So far I've seen one diary entry around here about the upcoming FOX "News Channel" show slated to be about news from the political blogosphere and hosted by Michelle "Our Lady of Perpetual Outrage" Malkin, and faux-Democrat FOX News shill Kirsten Powers. As far as I've seen, Powers hasn't met the right-wing frame she doesn't like. She has a fairly open detestation of the left blogosphere in general and DailyKos in particular. I have little doubt that for the most part such a show will entail Malkin whining and screaming about random comments over here that she feels will paint the netroots (or "nutoots" as she prefer to call us, with her banal neologism) in a bad light, and Powers apologizing for being in the same party as us. As a commenter on the other thread observed, doesn't FOX have one "Hannity & Colmes" show already?
But I've been thinking about possible larger motives behind all this, and wanted to throw this concept out for discussion. As I believe the CNN "live blog coverage" of the 2006 midterms showed, watching a bunch of bloggers is usually about as interesting as watching paint dry. Do they really think there is that big an audience aching to be told what's going on on the blogs? No, I think this part of a larger overall strategem. Until 2006 the right blogosphere and pundit class generally jeered at netroots activism, laughing at the low success record of election of netroots sponsored candidates. But after Novemeber that laughter stopped. They still hate us just as much, but I think now they are beginning to fear us because we are becoming more effective.
But it is still the case that to the mainstream public, names like Kos and Atrios mean nothing. Therefore I think this show may be a kind of "pre-emptive strike", to have a regularly scheduled mass media presentation to at once familiarize the general public with the blogosphere, and to make the left side of it anathema. This will facilitate reporters and the public, in the runup to the 2008 election, to hit any Democratic or left-leaning candidates with questions like "Hey, we heard on the TV that there was some crazy stuff on that Kos blog. Will you pledge to disassociate yourself from that community? Will you pledge not to accept money from the crazy netroots? Because if not, we'll have to assume you're in the pocket of those radical blogging overlords!"
Thus, I think the underlying purpose of this show will be to cut the netroots off at the knees, by trying to force some kind of propaganda wedge between us and candidates we support. I wouldn't be surprised, therefore, that someone like Powers would want to be in on it, because although she is nominally a Democrat, in her view the Democratic party would be better off without us.
Thoughts? Especially tactical suggestions for ways in which we might be able to pre-empt some of this pre-emption?