Riehl World View

Guardian: US Right Wired, Ready To Rumble

I mean rumble in a good way. Good heavens, it's the Guardian. I guess being overseas allows them to actually write a frank and fairly positive story about the 9/12 protests and what's beginning to happen across the board as far as Tech on our side. Check out their last graph for instance.

All of which makes Kibbe think that those Democrats who try to pigeonhole the tea parties as a crank phenomenon are playing into the anti-Obama movement's hands. "The Democrats who want to marginalise this movement are making a big mistake. They are insulting the people who they should be courting, and every time they do that our numbers seem to double in size."

They actually do a pretty good job of handling the whole thing. Pity American media doesn't seem up to it. That graph above might apply to them every bit as much as it does to the Democrats. Read the whole thing.

Republicans steal Barack Obama's internet campaigning tricksSince their election disaster, the right has used new media to gather strength, culminating in last weekend's huge protest

For Telford, though, dismissing the eruption as extremist or racist was to miss the point. For him, the 9/12 rally marked the moment at which conservative America finally embraced the new world and recovered its confidence. He believes the movement is now close to catching up with the Democrats in terms of internet savviness; in some ways he contends it has even surpassed them, particularly on Twitter, where much of the heavy lifting behind the so-called "tea parties" against Obama's tax and other policies is being done.

That cloud hung over the conservative movement for many weeks. A sense of crisis set in, he recalls, with bloggers, strategists and Republican politicians scrambling in different directions.

"There was a real lack of leadership, a lot of confusion."

But then, almost imperceptibly, something started to happen. Telford noticed Google groups popping up, listserves on which people would send angry emails back and forth. The anger was stimulated by Obama's $800bn stimulus package that was introduced five days into his presidency.

With very little leadership, the Google groups began to co-ordinate their response. People took on the onerous job of poring over the bill's hundreds of pages of small print in search of wasteful spending, following the Wikipedia model of crowd-sourcing.

They began to uncover items that looked suspicious or ridiculous: electric golf carts, snow machines, a crime museum in Las Vegas. They passed the examples on to mainstream media outlets, notably the new face of the right, snake-tongued Glenn Beck of Rupert Murdoch's Fox News channel, who used it as ammunition to attack the young administration. The anger grew. When Americans for Prosperity put up its own petition against the bill on its website, it had 500,000 signatures within days.

"It was a huge wake-up call to all of us," Telford says. "On the right, people had known new media was important but they were still hesitant about it. After the stimulus experience, no one was left in any doubt about its power."

Less than eight months later, the seed planted in those anti-Obama Google groups has burst into flower on the streets of Washington. Tens – or even perhaps hundreds – of thousands of livid demonstrators filled the capital, brandishing banners saying "Don't tread on me!" and "Obamunism" – a reference to the president's perceived socialist or even communist tendencies. "Liar! Liar!"they shouted, echoing the outburst of a Republican congressman to Obama's face last week.

The noise of that startling crowd could be heard rumbling on throughout this week. Democrats rushed to dismiss the display of rightwing force as the work of mavericks and extremists. Jimmy Carter upped the ante by suggesting the vitriol was racist: many people in America, he said, believed a black man should not be president.

Short Sighted Bloggers Busted In Cloakroom Circle Jerk

I don't much care for uncalled for rudeness out here and have watched a lot of dopes strut and pluck their stuff before they crash and burn like the second-tier hacks that so many of them are without saying much of anything about it. Unfortunately, both Stacy McCain and Donald Douglas have crossed a line they should have never crossed by continuing to harangue a dear friend. That would be a blogging colleague of mine for years, Cassandra at Villainous Company, who, like me, has probably forgotten more about blogging than these two hand creme dreamers can seem to gather up in those shriveled little heads they seem so fond of stroking for one another to get themselves off so seemingly obsessively these days.

Oh dear - and I see another pro and good old time friend Miss Atilla has gotten drawn in? Really, this is just too much, guys. You really are making yourselves look like asses. And I don't mean as in SondraK, who, for my money, still has the best ass in the blogosphere and forever will. She could shoot these two idiots just for kicks and giggles after riding them hard for a bit and and putting them away wet to dry off hanging in that cloakroom of theirs where they are really starting to look like they belong.

Douglas insults Cassandra while whipping out his sitemeter stats for all the world to see,

Cassandra at Villainous Company also attacked my Erin Andrews entry. It's true that Cassandra has never liked "Rule 5" babe blogging, and she's taken Robert Stacy McCain to task for it. And yet, "The lady doth protest too much, methinks."

Meanwhile, Stacy McCain evidently feels, at some point when he wasn't slobbering all over Donald's knob, er, I mean, head in the blogger's changing room, I suppose, he must pile on with some senseless nonsense of his own - not that that should be a surprise coming from him all too often these days.

