"The concern of conservatives is over the participation of a group whose stated goals run at odds with that of core conservative principles, not over debate over those issues," Cannon said in a statement. "Governor Palin should clarify her comments by letting us know whether in her definition, traditional marriage is a core component of conservatism."

Palin's views on gay rights aren't entirely clear. She drew attention earlier this year after she re-tweeted a message from conservative talk host Tammy Bruce that was seen by many as expressing support for the repeal of the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy. Palin later said she didn't support the repeal.

More at the link.

Also, a discussion by Kathryn Jean Lopez, "CPAC’s Culture Club: Sex and the Boycott."

Frankly, as a matter of pure policy, I doubt GOProud can be a genuinely conservative group, so when the American Principles Project reports that GOProud is actively lobbying in opposition to the defense of traditional marriage, that's a substantial problem. As quoted at the Lopez entry: "“It is no more acceptable as a participant at CPAC than a group that said it embraced the ‘traditional conservative agenda’ but actively worked for higher taxes and greater governmental control of the economy."

APP's full boycott letter is here: "CPAC Coalition Letter." And reading that reveals an even greater problem: GOProud is an "identity politics" organization adopting a "long-term strategy to impose" same-sex marriage. Sounds more like radical progressivism than conservatism.

In any case, we'll see how it goes. Perhaps I'll have a chance to swing by some of the GOProud events, and if so I'll publish reports and updates.

Matthew Yglesias, Destroyed

This is too good, "Matt Yglesias: The One Man Mistake Factory . . . Or “I Laugh at the Inferior Intellect”" (via Cold Fury):

Genuinely smart people see through Yglesias, and recognize him as a blowhard. Add to his many defects as a pundit and a thinker his particularly fervent advocacy of dishonesty, and his resort to obscenities when challenged (more on this later), and you have a blogger thoroughly and completely out of his depth, and exposed as a fraud.

And I thought Diary of Daedalus was thorough in its destruction of Charles Johnson. Man, this is like a nuclear detonation.

That said, I'd pay good money to see the husky pony-tailed blogger don terrorist garb while idiotically wielding a meat-cleaver:

Arianna Huffington Wastes No Time

In doing video promotions for her site.

We'll see how this works out, "Arianna Takes On The 'Cult Of No-Sleep' (VIDEO)":

Meanwhile, Robert Stacy McCain is not impressed: "HuffPo/AOL Deal: On Second Thought … Hell, No, It Still Doesn’t Make Any Sense."

Plus, David Dayen's backpedaling from his gleeful response this morning, "Asking Uncomfortable Questions Not a Matter of Left or Right." Dayen's responding to Politico, "HuffPost to AOL: Leaving left behind?":

The Huffington Post may have been founded as the liberal answer to the conservative Drudge Report, a place for progressive wound-licking in the wake of George W. Bush’s re-election.

But on Monday, Arianna Huffington was distancing herself from the lefty label as she announced the sale of HuffPost to AOL for $315 million.

“We don’t see ourselves as left,” she told POLITICO. “And I think it’s one area where news consumers are ahead of the media, because they know that continuing to see everything that’s happening as a right-left issue is missing what’s happening, and is also making it much harder for us to be properly informed.”

Some on the left worry that the sale to AOL could mean an end to HuffPost in its current incarnation — away from its roots in the progressive community, which were its first bloggers, commenters and readers, and toward a more middle-of-the-road posture, to make it more broadly appealing.

I doubt progressives have much to worry about. The Huffington Post will hardly be turning into a web copy of the Wall Street Journal. And Arianna Huffington's a progressive through and through, despite her well-documented hypocrisy.

What Huffington Post Means for Journalism's Future

Ann Althouse and William Jacobson have initial, snarky reactions to the news of AOL's $350 million purchase of Huffington Post (here and here).

My first reaction was complete non-surprise. In the online world, few media entrepreneurs have been as savvy as Arianna Huffington. And while it may take a while, the HuffPo deal will serve as a powerful consolidation of progressive media operations in the increasingly digital news industry. What's especially interesting about this is Arianna's the ultimate personification of the left's hypocritical socialist elite. Not only do progressives like Arianna love money --- lots of it --- they love telling other people what they should do with theirs. When the Mayhill Fowler story broke in 2008 --- Fowler first reported Barack Obama's "clinging to their guns and religion" comments at a ritzy San Francisco fundraiser --- Huffington was vacationing on a yacht in Tahiti. Progressive eviscerated Mayhill Fowler for her reporting, especially since the media's establishment Obama-enablers would have bottled up that juicy "clinging" tidbit. Expect more of such distortions as big media giants consolidate. The media industry already tilts heavily left, so conservatives will continue to battle the progressive narrative (recall the left's coverage of campaign 2008, for example). What's interesting is how well the HuffPo deal is being welcomed by progressives. Matthew Yglesias writes, "I continue to be an optimist about the Internet and the news." And check David Dayen, at the communist Firedoglake:

