Blogger Tom DeLay Drops Hammer On Liberals

Ex-GOP House Leader Launches A New Blog

(CBS)  Blogophile is written by CBSNews.com's Melissa P. McNamara

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The former GOP House leader has a new blog - liberals need not apply. Plus, Time magazine hails 2006 as the the year of "user-generated content." And, does Google make a good spy?

Hammer Time

Rep. Tom DeLay, former House majority leader, has entered the blogosphere. And liberal bloggers are not rolling out the cyber welcome mat.

Calling himself a "rookie blogger," DeLay's site is a forum for his new organization, GAIN (Grassroots, Action, and Information Network). He writes on the blog that "the importance of the blogosphere in shaping and motivating the current conservative movement is unquestionable- not only has it served as an important tool in breaking through the liberal MSM clutter but it has helped to keep our elected officials true to principle.”

While many of the posts are not actually by "Tom" himself — he said on Hardball that the ideas were his — he does weigh in occasionally. Last Saturday, for example, he wrote about the Iraq Study Group's report, or as he calls it, "The Way Backward—A Cynical Strategy for Surrender."

"And here I thought DeLay couldn't get anymore embarrassing. Once again, he's exceeded my expectations," Steve Benen blogs at The Carpetbagger Report.

DeLay was quick to anticipate the outspoken ways of bloggers. According to USNews.com, the site will have a way to "filter out" those with dissenting views, and according to numerous reports, many negative comments that escaped the filter have already been removed from the site.

James Risser, over at TomDelaydotcom.blogspot.com, claims to have rescued and posted many of those negative comments about DeLay.

Many liberal bloggers were amused that DeLay's blog received so many negative comments in the first place. "Folks like DeLay are not exactly down with the reality of democracy in such unadulterated form," a blogger at Blue Meme writes.

“Mr. Delay, welcome to the blogosphere. I hope you can do for the conservative blogosphere what you did for Republicans in Congress,” Jon Swift mocked.

And, of course, some bloggers were ready to take a political jab at DeLay. "In spite of its sophomoric polemics and nasty tone, the blog is a jaunty read. But I think its attempt to use witty anti-left banter to try to distract readers from the tragedy of our foreign policy will fall flat," Morra Aarons writes at BlogHer.


Thanks, Time Magazine!

Time magazine's annual "Person of the Year" contest has been chosen and well, "You" took the honor. 2006 was the year of "user-generated content," the magazine hails, much to bloggers' delight.

The magazine describes their choice this way: "It's a story about community and collaboration on a scale never seen before. It's about the cosmic compendium of knowledge Wikipedia and the million-channel people's network YouTube and the online metropolis MySpace. It's about the many wresting power from the few and helping one another for nothing and how that will not only change the world, but also change the way the world changes."

The topic was one of the most popular in the blogosphere, and won unabashed praise from bloggers. One blogger, William Beutler, says he suggested the idea back in October when Google acquired YouTube.

"This is awesome. Time is recognizing in a very real way that what happened in the past few years is special and important," John at JJB blog writes. "That because of our new tools and models, power and change are distributed and contributed instead of passed down from above."

Jeff Jarvis says Time was smart to choose more than just one person. "There are many worlds within our world and many leaders in them. So if Time were doing its job properly, it would highlight a million people of the year," he writes at BuzzMachine. "But, of course, it can't. The form doesn't allow it. And the form is what led to massthink. But mass is over. And I see this as Time's admission of that. And so for that, I applaud them."

Many bloggers took Time's choice personally, and posted their would-be acceptance speeches for the award. "The common people have made the Time’s Person of The Year!," a blogger at Just Thinkin’ adds.

Still, some bloggers question the choice. "Congrats bloggers, you beat Ahmadinejad!," Taylor Owen at OxBlog writes, referring to the Iranian president, a possible runner-up. "Why can't Time pick an unpleasant character as person of the year? Is it because it is released over the holidays? Is it bad for sales?"

"Time magazine is offering their readers an ego trip for Christmas," a blogger at The Flypaper Theory writes, adding that it's "not a bad marketing stunt either."

Gawker also thinks it's a big marketing gimmick. "See, this way they get to roll in YouTube, MySpace, Wikipedia, even Web 2.0 -- anything with a hint of buzz, warranted or not. And since a bunch of Yous use a lot of these tools, we're all meant to be flattered and intrigued by our collective appearance on the cover," they write.