Regret to inform you, Howard, but you just became Cassandra's least favorite media critic:

So, let's see how old Donald, who forgot to duck, or only does that when Stacy drops his jeans, ... let's see how his sitemeter actually measures up in the Erin Andrews Google Bomb race. See, I was smart enough to run the very same track. But I simply stood my ground and by my principles, taking a different approach. I just took exception to Donald's post, while knowing precisely how this years-old game is played - placing some keywords in a manner this little mutual admiration society never took the time to learn. 

It's hard to beat the data presented here for those interested in building traffic, and especially those bloggers within the "Rule 5 community."

Gawd, I really am tired of reading tripe like that directly above. Perhaps you can sense it, yes? So, let's take a look. Wow, look below at all that blood rushing to Donald's head. Stacy must have really been on his game, or lower than his old knees usually allow him to get that day, wouldn't you say?

The 7-day traffic data was saved yesterday from my Sitemeter hit-counter. The entry for yesterday, July 24th, is incomplete because I saved the screen-capture when I woke up, around 6:00am. For more information, Click the Sitemeter link above and look around at the various categories. You'll notice how traffic spiked after I first posted on Erin Andrews last Sunday, July 19th. Also, my eXTREeMe Tracker hit-counter records 12,010 unique visitors for Tuesday July 21th, which is when the story really hit the mainstream press. The eXTReMe Tracking statistic is my blogging record.

Donald even screen-capped his sitemeter by week for all to see. I suppose doing a week, as opposed to a month, does help it look a little larger, sort of like I imagine one of those cremes numb-nuts like these two hand maidens order while watching late night TV just a wishin' and a hopin' for a lingerie ad when the Mrs. is asleep.

To cut this, and them short - as if they could get much shorter without being impossible to see when it comes to Erin Andrews videos, here's my monthly. Please note that, as regards Erin Andrew's posts, I bested Donald's "personal best" significantly each and every day he would purport to brag about. Now, I'm accustomed to hearing that from his wife, (Oh, how I love snark, when not doing a substantive post!) but this is the first time I ever looked at his and my own sitemeter stats together. Mature and intelligent bloggers eventually get over that, or at least obsessing over it in public so, as these two seem to always be doing these days.

Most importantly, I'd call your attention to July 23rd when I recorded just over 47,000 uniques - far from a site record, by the way. But it had nothing to do with Erin Andrews videos, or girlie pics, it was a substantive essay on Obama's burning down of his post-racial theme due to his rhetoric on Crowley-Gates.

As, I hope, it was a high-quality blog opinion post, it was linked far and wide (which puts you further out ahead link-rating-wise in any next Google Bomb race against some of the increasingly more insufferable, circle-jerking drones out here btw) and it all but amounted to Donald's week in just a single day. But they know all about building site traffic. Oh, yes, I see.

I'll stop soon. I'm off and running, again, yesterday and today due to another quality post - that on Gates' charity misdeeds. I mean, really, who has time for all these silly rules, what with so much good blogging to be done? And please do forgive me for going on too long about two otherwise intelligent, capable men who really can produce some quality blogging when they try - and they aren't cloistered in the cloakroom fantasizing about rules and gangs and their respective members, I guess) which ultimately drives them to come up so short on the blogging end.

I just figured since I really do like them all, I'd take this opportunity to chime in on behalf of my old blogging and dear friend Cassandra. And I'd show my pals Stacy and Donald how an experienced, accomplished blogger really grows his stature and sometimes takes another blogger or two down with some style and wit.

It's all about learning, fun and friendship out here, anyway, right? I trust you won't really take offense at my lesson, while opening the cloakroom door so every one can take a peek at the circle jerk I've been all but forced to watch go on for some months. You got your links out of it, which seems to be all you really care about out here any more. That's a typical newbies disease, I should add. Now, you two boys, please do carry right on. Just try not to get any on you before you come out of that cloakroom ofyours. And, heavens, leave my darling Cassandra alone - not that she, or any of the fine, ... experienced lady bloggers out here, too many to list, or link, need my help, btw. Or I may just have to swing back around and re-visit the issue again just for old time's sake.

Good day. And, really, do have fun! I always do. It's the first and only real rule of blogging if you want to last and succeed. Never doubt that, my dear, dear friends. But be careful when it's at another's expense, because they just might have a friend ready and able to stomp all over you. And things that get trampled in the cloakroom of life aren't the labels I suspect you two otherwise fine bloggers want to get caught wearing too often out here in plain sight.

At least, I hope that's not the case. And puhleaseee! mind that substance running down your faces if you come by this way out from the cloakroom today. Some people really do have sensibilities, yanno?

