Looks as though the News-Journal took notice of last week's tempest in a blogging teapot, specifically Delaware Liberal's melodramatic feud that unfolded, leading to the departure of founder Jason.
The coverage is hardly kind or flattering, to say the least. This comes on the heels of another recent N-J article mentioning (or at least alluding to) Delaware Liberal rather dismissively, when NC County Executive Chris Coons questioned their credibility for floating unsubstantiated rumors that he would be leaving his current elected office for an Obama administration position.
From this past Sunday's "Dialogue Delaware : Inklings and Oddments" :
I love the line "who often take credit", not to mention "who cherish the ability to say what they want without anyone knowing their identities."
OUCH! Talk about owned.
Considering exponentially more people probably read just this article (given the N-J's still substantial circulation and readership - both dead tree and internet) than have ever read Delaware Liberal in its entire existence...it should give our liberal friends some pause.
I suspect this isn't the kind of broad acknowledgment they are looking for.
I am sure one of them will cast it as sour grapes over Delaware Liberal's impact (you know the one they "take credit" for) or otherwise moan that the News-Journal doesn't dance to their tune and lacks journalistic credibility.
Oh look! It didn't take long.
[Updated thought : Only Steve Newton at Delaware Libertarian actually covered this at length, tying all the threads together and "preserving the record" so to speak. Delaware Liberal itself has nothing to be found, except Jason's opaque parting post. Neither Delaware Watch nor Delaware Politics mentioned it a peep. One has to ponder where the N-J writer got all their information.....]
The coverage is hardly kind or flattering, to say the least. This comes on the heels of another recent N-J article mentioning (or at least alluding to) Delaware Liberal rather dismissively, when NC County Executive Chris Coons questioned their credibility for floating unsubstantiated rumors that he would be leaving his current elected office for an Obama administration position.
From this past Sunday's "Dialogue Delaware : Inklings and Oddments" :
Liberal blog fight!
Delaware's blogosphere resembles the state that many of its participants reside in -- small.
So when a major upheaval happens in the world of one of its participants, the fellow bloggers tend to take notice. And the past few weeks have seen Delaware bloggers paying close attention to one another as the cross-blog feuds and inner-group fighting has escalated.
And while the back and forth has the feel of a Lindsey Lohan movie plot, the small group of people who often take credit for pressuring politicians and changing the outcome of elections has done little more than bicker the last few weeks.
It started when a blogger known as Kavips said some not so nice things about Republican Party insider Garett Wozniak. So Dave Burris at DelawarePolitics.net decided to retaliate, with an apology that he did the "unthinkable" in the blogging world, he revealed Kavips' secret identity.
It resulted in a back and forth between Burris and his supporters and bloggers at Delaware Liberal, who cherish the ability to say what they want without anyone knowing their identities.
After a week, it seemed the saga was over.
But the bloggers at Delaware Liberal started imploding early last week. First, blog owner "Jason330" kicked off fellow blogger "Donviti," which prompted an uprising among his fellow left-wing bloggers.
Then a few days later Donviti was back and Jason330 was gone.
The reason for the disagreement Jason330 wrote was disagreement on the "direction of the blog."
But as one conservative commentator pointed out, it would be difficult for the blog to move any further left.
I love the line "who often take credit", not to mention "who cherish the ability to say what they want without anyone knowing their identities."
OUCH! Talk about owned.
Considering exponentially more people probably read just this article (given the N-J's still substantial circulation and readership - both dead tree and internet) than have ever read Delaware Liberal in its entire existence...it should give our liberal friends some pause.
I suspect this isn't the kind of broad acknowledgment they are looking for.
I am sure one of them will cast it as sour grapes over Delaware Liberal's impact (you know the one they "take credit" for) or otherwise moan that the News-Journal doesn't dance to their tune and lacks journalistic credibility.
Oh look! It didn't take long.
[Updated thought : Only Steve Newton at Delaware Libertarian actually covered this at length, tying all the threads together and "preserving the record" so to speak. Delaware Liberal itself has nothing to be found, except Jason's opaque parting post. Neither Delaware Watch nor Delaware Politics mentioned it a peep. One has to ponder where the N-J writer got all their information.....]
