05 March 2008

Double Standard in Criticism of Cunningham?

When this blog began, I had only about a dozen links (seriously) and they ranged across the political spectrum. But one by one, each "conservative" link went neocon nutty. First there was the Right Angle Blog. Then VikingSpirit. Then LargeBill. I tried hard to find a blog that was reflective of Goldwater conservatism but all I found were vacuous mouthpieces for Karl Rove's dementia.

I thought of the local Rovesphere amidst last week's criticism of Bill Cunningham's pissy peroration. Cunningham is hardly the first loyal lackey to educe ethno-religious prejudice regarding Obama. VikingSpirit did it over a year ago. More recently, BizzyBlog has answered the call...

last August...
I don’t think I need to elaborate... on this gem from BHOO (Barack Hussein “Obambi” Obama)...

and last month...
Barack Obama — known to yours truly as BOOHOO (Barack O-bomba Overseas Hussein “Obambi” Obama) — is not a strong enough defender of abortion “rights.”

Two highly regarded local blogs, TDB and Cincinnati Blog, posted criticisms of Cunningham. TDB's is particularly incisive. Ironically, both blogs also link to BizzyBlog, which did the same thing as Cunningham. Cunningham has a higher profile, but on principle, shouldn't BizzyBlog also be criticized? Are expectations of Cunningham's behavior higher than BizzyBlog's?

It's up to the blog owners whom they choose to link to, of course. But this is exactly the kind of slimy amateur-hour political gamesmanship that made me pull such links from this blog. It has nothing to do with ideology.

Is BizzyBlog a forum for conservative perspectives or is it an echo chamber for neocon policies that have lost all credibility and the Rovian tactics that continue to trumpet them? If it's the latter, why link to it?

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think some bloggers are trying too hard to seem inclusive and objective. If they have 12 leftist blogs, they feel the need for 12 on the right.

Also when a blog goes bad, the people who have linked to it might not notice or assume things will get better (explaining why I have two dead links).

Unknown said...

Of the TDB here.

I don't think I would sever a link because I disagree with someone's politics, or a portion of someone's politics. I don't understand or respect -- indeed, it creates a knot in my gut -- the ugly Bizzyblog nickname that Tom Blumer has tried to slime Sen. Obama with. That said, I also note that Tom Blumer has never been invited to emcee or warmup a GOP function, at least I'm not aware of him ever having such a role. Cunningham used his presidential warmup in a disgraceful manner and I thought it was worth noting and condemning because it happened in public and was deserving of censure. Blumer inveighs on his blog, and I don't read the mean things he says about Sen. Obama, I skip over them (much to my stomach's appreciation). I don't listen to Cunningham's show at all. I self censor, but I'm not a fan of censorship.

WestEnder said...

^I understand all those things and I conceded to Cunningham's higher profile in the post. My question is what would you be censoring. Is it really politics? Would you really be censoring an intellectual product?

Is a link to Ann Coulter or Rush Limbaugh really a link to politics?

Consider the difference between, say, Francis Fukuyama and William F. Buckley on one hand and Coulter and Limbaugh on the other. In my view, the term "censorship" would be properly applied to the formers whereas blocking the latters is more akin to using a v-chip.

ohdave said...

My take?

Why would anyone read any conservative blogs anyway, let alone link to them?

Great post, though.