Sorry, but them's the rules on this here racetrack - and just the way I roll. No offense. But like every truly good blogger, I make my own rules, often as I go, and no one else ever will, or needs to, don'cha know!

So, good day. I'm off to hopefully find some quality material to post so I can grow my blog the only way one ever really grows ... and lasts in the blogosphere FWIW.

Meet Adrienne Ross

Meet Adrienne Ross, who blogs at Motivation: Truth and has so many wonderful new pictures of Sarah Palin up today. Adrienne is a solid supporter of Sarah Palin's and, from an email, quite an impressive individual, herself.

As I added in a previous post, she strikes me as the salt of the earth kind of person we need more of to take this country back from government's hands. Let's hope!

Say hello to Adrienne's blog and enjoy the pics!

WCBSTV - NY: This Is Good To See

This isn't CBS network, it's WCBS-TV 2 in New York. They've launched a blog watch page. It has some solid links that to me reveal a genuine desire to actually engage the broader blogosphere as many of us know it everyday. It isn't just Politico, or the large media blogs for a change.

The 21st Century has seen the rise of an increasingly powerful political force, one whose influence stems from its diversity of opinions and experiences.

The Blogosphere is a virtual community of millions of web logs - websites run by everyday people from around the world, posting their opinions on a litany of topics online.

Stacy McCain: Jacksonian Conservative?

A revisitation of Levin v Squishes, commentary on Stacy and our very own Conor (with one N) Friedersdorf. I didn't know he wrote for Culture11. That explains a lot.

Still, despite some myths Stacy concocts about himself—ol’ Stacy wasn’t just a columnist down in Georgia, he delivered the papers, even printed ‘em up, makin’ the ink and pulp with his bare hands, all between drags of a de-filtered Marlboro Red—Stacy’s actually quite capable of producing prose that’s light on its feet and even (gasp!) reasoned arguments.

... This one (feud) involves the priggish J-school grad Conor Friedersdorf, a former guiding light of the thankfully deceased Culture11, who got his panties in a bunch when he heard Mark Levin use harsh language on his talk radio program—oh dear! Rod Dreher soon stopped by to wag his finger, opining that “conservatism” would win if only its adopted the gentlemanly rhetoric of Wendell Berry.

Whenever I come across people like Dreher and Friedersdorf piously attacking movement types, it miraculously makes me want to stick up for the Dittoheads (quite an accomplishment.)

Does Sullivan Have Womb Envy?

Via JWF, who points out Sullivan can't even keep his distorted facts straight. Other than mental ilness, as some suggest, I really can't think of another explanation for his obsession other than womb envy.

You would think the endless ridicule might make the guy reconsider going down this road again, but here he is back with the Trig Palin conspiracies. This is really bizarre.

Links Abound

Via Larwyn and Doug.

Credibility And The Tea Party Movement

In a video at link below - after some brief side discussion between people with both the Libertarian Party and the Constitution Party - a fairly obvious nutcase gets up in an open mic forum and makes some outlandish claims. Contrary to Charles's claim the audience as a whole is not eating it up. But of course Andrew Sullivan is quick to jump in to use it as proof that the Tea Party movement is deranged.

I neither know, nor care what lgf's problem with Glenn Beck is. But in allowing his own bias to get the best of him, Charles is casting aspersions where they don't belong and squandering his own credibility in doing so. It's unfortunate to see.

At Glenn Beck Tea Party: 'Burn the Books!'

This is some really deranged stuff, and the audience is eating it up.

Looks like the Tea Party people need to switch to decaf.

I thought the idea of the tea parties was a good one. Unfortunately they seem to have been hijacked by the kooky right.

Where are all the sane Conservatives?

The problem is that they were given airtime and the audience was allowed to respond in such a way as to show that they agreed with them: demonstrating the kinds of people who attend these kind of events.

This makes conservatives look bad.

Why Culture11 Failed

Dan Collins links to a Washington Monthly item on the Culture11 fail - evidently it dismissively discusses Big Hollywood, as well. I'm familiar with Breitbart's BH.

I sure don't know everything out here. But I've been knocking around the Internet for too many years to count and blogging daily for five on the Right. There are few if any major memes I miss, even if I don't blog on them.

I never even heard of this Culture11 site until I read that it was gone. If someone wants to know why it failed, extrapolate that out to other bloggers and web surfers, that was it.

Having never seen it, all I can conclude is that it really must have sucked.

Step Away From The Keyboard

I hope Maguire's use of the word "train" here carries no hidden sexual intent. There are people watching for such things, obviously. Maybe Dreher was over tired having saved conservatism from Rush Limbaugh just last week?

Rod Dreher initiates a train wreck with this post that is a little bit about a ghastly home invasion and murder in a small Texas town and more about a comment made by one of the victims.