Get the Number of that Truck
Ace of Spades notices that the WSJ is blaming the "Internet buzz" for the immigration bill's defeat and now asks "just who sponsors Hot Air's ad, and other similar ads popping up across the Internet?" Michelle Malkin responds.
No Wall Street Journal reporter bothered to e-mail us. If they had, the facts would have gotten in the way of their tinfoil-rattling. Sorry to disappoint you, but no one “sponsored” our videos. I’m sure Kaus will find out if any of the other grass-roots YouTube ads his call inspired were “sponsored” by some Invisible, Deep-Pocketed Special Interest.
Is it so hard for the WSJ to get its head around the concept of independent videoblogging and an Army of Video-Editing Davids? Or at least to e-mail video producers to ask them directly before embarrassing themselves?
At the risk of sounding repetitive, I'll say it again. Politicians are making their traditional little calculations from long habit. But something -- the narrative -- has changed. An extraneous factor has fallen into a hermetical universe and is sitting on the table, like a glowing meteorite. But nobody knows what to make of it. So they resort to the familiar. It's only natural for the WSJ to ask: "who backed you Michelle? Which politician or faction is behind you?" That's how they think. They can't think any other way.
Nothing follows.
posted by wretchardthecat at 6/28/2007 06:59:00 PM
7 Comments:
Its William of Orange's ghost.
This is the tipping point. Even the WSJ is outside of this Event Horizon.
The search for an explanation continues. Slashdot reports:
News.com reports that the immigration reform bill bouncing around in the Senate for the last few weeks has finally been defeated. The site speculates that, perhaps, one of the reasons it was finally defeated was a measure intended to expand the use of Real ID cards. If passed, the bill would have effectively turned the Real ID system into a National ID card. "The American Civil Liberties Union, another longtime foe of Real ID, said the Real ID requirements were a 'poison pill that derailed this bill, and any future legislation should be written knowing the American people won't swallow it.' Another section of the immigration bill would have given $1.5 billion to state officials to pay for Real ID compliance. Even if the immigration bill is goes nowhere, however, the Real ID Act is still in effect. It says, starting on May 11, 2008, Americans will need a federally-approved ID card to travel on an airplane, open a bank account, collect Social Security payments or take advantage of nearly any government service."
I find it rather interesting that nobody in Congress seems to be talking about amnesty for marijuana smokers or cocaine users. There are millions of drug addicts who "live in the shadows" and would like to have the "worth and dignity" of their lives "recognized".
And seriously, if we are going to even start to control our borders, we need to stop the illicit flow of drugs even if it means establishing government control over recreational drugs. As it is, our national security is being defended by the greed of Columbian cocaine lords when they refuse to have anything to do with Osama bin Laden's scheme to kill millions of Americans by selling them poisoned cocaine. Mass poisoning of customers would cut into the bottom line for drug cartels...
"It's only natural for the WSJ to ask: 'who backed you Michelle? Which politician or faction is behind you?"
Yes, it's natural in a political sense -- as is, to some extent, assuming silent partners, although failing to ask is just sloppy. It's also a function of real difficulty with the concept of self-sponsored or reader sponsored blogging in what is, itself, a media sponsored world of journalism. Ms. Carnevale, who wrote the piece on the ad, is a Wall Street Journal reporter, writing in a Wall Street Journal sponsored blog. Ms. Malkin is...Ms. Malkin. She is her own credentials.
JM Hanes,
I think the question reveals a profound unfamiliarity with the way a meme works. What happened to the immigration bill reminded me, on a larger scale, of what happened to Dan Rather the night Buckhead first intuited that 60 Minutes had a faked document. All of a sudden, a kind of common realization shot through a community of people connected by the Internet.
The WSJ writer doesn't believe such a thing is possible. But oh, it is.
Too often we confuse winning an argument with solving a problem. The WSJ was so focused on winning the debate they lost sight of the problem. They would deliberately confuse legal and illegal immigration to win rhetorically. In the process they were calling their readers stupid, racist, pigs. This indicates to me that they were a bit out of touch on this one.
Perhaps there is a "silent majority" after all. The MSM just doesn't believe it.
Post a Comment
<< Home