A lot has been made of the upcoming leadership battle taking place between Steny Hoyer and Jack Murtha. I think it it is shaping up to be a defining moment for Nancy Pelosi. What is interesting is how this fight is taking place within the blogosphere. It seems that people are starting to pick sides in this fight, and not in the usual way. The level of certitude and the lack of debate is interesting. Usually in this kind of fight there is a back and forth, but in certain outlets, it seems that time is over. Certain realms of the blogosphere are becoming outlets for various tribal interests in the Democratic party.
Suddenly we have campaigns being waged to win over the blogosphere readership. The Steny Hoyer people have been very vocal in their opposition to Murtha, suddenly we have
ABSCAM cropping up, trying to nail Murtha as being part of that, this source being TPM. It is a really hard hitting piece, brutal actually.
But what was ABSCAM? How can anyone say it tainted Murtha -- especially since he was never charged with any crime?
ABSCAM was the media's name for an FBI undercover operation to catch corrupt lawmakers. Around 1980, agents and an informant met with several lawmakers posing as representatives of a fictional "sheik Abdul" to offer them $50,000 in cash for legislative favors. Murtha was one of the lawmakers who met with them.
Ultimately, six lawmakers went down on corruption charges stemming from the operation, nearly all of them Democrats. Murtha wasn't one of them -- but not, as Murtha implies, because his innocence was ever demonstrated.
On the other side we have the Huffington Post going Murtha in a big way. Much of it relates to the Iraq war and what Murtha has been able to accomplish.
It starts here...
and continues here
and here
and here
and here
and here
and here
and here
I could be wrong, but it seems to me that some members of the blogoshpere have been absorbed into the power structure. I don't know if this is a good or a bad thing, but it certainly is different. I wonder if the netroots are becoming the establishment they used to fight against. It is also interesting that this fight is taking place outside the realms where us crazies mostly gather. These are the "respectable" blogs.
Enjoy this time, these are our last days of innocence. The day may be coming when the rant and the spontaneous post is going to be replaced with a focused grouped, carefully crafted and thoroughly edited dissertation. This is starting to become about personal power, and politicians are taking control of the levers of the blogosphere so they can advance their agenda. To them I say, good luck, and fuck you. I hate reading between the lines, the thing I like most about blogs is that people give their unvarnished opinion. We may be losing that. On the bright side, at least we still have Atrios.