Wednesday, April 11, 2007
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President McCain Would Hold Blogger Conference Calls
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Posted by:
Mary Katharine Ham at
2:06 PM
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I was just on a conference call with John McCain, talking about Iraq and his speech at VMI today. During the call, several bloggers and McCain himself hit on the fact that communicating exactly what's going on in the war in Iraq to the American people in such a way that they have confidence in what they're hearing and confidence in the strategy is key to sticking it out long enough to win. McCain was a little harder on the MSM than I think I've heard him be in the past (maybe Ware's snickering ticked him off): "I think we've gotta do...I think some of the MSM is not gonna reportalot of the good news. That's just my impression. I hope I'm wrong. So,let's go to other sources-- the blogs, the websites..." He mentioned bloggers and the Web as important ways of getting out such information, and lauded bloggers for paying closer attention to conditions on the ground in Iraq than most: "The only thing I know is the bloggers are important... Bloggers I think pay closer attention to this than almost anybody." So, David All went in for the soundbite, asking the Senator how bloggers, left and right, would play into his communications strategy as president: "I feel strongly that bloggers now are a vital part of the information technology in America and the world, and it's an unusual and incredible development." 2000: "I don't know if they existed, but if they did, I sure as hell didn't know about them."
"If I were president and this war were still going on, it'd be Important to do two things. Every two weeks, have a regular briefing talking about the good news and the bad news on the ground...Now, maybe only the C-SPAN people would watch that, but at least you're communicating with the American people."
"And, the second: be on with the bloggers every two weeks... Maybe there's too many bloggers and maybe we wouldn't get all the questions in, and maybe my answers would be too long as they are now...But maybe by lottery. Anyone who wants to ask a question, we'll throw your name in a hat and pick thetop 15, so eventually all the bloggers get a chance.
"One editorial comment--I think the bloggers have a lot of maturing to do in some areas, but...It is a phenomenon that historians will look back on as something that had an incredible impact on the Americans communicate with each other and the world."
I'd like my name in that hat, Senator. More from the call in just a second, but I wanted to get that out there.
Update: I think bloggers are a great way to get out some more specific, nuanced news about the war on the ground than just the average TV soundbite. Many political blogs, presumably the ones McCain would be addressing, are written by people who are deeply interested in the situation, deeply informed about it, and communicating with readers who are much the same. McCain sounds like he's saying it would be him doing these calls, not a surrogate, so that would be somethin' else, that's for sure. The President of the United States on the phone with bloggers. Another thought is that the White House should just start credentialing more bloggers, but I like that the conference call idea gets people from outside the Beltway virtually face-to-face with the Pres. Now, figuring out whose name goes in the hat? There's a logistics/P.R. nightmare I would not want to wrestle. Good luck, staffers, as you explain the refusal of Queen C*** of F*** Mountain's application for inclusion, despite the fact that she was once on the payroll of a well-respected Democratic VP candidate. Yikes, that could really get into the weeds. Lefties would be in an uproar over slights, perceived and real, and bloggers who didn't make whatever cut would talk junk behind the backs of all those who did. Many would read hugely significant and sometimes unfounded motivations onto the access of each blogger. It'd be like high school all over again! But seriously, it's something that needs to be tackled, and could be hugely beneficial to the war effort, so brave to John for saying he'd tackle it.
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i have several concerns with the idea of him being president, the biggest of which is his age, but i feel he's about as right as right can be about how to handle iraq. |
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Why use the language of dividing your fellow Americans?
Many Americans are neither "Lefties" or "Righties." We are politically sorta bisexual. We swing either way depending on the issue, and sometimes just want to have a kinda political ménage à trois.
The Democratic Party has shifted towards the center, and the American center has taken notice, hence the drubbing Republicans took in the last election. If the Republicans keep staying the course in Iraq, with absolutely no end in sight, the Republicans will sink like a rock in 2008.
If you hadn't notice yet, being against the Iraq War has joined the left and a vast majority of the center in common cause. Those that fail to see and respond to this shift, are doomed to be politically marginalized. And personally, I don't want a gov't that is controlled by any one party ever again. Our system of Checks & Balances works best when the branches of gov't aren't goose-stepping to the same tune. Truly adversarial branches of gov't, with an adversarial press, now that is the America I learned about in US History class all those decades ago.
Think about this: How were the Democrats marginalized during the last decade or so?
Because they only played to their extremist base, and forgot about the center. |
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so MKH can't say "lefties," but you can say "the left?" |
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I genuflect at the alter of Ham as the sacred chant echoes through the cathedral, "we are not worthy, we are not worthy." |
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"so MKH can't say 'lefties,' but you can say 'the left?'"
Did I say that she cannot use the term? No.
But now that we know that the premise of your question is false, I'll try to give you my best answer anyway. Intent. Kinda like calling a Jew, "Jewie." The contempt is quite clearly visible.
Oh, and I also said "the center," and compare us to bisexual swingers, so you can see I not trying to be PC, or even impose PC crap on Mary Katharine. What I was trying to point out is that the rhetoric of division isn't gonna bring the center swinging back towards the right.
OMG! I just now wrote "the right!" I really must be spanked! ;-) |
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This is politics. There's a left and a right, and to some extent, we're obliged to refer to them with those labels unless we want to get into some seriously weedy writing. Yes, many of us are political hybrids, including myself, and I will often refer to those people in more nuanced ways. But "Lefty" isn't meant to be divisive or offensive. It's just short-hand for the folks on the other side of the blogosphere, who for what it's worth, are much more obviously Left than the right side of the blogosphere is obviously Right.