I probably have a very unusual view of things, but pretty much everything I read on Huffington Post comes from their original reporting wing, and they have a growing staff in that department delivering very strong content. It’s good for progressive media in general to see a business model thriving, and while there are concerns about a general flattening of the online space that’s already happening, and this at least plants a flag on the left side.

RELATED: From former Newsweek columnist Howard Fineman, "The Huffington Post and AOL: 'Going There' Goes Global."

Advertisers Raided the National Memory Banks on Super Bowl Sunday

It's a cultural thing, no doubt.

At New York Times, "Super Bowl Ads Mine Decades of Americana":

The advertising bowl that took place inside Super Bowl XLV on Sunday offered a wild — and somewhat welcome — ride through six decades of popular culture.

Thankfully, many viewers had probably fastened their seat belts before tuning in to Fox, considering that almost half the companies that bought commercial time in the game had something to do with the auto industry, among them nine car brands from A (Audi) to V (Volkswagen), along with Bridgestone, CarMax and Cars.com.

The traffic jam may be another sign of the postrecession recovery on Madison Avenue, but it made for occasional difficulty in distinguishing the Elantras from the Optimas.

It would also have been difficult to figure out most of the 60-plus commercials without a working knowledge of Americana or, at least, access during the game to Wikipedia (if not WikiLeaks). The spots dished up a dizzying — and at times ditzy — mélange of celebrity star turns, movie references, homages to television shows, snippets of songs and even hat-tips to other spots.

To fully appreciate the commercials, it helped to be at least passingly familiar with “Almost Famous,” “Back to the Future,” Roseanne Barr, Busby Berkeley, Justin Bieber, Adrien Brody, David Bowie, Diddy, the “Dogs Playing Poker” paintings, Howdy Doody, early video games, Thomas Edison and Eminem (who turned up in two spots, for Chrysler and Lipton Brisk).

Also, Facebook, geeks, “Glee,” Jimi Hendrix, Faith Hill, home-improvement TV series, Timothy Hutton, Janis Joplin, Kenny G, “Lassie,” Richard Lewis, nerds, “1984” (the novel) and “1984” (the Apple commercial from the 1984 Super Bowl).

Plus, Joan Rivers, silent movies, the Snickers spot from the 2010 Super Bowl, the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, spy movies, “Star Wars,” “The Talented Mr. Ripley,” “Tiny Dancer,” “The Twilight Zone,” western movies, the “Where’s the beef?” commercial for Wendy’s and yuppies.

Whew. That is a big barrel of borrowed interest, to use the marketing term for wooing consumers by filling ads with familiar elements. The Super Bowl sponsors last year did it, too, rolling out proven draws like Kiss, “National Lampoon’s Vacation” and Betty White, but they were pikers compared with the advertisers and agencies that raided the national memory banks on Sunday.

RTWT.

Why Some Twitter Posts Catch On, and Some Don't

At New York Times:

AMID the talk last week of a Facebook revolution across the Middle East, Americans and other English speakers took to Twitter — to post about their love lives.

Hashtags — the community-driven shorthand used to identify conversation themes — like “icantdateyou” and “worstpickuplines” were vastly more popular a few days ago than ones like “Egyptians” or “jan25,” a reference to Day 1 of the Egyptian protests. In just one hour last Tuesday, “icantdateyou” racked up nearly 274,000 mentions on Twitter, with posts like “icantdateyou if all you wanna do is fuss” and “icantdateyou if you look like your brother.”

Alas, poor “Mubarak” rated fewer than 11,000 during the same hour. (Many Egyptians could not post on Twitter because their government had temporarily cut off most Internet and cellphone service.)

Sure, many of us are more inclined to toss off frivolous posts than politically charged ones. But a new study of hashtags offers some insight into how and why some topics become popular quickly online while others don’t.

People generally pass on the latest conversational idioms — like “cantlivewithout” or “dontyouhate” — the first few times they see them on Twitter, or they never adopt them at all, according to the study by computer scientists. The researchers analyzed the 500 most popular hashtags among more than three billion messages posted on Twitter from August 2009 to January 2010.