Well, like it or not, it seems to have worked.


Intelligent Googling

If you've ever wanted to know just how U.S. intelligence works, perhaps you don't need to look further than your own computer.

When the State Department recently asked the CIA for names of Iranians who could be involved in their country's alleged nuclear weapons program, the agency refused. So, according to the Washington Post. The United Nations has been using high-frequency hits produced by searching "Iran and nuclear" to determine who deserves a travel ban.

Of course, as anyone who has Googled, well, themselves, knows you have to weed through many sources that turn up. Eventually, the CIA approved a handful of the people derived from the 100-plus that came through Google, according to the Post. European officials told the newspaper their governments did not rely on Google searches but came up with nearly identical lists to the one U.S. officials offered.

The story had many bloggers asking if Google is really the best way for the government to gather intelligence. "Why, pray tell, is the U.S. State Department using Google to determine who should go in the UN draft of sanctions on Iraq by doing Google searches?," Rowan writes at Uncommon Thought Journal. "Nothing against Google in any of this. I think it is an excellent search engine and use it all the time. However, I would think that our government had a more sophisticated and targeted 'tool.'"

“Good work, everyone. There's nothing that says 'intelligence reform' less than relying on Google searches and refusing to share information between organizations,” Carolyn O’Hara writes at Foreign Policy’s blog.

Some suggest it's a sign of the U.S.' intelligence failings. "No wonder their intel is so far from reality (As we saw the CIA's intel on Saddam's WMD)as all those come from crowdsourcing/public not from real investigation," Kams writes at Bloggism. Doug Mataconis at Below The Beltway agrees, asking, "Shouldn’t we have better sources of intelligence?”

Other bloggers are troubled by the notion of the government Googling them. "The thing that scares me most is not that Google has people's net history information (emails, clickstream, calendar, etc) to make ad decisions, but it is that government agencies (both the US and foreign) can utilize the laws of their country (or create ones in certain cases) to access that information,” Cyan Bane writes.

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[james_risser]

CORRECTION

CORRECTION


The link you list to my site that has the original comments sent to DeLay is located here:

http://www.tomdelaydotcom.blogspot.com

PLEASE CORRECT YOUR STORY. THANKS

[randalds]

Way to go, Processor2 Tell it like it is.

I know what you mean, the libbies are a mean-spiritied hateful bunch of folks. Just read their posts, they tell on themselves.

I've read your posts in a few other places

Keep up the good work....don't let the libbies rhetoric get to you....stay with your facts

THANKS
Posted by madisongirl at 11:20 AM : Dec 20, 2006



To: madisongirl:

THANKS FOR YOUR SUPPORT
Posted by processor2 at 04:43 PM : Dec 20, 2006


Ok, except for changing the date and time, how many times have you reposted this same "message of support"? I've seen it 4 or 5 times myself.

[actornaught]

We can keep leap frogging back in time if you want. I remember McCarthyism, a huge attack on our constitution. (By the way, I consider Eisenhower to be the best president of my lifetime.)

My comments referred to the current partisan political interchange such as is directly reflected on this board.

[processor2]

Actornaught

WRONG

Remember the commercial in 1964 with the little girl holding a flower and a mushroom cloud going up.

That was DONE BY LIBERALS against Goldwater

Actually it was the Neo-Commies who started the nastiness...conservatives just decided to join in

[actornaught]

Proc'2 & Maddie,

It looks like I need to do this your way.

Neo-cons started the nastiness years ago, it's their technique. Some fed-up 'Libbies' feel they have to return it as a defense.

[processor2]

Way to go, Processor2 Tell it like it is.

I know what you mean, the libbies are a mean-spiritied hateful bunch of folks. Just read their posts, they tell on themselves.

I've read your posts in a few other places

Keep up the good work....don't let the libbies rhetoric get to you....stay with your facts

THANKS
Posted by madisongirl at 11:20 AM : Dec 20, 2006



To: madisongirl:

THANKS FOR YOUR SUPPORT

[processor2]

frankly6 is living proof that extreme liberalism is a mental disorder.

Most liberals are the "glass-is-half-empty" kind of people,,,while everyone else has a positive outlook on life.

It's kind of sad, really

Even my brother's 11 year-old has more sense

...........

