of the busblog:
our first exchange came after i wrote about missing Danielle:
Thank god. Back to a well written creative post and off the political hateration…at least for a minute.
– Derek
which is the normal sort of comment i get when i spend more than one post writing about politics, even though theres a convention going on. anyway, this is how i replied
pardon me for giving a crap about my government during an election year. – tony
and so Derek, a good reader and fan wrote back with:
o come on tony…just giving you a hard time. I’m extremely glad you give a crap about our government. however, given your obvious intelligence, i’d hardly say your recent posts have much to do with your concern about our government, but much to do with your hatred of the president, petty jokes about meaningless things, silly controversies over booing, and the cheapest of all media ploys – taking quotes out of context to try to make a point.
I mean, come on, I’m not crazy about him either, but you know what he was trying to say. You can never “win” a war on terrorism. It will always exist. It always has. They will never raise a white flag and the war will be over. If we stop fighting a “war” on terrorism because we think we’ve won, then that is exactly when we will surely lose.
Derek
i have recently been fascinated when people agree with the president’s first idea that this is indeed an unwinable war, and they defend him, but then they say nothing of the fact that he flip flopped and has begun saying at every chance that he can that we will win this war. whatev, this is what i wrote back
i would have to disagree with you derek, i did not take that quote out of context. i gave you the entire chunk where lauer asked the question and the president answered and the lauer follow-up and the president’s follow up.
what i didnt include was how after the president put his foot in his mouth lauer changed the subject and asked about the bush twins’ age.
and then i linked to the entire interview.
cheap media ploy? hardly.
hearing the president say that the war is unwinable is mindblowing. no i didnt know what he was trying to say other than the war is unwinable.
after being kicked in the head by the dems and his own people now he is saying that the war is not only winable but we are winning.
so apparently the war is winable according to the president, and the dems, and me.
it was a huge gaffe and indicative to the republicans’ Fear Doctrine that they think will assure them four more years.
I do not “hate” the president. I do hate the fact that he and his people are trying to make us so fearful of this unknown enemy that we will run to their awaiting arms to protect us.
even though they were the ones who ignored the cia report warning of osama and then let the bin ladin family fly home, etc etc etc
cheap media ploy? hardly.i also got a little heat for questioning the instapundit as i did yesterday for not mentioning the president’s flip flop on something as trivial as this unwinable/winable war.
several people wondered why i cared about the worlds most powerful blogger. some called him boring. some asked me to ignore him.
While I often enjoy reading your commentary and thoughts, I think you should try to define your views as FOR something rather than AGAINST instapundit. I get it. You don’t agree with him. But do we really need another instapundit-didn’t-write-what-I-wanted-him-to blog? – Mike
an interesting point, although not one that many bloggers or politicians follow. the instapundit, as i pointed out in the post that Mike commented on mentioned Kerry 7 times and mentioned the word “Bush” only 6 times throughout 35 posts.
and i sincerly doubt if you look through my archives that i have established positions about Anything solely based around being AGAINST someone else’s blog.
but what the Instapundit is doing is trying to comment and present ideas about politics unless they go against his ideals. it would be like a baseball columnist based in new york NOT writing about yesterday’s 22-0 loss.
that guy’s readers would be all, wtf?
i am a reader of glenn reynolds, and im all wtf.
tell people what happened, spin it if you must, but dont bury it. nazis buried news.
anyway, here is my response to the criticsm above:
instapundit is the most popular blogger. his power and influence around the blogosphere is huge. i’ve also met him, i enjoy his writing, and i appreciate his blog.
because of that it bothers me, as a reader, when i see him take his good thing and turn it into another Drudge Report.
it worries me when he turns his back on real news of the day and ignores it by burying his head in the sand on topics that will not hurt his candidate if he talks about them, but will hurt his blog if he continues to look the other way on Anything that is negative when it comes to the current administration.
and yes it’s annoying.
im not upset when Glenn doesnt write what i dont want him to write about, i get upset when Glenn doesnt write about what is huge news about the president of the united fucking states.
i look to blogs like his to give us republican points of views on these topics. shit, even Drudge linked the “unwinable” war story, so on this topic Glenn isnt even on par with drudge.
i admire his determination to blogging. i admire how prolific he is. but it bothers me that he is so paranoid that if he shines a light on the not-so-glorious moments of this administration that somehow he could possibly hurt the guy who he wants to win.
but what i really worry about is the fact that soooo many “moderate” blogs will not criticize Glenn because they are afraid that if they get on his shitlist then he will never link him and thus they wont get the instalanche that so many blogger want.
it also worries me that some bloggers who do get regular links to Glenn wont criticize him because now they rely on his hits to keep their hitcount up so that their BlogAds remain profitable.
Mike, you shouldnt be concerned when i question the motives and actions of the world’s most popular blogger, you should be concerned when i dont.