There are untold numbers of diaries about substance, about facts, and about reality. There are plenty of diaries about contradictions, "isms", history, and events. This is not a diary about any of those things. I was skimming over Markos' latest hate mail story, and it got me thinking about the tone of discussion between the left and right. Specifically, the bloggers on the left and the right.
In other words, how do our direct counterparts across the aisle sound, compared to us?
Do keep in mind as you read this that this sort of diary is inherently biased, and this one is no different. I don't like conservatives, even the intelligent ones, and I'm making only a minor effort to be fair. However, I am discounting comments outright.
I figured the logical start was to identify exactly who is the closest to Daily Kos on the opposite end of the political spectrum. Conservatism Today compiled a list that seemed fair enough. The criterion sound reasonable and apparently the author of the list has no life at all beyond blogging, so I figure that the top five off this list are good choices. Those five are, in order:
Hot Air
Right Wing News
Michelle Malkin
Power Line
Moon Battery
I was going to include Free Republic, but their site is broken or something.
There is at least one common thread between all of them and all of us -- conviction. This is critical. They are absolutely certain that their view is right, every bit as anyone here is. You can't properly gauge attitudes without that. They also seem to have a decent variety of writers, and so with my own criteria satisfied, I set out to find out just how it is the other side paints the world.
I decided to skim the sites in general, but mainly to look for discussion about Sotomayor, and Tiller.
Hot Air is distinctly rational and calm in its approach to both topics. I'll pass over Tiller on this one, because frankly, they're with us on this one. Skimming through its list of Sotomayor posts reveals a very intent focus on race issues, and a serious obsession with the "wise Latina" line, but an altogether calm treatment. Just take a look at The opportunity on Sotomayor, part II. However, one particular quirk caught my eye throughout the diaries:
Lindsey Graham met with her today and all but declared afterwards that he won’t vote for her, in full accordance with the precedent set by The One’s ideological jackassery when he voted to torpedo Roberts and Alito.
Small comfort that she’s unwilling to admit outright she’ll be applying The One’s "empathy" standard in close cases.
...
As for whether The One was correct in insisting that she misspoke when she made her "wise Latina" comment or whether, as anyone who’s thought about it for five seconds would realize, she meant exactly what she said given the nature of the occasion and the fact that she later approved it for publication, Leahy says nothing.
Prepare for the inevitable media finger-wagging towards Republicans who vote no on Sotomayor by refreshing your memory of how The One treated two eminent jurists while a member of the Senate.
And so the retreat begins, as predicted yesterday in Politico’s story about Democratic strategists nudging The One to walk back her comment and make it go away.
Interesting trend. Still, you could probably do a hell of a lot worse on the internet than that. Let's move on to Right Wing News.
RWN is, to put it gently, a rather more intense place. Their coverage of Sotomayor is essentially the same as Hot Air's: race obsessed but otherwise relatively calm. It is interesting to note, however, that there is almost no discussion about her. I'll just point out this one entry, which is absolutely obsessed with semantics, subtleties, nuance, and context. Keep that in mind. Tiller, on the other hand, is a mixed bag. On the bright side, they do unequivocally condemn any murder. Problem is, it took them half the week to remember that. Their original post in the matter is more concerned with attacking the left (complete with nicknames for us "moonbats"). In fact, the end of the post includes this:
Someone just shot a Nazi guard manning the gas chamber at Aushwitz. I should feel bad about this ?
The implication of course is that killing Tiller is like killing a Nazi guard. Oh, and there's one more bit:
On one hand, Obama is correct. We cannot solve the abortion issue, or others, through murder. We are a Nation of Law, not a Nation of Men. On the other hand, Obama never seems to work up much shock and outrage at the murder of over 2 million babies every year, many of them during the 3rd trimester. I wonder why?
O'Reilly's "Tiller the Baby Killer" phrase appears at least once as well. Where'd all that attention to detail and nuance go?
Michelle Malkin's coverage is, to be honest, boring and similar to Hot Air. It did catch my eye that this entry links back to Daily Kos. Unfortunately she's picked a random post by a random diarist, and to be honest I'm not even sure what the hell the Kos post is trying to say. Based on the comments there, I'm not the only one who's confused. I would think that our front page coverage would be of more interest. It's not like that story pulls any punches.
I skipped Power Line after realizing it's a joke of a blog that no one reads.
And that leaves us with Moonbattery. Unfortunately, that means ending on a low note. A very low note, which shouldn't be a surprise given the name. The front page includes images one, two, three, four, and it actually gets worse the farther you scroll down. I'll take number three as their Sotomayor coverage and leave it at that. Apparently the original list I used to find these blogs wasn't quite as reasonable as I thought.
Curiously, all five sites are still better than Free Republic.
To be honest, I was hoping for things to be more in the vein of Moonbattery. It's hard to point at Hot Air and go "see, this is why these idiots aren't accomplishing anything". What I do understand now, though, is that both sides are simply preaching to the choir. I can't say that the discourse of any of the sites seems on par with Kos, but they're not trying to pull us over to their side any more than we're trying to pull them to ours. The goal of all of these sites is to galvanize the people who already agree with you.
Still, even on the best of the right wing blogs, I can't help but feel like, if they were a cartoon, they'd all look like Mr. Burns from the Simpsons, with a permanent sneer. Not that we're innocent, but at least we're trying to accomplish things over here. If there was any of that on the six conservative sites I've mentioned today, I sure didn't see it. Could be personal bias, but it sure doen't seem like they're trying to make an honest case for their ideas.
Then again, I started this diary immediately after reading kos' hate-mail roundup, which is hardly a friendly and mature series. So how's the kool aid?