Comments
Gee, I wonder where the News Journal learned that Garrett is a Republican Party insider.
Lord knows we would never have learned that fact from the News Journal if it were not for blogs.
Sheesh, there is way more to DE politics than blogs.
The WNJ bloggie thing did establish my meme for DL - that they are often overblown egofucks - but I generally luv 'em... I rully dooooooo.
The most interesting cut of all is how Mr. Steve Newton's blog was ...er...overlooked.
What is the implication here between these 2 sentences? That I might be the source of the NJ story simply because I said nothing about the NJ story. What a cheap dirty smear from Tyler Nixon, not to mention a fallacy (arguing from silence).
CLEARLY, the NJ got the story from the broadcasts of WDEL which said ON PUBLIC AIRWAVES that DE Liberal was the source of the story.
What I meant was that neither you or DE Politics even mentioned the Delaware Liberal melodrama, and it wasn't covered by DE Liberal themselves, so my implication is that they read about it here but never mentioned Steve or this blog.
Jesus Christ, take a frigging chill pill.
Of course, I'll expect no apology for your gross misconclusion.
Seriously.
That the CRI is affiliated by the national partisan GOPerheads' organizations is news.
I was just googling around and found a post by Alan Muller in 2000 which mentions another conservative think tank. The one that hired former NJ editor John Taylor:
Minner v Burris v McDowell for Governor of Delaware
John Burris IS the Delaware State Chamber of Commerce. The Chamber, representing Delaware's big corporations-including many of the world's worst environmental offenders-is Delaware's single most effective enemy of the environment and of public health. Its control and manipulation is far-reaching. The Chamber lobbies relentlessly for more pollution and more development. Burris has claimed that his "best contribution" to Delaware is the Delaware Public Policy Institute (DPPI). DPPI claims to be an independent think tank but is bogus--a front for the Chamber. When investigated by Green Delaware it proved not to even have it's own phone number (they got one). DPPI-commonly cited by Delaware's press as if it were legitimate-has effectively manipulated discussion of public issues to exclude independent points of view. Burris' proposals to "study" Delaware's cancer problem are pure bullshit. The Delaware American Association of University Women reports that Burris supports "Weakening clean air and water standards." Intelligent and articulate, Burris theoretically could change sides and represent the public, but we think his use of dubious if not fraudulent methods at the Chamber disqualifies him.
In eight years, Ruth Ann Minner has never once answered a letter from Green Delaware or agreed to meet with us. She has no record of supporting citizens' efforts to reduce air and water pollution, and offers nothing meaningful about sprawl development. She seems intolerant of independent points of view. For example, she listens only to the anti-recycling, pro-in incineration Delaware Solid Waste Authority. She doesn't support efforts to stop raw sewage dumping, claiming-wrongly-that the Federal government is going to take care of it. Respected by many as a self-made woman, Minner simply seems out of her depth.
Floyd McDowell, Independent candidate, has supported Green Delaware's efforts for years. (Disclosure-McDowell is a personal friend of this writer and has stated that if elected he would offer him the job of head of DNREC.) McDowell, not always as clear as he could be on issues, is clear as a bell in his commitment to integrity and open, democratic government.
Vote for Minner or vote for McDowell. Burris would be the fox in the henhouse.
In the interest of full disclosure, I am usually lost in the insider jokes and esoteric reference from all you guys, so maybe I am misreading this whole thing. But damn it seem like much ado about nothing.
*
If you were paying attention, you would have read that Liberal Geek was telephoning Chris Coons' at the same time that DEDEM was 'typing the story' for confirmation. When Coons' denied the rumor, DL didn't take down the post, they just wrote a retraction at the bottom as an UPDATE.
What set the gig in full gear was when (to my surprise) Allan Loudell picked up on the 'chatter' and asked a few Republican's what they thought (both remained anonymouse one saying it was true one saying it wasn't). Loudell also got Coons and Clark to give him statements. I think they even had a press conference.
It was WDEL and the GOP that took the story and made it headline news. By the time the WNJ picked it up, Coons had his shill-whackess Angie Basicoonsie, write a bunch of total bullshit he fed her...like...his son heard it on the radio and wondered if daddy was moving to Washington...yeah, right Chris. Riiiiiight.