[processor2]

Why do liberals treat alternative ideas with such rabid hate ??? ......... I thought liberals preached tolerance & understanding !!


PS

Remember, just because you don't agree with an opinion, doesn't make it wrong, it's just a different opinion

.........................

[actornaught]

Partisan political speech is ancient, but our current wave was certainly started by so-called conservatives in the early 80's. They repeated illogical hate-speech, eventually called it 'talking points', and let it soak in until enough people looking for someone to blame believed it. The main proponent was Rush, who's only talent was debate. He ran with it, and his 'fans' never noticed that the debate was one-sided and heavily managed.

Now those fans have learned the technique of squelching the free speech of their perceived opposition, and many 'libbies' (gotta laugh at that one...) have followed by fighting fire with fire. I can't blame them. And yes, the neo-con's 'liberal' is anyone whos belief set includes one thought that leans liberal.

From social pressure, most of this country will say it's not 'liberal', but when quizzed on individual issues, the population can be defined as 75% 'liberal'. Look at the comments on this website in total.

By the way, these terms are way too simplistic. Just about nobody fits within the true definitions liberal or conservative, I'm just going with current connations. And if you have a problem with such intellectual study, you're a neo-con...

[randalds]

You sure can feel the love in here. Makes you proud to be an American the way you liberals and conservatives treat each other with such respect.

Posted by MacOO7 at 12:57 PM : Dec 20, 2006

As a liberal I have a great deal of respect for true conservatives, I just haven't seen one since Goldwater died. Bush isn't one, neither was his dad (though close) and neither was Reagen. They were right wing ideologues who hijacked the republican party and drove it into the hands of the neoconservatives, who bear no resemblance at all to conservatives. They're not conservatives, they're just using the name.

[randalds]

"Like most loonytoons neocons he has bought into the theory that if you repeat the same lie over and over again (which is derivative of bushrocks1 anyway) that it'll magically become true. It doesn't work of course "

Actually, it DOES work. Hence Bush getting elected twice.

Posted by Rafterman1 at 12:17 PM : Dec 20, 2006

Sad, but true rafterman, sad, but true. Proves that you don't have to fool all of the people all of the time. You just have to fool enough fools to make it to 51% (and claim a "mandate" too of course).

[MacTrek777]

You sure can feel the love in here. Makes you proud to be an American the way you liberals and conservatives treat each other with such respect.

[MacTrek777]

My my my you can just feel the love radiating from each comment you read here. Makes you proud to be an American. ;-)

[changeit4]

Yep. The last two posts say it all. No wonder no one can tour the White House anymore. They don't want anyone bringing reality in with them.

[rafterman1]

"Like most loonytoons neocons he has bought into the theory that if you repeat the same lie over and over again (which is derivative of bushrocks1 anyway) that it'll magically become true. It doesn't work of course "

Actually, it DOES work. Hence Bush getting elected twice.

[randalds]

I love the fact that Delay put up his site at first with no filters and got slammed with negative comments. As the great Bugs Bunny once said "What a maroon!"

Now he has it set up so he only gets positive comments, which should cut the bandwidth use down to about nothing, and just like Bush he can live in a world that's all warm , fuzzy and free from any sort of reality.

[changeit4]

I can't say that liberals (or Democrats, Independents, Greens... Politicians et al) have the answers.

However, America can see one answer in stark contrast to all else:

Six years--and counting--of staying a failure of GOP course is not working. At this point, any different idea is an improvement for this nation. It failed Reagan too, and the first Bush...

Change is good for the country when what it's got is failing us. And it's failing miserably.

[randalds]

I see procerror2 is over here posting his same garbage over and over again. Like most loonytoons neocons he has bought into the theory that if you repeat the same lie over and over again (which is derivative of bushrocks1 anyway) that it'll magically become true. It doesn't work of course but it gives his tiny fevered brain something to play with, our then himself.

[frankly6]

processor2

This just in:

The moon is made of blue cheese and the liberals are secretly mining it and giving free cheese to the poor. This has angered Halliburton executives because because *** Chaney awarded them an exclusive no-bid contract to mine blue cheese on the moon.


Source:
The Blue Cheese Gazette


You should get on this story right away. Mmmmkay?

[frankly6]

processor2

You come in slamming people and whine when you get slammed. BOOOOO...HOOOOOO....your breaking our hearts.




If you just got your facts right you'd be beyond reproach.