Apologies to the readers this week. The BHC normally doesn't get involved in what has become almost a new sport in the blogworld: lobbing increasingly discordant animadversions across the political divide. One on one blog-fights seem to break out with alarming regularity and, as one might expect, the right side of bloggydom is usually spending a lot more time casting invective mortars at left wingers than they spend on actual news. It is an interesting development to observe and the BHC likens it to a similar phenomenon we were loathe to observe many years ago: the Usenet. Of course, we stand guilty of such behaviour ourselves as evidence of such guilt is found directly above ... and below.
However, readers should know that the BHC is not unaware of the "concerns" of the right wing side of blogdom and we do, on occasion, wander over to see what they are fussing about. Usually, our curiosity will be piqued when a big story breaks. At this point, our predictive capacity of right wing blogs is becoming, shall we say, pretty uncanny. But right wing reactions to news follow a fairly simple pattern: bad news for George Bush gets ignored or downplayed. Good news for George Bush which, in the minds of right wing bloggers, is also bad news for Democrats, is highlighted, celebrated, fawned over. Needless to say, the right spends an awful lot of time downplaying and not so much celebrating. This is also, to them, direct and incontrovertible proof of liberal bias in the mainstream media.
Which brings us the kernel of this BHC item. Last week, we brought readers' attention to the story of a shady deal in which a company, Yates Petroleum, was granted expanded drilling rights in the federally protected desert wilderness of Otera Mesa. Yates Petroleum also happens to be a big Republican campaign donor, the largest GOP campaign donor in the state of New Mexico, which, by an amazingly happy coincidence, is also where Otera Mesa is located (see The BHC, Volume 45, Pay To Play).
Well, We here at the BHC decided to "just see" how this story was playing out on the right wing bench. Of course, there is no better place to go to get a finger on the pulse of the right than the Free Republic (we are not linking to this site, but you can find it easily enough. But be careful!) Well, sure enough a bunch of freepers had chimed in about this issue and some of the comments are, shall we say, revealing:
A) The right wing is not fond of the environment nor environmentalists:
"the goal of the environmental wackos is to take down the US economy and bring us down to the level of third world countries"
B) On the demographics of New Mexico, which ostensibly demonstrates just why New Mexico's population and its governor are concerned about the environment:
"rich liberals of sante fe, scads of alcohol-addicted indians laying by the freeways, legions of university-trained, environmentalist artists, mexicans that [sic] won't speak to whites, and finally, white spaniards dating back to the 1600's"
Do we detect a hint of red meat snobbery and, oh, what's the word...? The right wing is always claiming, often hilariously, that lefties are playing the "race card." Well, it looks like they've got a pretty good hand right here. We are not even going to try to figure out what four hundred year old Spaniards have to do with oil drilling in the desert.
C) Cradling of old myths that have long since been dispelled:
"Wasn't he [Gov. Richardson] in charge of DOE and ultimately responsible for the Los Alamos debacle...and stolen nuclear secrets by the Chicoms?*"
The basic facts of the Wen Ho Lee case are these: there was no spying at Los Alamos and if "Chicoms" did get nuclear secrets it was not from Los Alamos:
"He [Wen Ho Lee] was indicted December 10 on 59 counts of mishandling nuclear secrets, and held in solitary confinement, at times shackled, for nine months. By the end, the government's case was shown to be so weak that Lee was allowed to plead guilty to a single count of mishandling secret information. The presiding federal judge excoriated 'top decision makers in the executive branch," apologized to Lee from the bench and said officials had embarrassed the entire nation." (for more on the Wen Ho Lee case, see American Journalism Review,Rush to Judgment )
D) And our favourite:
"How can we mobilize support for the oil industry?"
Pure madness.
Remember, if you must go to The Free Republic, be careful. And wash when you're done.
*Chicoms - hip right wing speak: Chinese Communists.