Patterico's Pontifications

9/17/2005

Blog Feuds and Blog Mininetworks

Filed under: Blogging Matters,General — Patterico @ 11:21 pm



Jeff Goldstein has been left out of the Conservative Blogads Mininetwork. When I learned that, I wrote John Hawkins to say that I thought Goldstein should have been included.

But then I saw that in a comment to his own post, Jeff says that it would be pointless for him to write Hawkins about it, saying: “Hawkins and I had a feud a while back. When he created his conservative grapevine, he left me out of that as well.”

I searched Jeff’s site to see what feud he was talking about, since I evidently missed it when it happened. I see there was some sort of flap (see here and here) between John and Jeff about a segment Jeff and Bill Ardolino did on their radio show. And I scrolled back through a few more posts and saw Jeff mocking John in a few posts (like here, here, and especially here), and realized that my e-mail to John probably wasn’t going to go anywhere.

I don’t mean to take sides in that flap, since I don’t know much about it. But I feel your pain, Jeff. There’s some sort of Legal Blogads Mininetwork which I think my site would be a perfect fit for — but it’s run by Jeralyn Merritt, with whom I had a little flap of my own a while back. I have no regrets about my part in it; my criticisms of her behavior were echoed by Armed Liberal, who called her selective editing of posts “Orwellian.” I thought I had handled the matter in a rational manner, and invited her to respond. When she did, in a comment to one of my posts, Jeralyn told me: “Feel free to stop reading TalkLeft any time now.” And I did.

Sometimes this blogging stuff is like high school, huh?

I think the chances of my being included in Jeralyn’s network are about the same as Jeff’s chances of being included in John’s. Will I lose out on advertising as a result? Sure. But I’d do everything the same way all over again.

In any event, I’m happy to be in the Conservative Blogads Network, and I always hate to see two bloggers I like in any kind of feud — and I still wish Goldstein were included. Nobody has done better work on the Katrina blame game in the past couple of weeks — and he does find a way to make the conversations with John Merrick’s Ghost funny every time — which, as he has pointed out, takes work.

So go send him a few bucks and leave him a nice comment. But don’t get on Hawkins’s case either. As far as I’m concerned, they’re both good guys.

UPDATE: But if you like blog feuds, you have to read through the comments at this post at Ace’s. It’s one of the funniest fights I have ever seen.

The Prediction Stands: Dems Will Filibuster Bush’s Second Nominee — And Will Therefore Vote for Roberts

Filed under: Judiciary — Patterico @ 4:30 pm



I have predicted all along that the Democrats would not filibuster President Bush’s first Supreme Court nomination, no matter who it was — but would filibuster the second one . . . no matter who it was.

I still believe that is their plan. In order to execute that plan, they may decide that they need the apparent credibility that comes with a vote for John Roberts — a candidate who is clearly unobjectionable and will be confirmed without breaking a sweat.

The downside for them is that voting for Roberts opens them up to the gambit I mentioned here the other day — it ties their hands to a significant degree in raising objections to a possible Miguel Estrada nomination.

The Democrats’ principal objections to Estrada were: 1) the Bush Administration’s refusal to release Solicitor General memos, and 2) Estrada’s alleged refusal to provide details on his views. But Roberts did not release Solicitor General memos, and Estrada could easily give answers with the same level of detail as Roberts. Given these ready responses to Democrat objections, and the similarity of Estrada’s resume to that of Roberts, any filibuster of Estrada by Democrats runs the risk of looking like an unfair blackballing of Estrada due to his Hispanic heritage.

I think Sen. Schumer, for one, has decided that this is a risk that he is willing to run, for two reasons.

First, Judge Roberts has set a very, very high standard for the next nominee. No matter how well the next nominee performs, he or she will almost inevitably fail to pull off a performance as impressive as that of Judge Roberts. Estrada is a bright man, but hardly any candidate has performed as well as Roberts in recent memory. Democrats can easily use this to justify their vote for Roberts, and say that the new candidate just didn’t impress them as much.