“Idioms are like a sugar rush,” explains Jon Kleinberg, a professor of computer science at Cornell and a co-author of the study. “You see it once, you either use it or you don’t, but the rush wears off.”

More contentious themes like politics take longer to catch on, the researchers found. People tend to wait until they have seen a more polarizing phrase — like “sarahpalin” or “hcr,” short for health care reform — four, five or six times on Twitter before posting it themselves.

We already know that people often influence one another’s behavior. That is the monkey-see-monkey-do premise behind advertising. And it may seem intuitive that different kinds of information spread differently on the Web.

More at the link.

Frankly, I haven't the slightest interest in those throwaway hashtags, and while I find it boring sometimes, there's still nothing like Twitter to get real-time information.

Best Super Bowl Ads

Glenn Reynolds says he was unimpressed, but there's always a couple of good ones:

More here.

Video: Reagan Centennial Ceremony in Simi Valley

Folks are debating the politics surrounding Ronald Reagan's legacy.

Some stories out today, Andrew Coffin, "Exclusive: Governor Palin Visits Reagan Country," and Patrick Edaburn, "Ronald Reagan Would Have Wanted Balance" (via Memeorandum). And from yesterday, a despicable piece from Michael Kinsley, "Obama channeling Reagan? Let's hope not: Ronald Reagan was a nice enough man -- but a terrible president":

Time magazine's cover this week features a Photoshopped picture of Ronald Reagan with his arm around President Obama. The cover story purports to answer the question of why Obama is channeling Reagan, a question no one was asking until Time brought it up. It's a standard newsmagazine technique to add a "why" to the thesis of a story. It makes it seem deeper, even while skipping over the hard part of whether it's true.

If Obama is attempting to emulate Reagan, there is no mystery about why. Reagan carried 49 states in 1984, the year he was reelected. But Time contends the 44th president is following the example of the 40th in some unusually profound way.

I hope that's not true. Reagan was a nice enough man — but a terrible president. I know, I know, you're not supposed to say this. Even political opponents are supposed to recognize and applaud his sunny disposition, his death grip on various bromides, his mystical connection with the voters, the wisdom in his simple view of a complicated world and so on. I am unpersuaded.

Actually, I think Kinsley's got a simple view, but RTWT if you're up to it.

Obama can't shine Reagan's shoes.

Anyway, be sure to watch Jim Lehrer's interview with President Reagan from 1989: "Ronald Reagan's Legacy." After a while, it's the moral bearing each president brings to the office, and the legacy of security and prosperity that he leaves behind. Reagan did well on both counts, and Americans love him for it.

And for a corrective, see Mark Steyn, "We Need Him Now" (via WyBlog).

Now Available: Video of Super Bowl I, 1967 Packers-Chiefs

Really cool story, at Wall Street Journal, "Found at Last: A Tape of the First Super Bowl":

Football fans know what happened in Super Bowl I. The game, which was played on January 15, 1967, was the first showdown between the NFL and AFL champions. It ended with the Green Bay Packers stomping the Kansas City Chiefs, 35-10.

Unless they were one of the 61,946 people at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum that day, or one of the fans who watched it live on NBC or CBS, there's one thing that all football fans have in common: They've never actually seen the game.

In a bizarre confluence of events, neither network preserved a tape. All that survived of this broadcast is sideline footage shot by NFL Films and roughly 30 seconds of footage CBS included in a pre-game show for Super Bowl XXV. Somehow, an historic football game that was seen by 26.8 million people had, for all intents and purposes, vanished.

HBO executive Rick Bernstein, who produced a two-part history of sports television in 1991, is one of many who have searched for a tape. He says his team chased numerous leads, from a reported copy in Cuba to rumors that Hugh Hefner might have recorded the game on a videotape machine in the Playboy Mansion. Nothing turned up. "It's the holy grail," Mr. Bernstein says.

The long search may finally be over. The Paley Center for Media in New York, which had searched for the game footage for some time, has restored what it believes to be a genuine copy of the CBS broadcast.

More at the link.

Just in time for today's game.

The Death of Blogging

I noticed the other day, with some interest, Chris Bowers' announcement that Open Left, the far-left progressive blog, was shutting down. I'd already noticed that Bowers had migrated to Daily Kos, and no explanation was needed: more readers, and more exposure. I didn't think too much of it beyond that. And then I read Ben Smith's post, where he wrote:

There's been a bit written recently on the death of blogs, and while there will -- I hope -- remain space for some, there's little doubt that the online world of politics is no longer limited to this form ... Some of the older blogs on right and left are still thriving, while others -- like TPM and the Hot Air bloggers -- have worked to turn themselves into broader news platforms. But the form now feels a little quaint.

