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Bloggers to NRSC: Drop Dead

David Weigel — Wed, 20 May 2009 17:37:06 +0000

John Hawkins of Right Wing News has gotten a number of A- and B-list conservative bloggers to co-sign an open letter to the National Republican Senatorial Committee, a reaction to last week’s endorsement by the group of Gov. Charlie Crist (R-Fla.) in the Florida U.S. Senate race.

We the undersigned believe that the National Republican Senatorial Committee should be committed to serving ALL the members of the Republican Party.

Additionally, the NRSC should be focused on defeating Democrats, not Republicans. Towards that end, we believe it was completely inappropriate for the NRSC to endorse a candidate in the Florida primary race.

Therefore, we request that both you and the NRSC alter your position on the Florida Senate race, maintain neutrality, and promise to spend no money directly or indirectly in that race.

Among the signatories: Tea Party leader Eric Odom, controversial “anti-jihadist” blogger Pamela Geller, frequent Blogginghead and TV pundit Matt Lewis, and RedState’s Erick Erickson, who has been blistering in his criticism of Republican moderates.

When You’ve Lost Powerline…

David Weigel — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 14:16:15 +0000

The deeply flawed Wall Street Journal editorial on the Minnesota Senate recount was too much even for the bloggers at Powerline, the “Land of 10,000 Lakes”-based Website whose lawyer/writers pinned Dan Rather to the wall back in 2004. Scott Johnson writes:

There was no noticeable partisan division among the board. I reject any imputation of misconduct to the board such as is implicit in the Journal editorial. Whatever inconsistencies the board committed in ruling on challenged ballots and other issues do not result from partisan mischief.

This isn’t to say that Johnson thinks Al Franken’s win was legitimate: He attacks Minnesota Secretary of State Mark Ritchie for “collusion” with Franken and recommends that incumbent former Sen. Norm Coleman (R) hire a “new quarterback” who is tougher than his current team (which includes President George. W. Bush’s 2000 Florida recount lawyer Ben Ginsburg) to fight back.

But if the Journal is wrong about “partisan misconduct,” that takes oomph out of the argument that the Minnesota Supreme Court needs to intervene for a new recount. The idea that Minnesota Democrats stole the election is what Coleman and the conservative media are trying to push here, not the idea that the canvassing board made a few decisions that broke Franken’s way.

Some Christmas Reading

Spencer Ackerman — Thu, 25 Dec 2008 14:01:06 +0000

My somewhat estranged blog-comrade LT Nixon points to a number of cool milblogs. My pick of his list: Fobbits Need Ice Cream Too, whose logo is LOLworthy. (A Fobbit, for the uninitiated, is a soldier/marine/airman/sailor who doesn’t go off his or her base. Forward Operating Base = FOB; creature of the FOB = fobbit.) Blogger Joe is, I gather, an Army National Guardsman who, thankfully, just got back from Iraq. His posts about the interminable outprocessing as he ended his tour and stewed in the halfway house known as Kuwait are great:

Can we go home now? I’m out of movies to watch and I’m not going to pay $10 for a DVD like some millionaire would. I’m not sure how I will watch movies back home; $20 for a new DVD seems like highway robbery considering they are $1 from the bootleggers in Iraq.

Netflix, my friend. Netflix. Some people buy movies from iTunes. But you’ve just come home from Iraq to the collapsing economy — merry Christmas, by the way! — so you might want to rent and not buy for awhile.