[UPDATE 9-17-05: This is borne out by an article in today’s New York Times, which quotes Schumer as saying: “Roberts set an awfully high bar in terms of intellect and ability to answer questions, which is going to be awfully hard for the next nominee to match . . . Roberts gained a lot of good will because of his intellect.”]

Second, the availability of documents from Roberts’s service in the Reagan Administration gives Democrats an argument (albeit a lame one) that they have more information about his views than they have about Estrada. Schumer alluded to this in remarks from Thursday’s hearings:

In some cases, like Miguel Estrada’s nomination, we had no knowledge of his views so we couldn’t vote. But here there’s clearly some evidence.

That was a warning shot — and it was evidence that Schumer is seriously considering voting for Roberts.

If he does that, he is going to have the interest groups howling with fury. And Schumer, as much as any Senator, is a captive of the abortion lobby and PFAW. The only thing that will assuage these people is a promise to filibuster the next candidate, unless he is to the left of Stephen Reinhardt.

For these reasons, I am going to sign on to Dafydd ab Hugh’s recent prediction: Roberts will get passed on to the floor with the votes of every Democrat except for Teddy Kennedy, who is so apparently upset about Roberts’s Reagan-era memos on the Voting Rights Act that he will never vote for Roberts, even though it would be the strategically smart thing to do.

The other Democrats will hold their noses and vote for Roberts. And they will say next time around: I am not automatically filibustering every Supreme Court candidate! But this nominee [whoever it is] is so out of the mainstream I have no choice!

You heard it here second.

UPDATE: Democrats, listen — even the Washington Post is editorializing in favor of Roberts’s confirmation.

UPDATE x2: I see Biden as the second most likely vote against Roberts.

Who Hacked Tom Maguire’s Site?

Filed under: Morons — Patterico @ 4:01 pm



I ignored Bill Maher when he recently made the idiotic suggestion that 9/11 and Katrina were George W. Bush’s fault. Addressing Bush, Maher said:

On your watch, we’ve lost almost all of our allies, the surplus, four airliners, two Trade Centers, a piece of the Pentagon and the City of New Orleans…Maybe you’re just not lucky!

I’m not saying you don’t love this country. I’m just wondering how much worse it could be if you were on the other side.

After all, it’s Bill Maher. He is an inconsequential man, and when such men say silly things, they should be ignored.

But what’s going on when Tom Maguire calls Maher’s piece “very funny”?

Tom, you’re almost always so on-target, I’m wondering what happened here. Did someone hack your site, dude?

P.S. I’m filing this under “Morons,” but the reference is to Maher, not Maguire. I just think Tom is misguided on this one. I still love his site.

P.P.S. Didn’t we lose another airliner in November 2001? Why, yes — we did. 260 people died, including several infants. But that one was just an accident, so you can’t blame it on Bush. That means including it wouldn’t be funny — you know, like blaming 9/11 on Bush is.

Do You Want the Bad News First, or the Good News?

Filed under: Blogging Matters,General — Patterico @ 1:07 pm



If you’re like me, you always want the bad news first . . .

We’re very unlikely to see many more posts by Dafydd ab Hugh around here. He of course retains the privilege to post here whenever he wishes, but I don’t think this is going to happen anywhere near as frequently as it has in the past.

The reason for his upcoming silence here is the good news: Dafydd has finally gotten his own blog up and running. You can access it at this link, and can and should go visit immediately, and add the blog to your blogroll immediately, as I have done.

The logo is awesome. And you know that the content will be good.

The blog is part of a bigger project of Dafydd’s, which is under construction, but which you can access at this page for Dafydd’s description of what it will be.

Congratulations to Dafydd on getting this going, on an excellent design, and on a great start from Instapundit and Hugh Hewitt and Captain Ed and Power Line. My own humble contribution to his traffic will be comparatively minimal, but I want the best percentage of participation from my readers. I want every last one of you to go visit and blogroll Dafydd’s blog, now!


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