So, the death of blogs. I hadn't actually seen too much on that. Or, mostly, what I have seen and written about is the fascination with new media, especially Facebook and Twitter. But I just found a report on the death of blogs at New York Observer, "The End of Blogging." Folks can read it at the link. All of this is mostly a matter of definition. Blogging per se isn't going anywhere. Twitter is micro blogging. It's the hippest medium right now, but it may well be replaced with some new application or publishing format soon enough. The larger issue is the future of news publishing altogether. Folks might check James Rainey's piece yesterday on the SoCal newspaper industry: "Consolidation seen as inevitable for Southern California's newspapers." The dead-tree news model is nearly a thing of the past. Consumers get their news online nowadays, and those formats best able to attract advertising revenue will keep publishing. My sense is that, yeah, reverse-chronology blogs are someone quaint, as Ben Smith notes, but the power of blogging remains as great as ever. Top bloggers breaking top stories will survive. And the numbers will include a lot more than those mentioned by Ben Smith, who, incidently, made his own "quaint" blogging comment on a blog. Perhaps folks will just shift over to the online newspaper format. Think Daily Caller or Huffington Post, or on a smaller platform, Maggie's Notebook, NewsReal, or PA Pundits – International. And then there's Althouse. She keeps plugging away on Blogger, and if it's good enough for her it's good enough for me! I'll be keeping American Power running, whether on Blogger or Wordpress, a switch that remains in the contemplation mode. I'm also in talks for my own blog at NewsReal, which means I might be joining the David Horowitz publishing house as a formal member. Again, that's just in the discussion phase, but I'll know more after CPAC next week, where I'll be hooking up with some folks.

Meanwhile, perhaps The Other McCain might weigh in on the topic.

And for a reminder on why I'll be blogging somewhere, no matter what, head back over to Open Left, where Daniel De Groot bids farewell with a parting attack on the right, "Farewell thought: Conservatism is still the enemy":

Shortly after Kerry's loss in 2004, at MyDD, Chris wrote "Conservatism is our enemy" which I think is the first time I ever encountered a direct ideological assault on conservatism itself. Along with Phil Agre's rightly famous essay on the subject, it began me on a road and mission to better understanding this beast. Everything I have learned to date from then continues to bolster Chris' original thesis. Conservativism is still the primary enemy of progress, justice, fairness and widespread happiness for humanity. It remains a destructive and corrosive force on the institutions of democracy and the single biggest obstacle to world peace ....

These fights will have to go on. Conservatism is a destructive system of hierarchy and zero-sum power seeking that has no place in the running of a modern society. It is some kind of evolutionary anachronism, the ingrained desire to accumulate power and resources to the exclusion of "the other" against times of need in Hobbes' jungle. Since about 1850 we (in the West at least) have lived in the world of surplus resources where there really is enough stuff for everyone to go around, but still we live with about half the population intuitively working the politics of a Malthusian state where every hamburger you eat is one of my kids going hungry. Even today in the shadow of the Great Recession, world GDP per capita (PPP) stands at over $10,000 per year. About 1 billion live on less than $400 a year. Another billion live on less than $750 a year. Clearly there is enough to go around, we just suck at distribution. Is it really so crazy to imagine we could get those bottom 2 billion up to $1000 or $2000 a year?

In the field of pursuing the ideal human society, liberalism is the science of pursuing human well being. It combines the empiricism and rationalism of science with the goal of maximizing human happiness. The process is iterative and the specific means change as well meaning ideas are found wanting, and as science improves our understanding of humans themselves and what it takes to make them happy. There is no other school of thought that both seeks to improve the lot of all, and actually can do it. The ultimate goal of liberalism is that we should not need the word "liberalism" because no one would need a special word to describe the self-evident way people determine solutions to societal problems. That's what liberalism is, and why it must win or all humanity will fall back into ruin, scarcity, ignorance and fear. We live in a world with plenty of those things, but also a world where solutions to them are in reach, which was never true any time before. Après liberalism, le déluge.

Look, that's not "liberalism" — that's radical progressivism. And as long as these f**kers keep agitating for the neo-Stalinist revolution, I'll be out pushing back, smacking these freaks down like a whack-a-mole.