As for your tax reform proposal, we don't actually differ terribly on that issue, except for that my ethics dictate that EVERYONE should be able to keep as much of their hard-earned and investment money as possible-- both individual citizens AND the companies and corporations that employ them.
And, as for your denigration of other commenters as being un-Christian for not disliking corporations and endorsing their high taxation quite as much as you, there is nothing Christian or compassionate about having your money forcibly taken from you and given to someone less fortunate. And, there is certainly nothing compassionate about the willingness to advocate the taking of money from OTHERS to serve the less fortunate. It's a cop-out, not compassion.
There is compassion in giving of your own volition, which many small-government conservatives do in large, large amounts. |
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wasn't he the first mate on the millennium falcon? |
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"It's just short-hand for the folks on the other side of the blogosphere, who for what it's worth, are much more obviously Left than the right side of the blogosphere is obviously Right."
That's seems to be a common theme with you. Left is Lefter than Right is Right. Left is worse than Right.
I'd say the venom from the extremes, right & left, are about equal on the internets. I mean, I've seen over a decade of hatred from the right spewing towards Hillary. And is Hillary evil? No, she is just a political weather vane, she turns which ever way the wind blows.
And Pelosi is called a traitor about every second on some social networking site or another. And is she a traitor? No. Otherwise the Justice Dept. would have charge her with treason.
Yet it is much worse to call Michele Malkin, a c*nt, which one would naturally assume she has a c*nt, than call the Pelosi a criminal, when no one can even prove a crime?
Is it really worse to call Bush incompetent, when there is quite a body of evidence that he is, than calling John Edwards a f*ggot?
The right is in the sh*t, just as deep as the left.
Do I even have to bring up the totally cowardly swift-boating of Kerry? Or how about the black baby crap pulled on McCain in 2000? Hell, that was right eating right!
I'm sure we could go tit for tat all day long, but what does that really accomplish?
Unless you want to live under some sort of totalitarianism, then we should be able to agree that politics and governance is nothing more than the art of compromise. And compromise only works when both sides are willing to meet in some middle ground.
And what is that middle ground? The political extremes of both sides are seriously wacked, equally.
"And, there is certainly nothing compassionate about the willingness to advocate the taking of money from OTHERS to serve the less fortunate. It's a cop-out, not compassion."
LOL! Okay, then you would be cool with not taking tax money from pacifists who find it morally repugnent to have their tax dollars pay for nukes and space weapons? Or do you think we, as a compassionate caring nation, need nukes & space weapons more than we take care of the poor?
Taxes for an unprovoked war. Great!
Taxes to help the poor kids. Bad!
What would "Jaysus" do? Where would "Jaysus" want his tax dollars to go?
Would "Jaysus" be like Scrooge and say, "It's enough for a man to understand his own business, and not to interfere with other people's. Mine occupies me constantly. Good afternoon, gentlemen!"
"both individual citizens AND the companies and corporations that employ them."
I don't think that a Humans and the things that we humans have created are equal.
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness"
Our "Creator," no matter which one you believe in, never "endowed" any "unalienable Rights" to our own creations at all. |
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"What would "Jaysus" do?"
"Why use the language of dividing your fellow Americans?" |
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ROFL! That was pretty damned politically incorrect. Kudos! |
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That's how my German immigrant grandfather said it.
Personally, I prefer to use his real name Yeshua, but then I run the risk that very few people know who hell I am talking about.
Yeshua was a Jew, not a Greco-Roman.
So what would Yeshua/Jesus do?
Taxes going to fund WMDs, or taxes to feed poor kids? |
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Hello-
First, I would like to direct my comment to the original point of the post, namely Mary Ann Ham's observations on the conference call with bloggers that Senator McCain conducted today (and thus not acknowledging many of the preceding comments, which are not the subject of my post.)
Accordingly, I wanted to compliment you for providing such a concise summary of the conference call that Senator McCain conducted with conservative bloggers.
Although I was not a participant in the conference call, I am the publisher of Campaignia.org, which is a nonpartisan site dedicated to the exploration of political campaigns. Currently, it is focused exclusively on Senator McCain’s campaign - obviously, today there was quite a bit of news, with both the Iraq speech (positive) and the AP article about the campaign staff cuts.
As you can imagine, I was quite interested in the dialogue that Senator McCain conducted with the conservative blogosphere. If any of the bloggers who did participate in the conference call, would be willing to be cyber-interviewed (i.e., be e-mailed some questions about how and why they participated, the purpose of their blogs, etc., and then reply via e-mail), I would greatly appreciate it. I believe that Campaignia.org has identified every specifically pro-McCain blog in existence. However, that obviously does not include all Republican/conservative/red-state etc., blogs, which is a much larger group.
Accordingly, I am trying to locate other bloggers that -
even if they are not distinctly pro-McCain, with titles such as “NJ for McCain, Blogs4McCain, Vote McCain” - to cite just three examples of ones in my blogroll list -
are interested in the McCain campaign and comment on it. If your blog is interested in McCain, please e-mail me at the address listed above.
In addition, even if you are not a McCain supporter, you might find Campaignia to be interesting, nonetheless. Please stop by the main site - http://www.campaignia.org, as well as the Exploring McCainia web log - the URL linked below- that’s the part that’s updated every day.
http://forums.campaignia.org
I look forward to hearing from any/all of you.
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I've seen "Mary Katharine" spelled a lot of ways, but never as "Mary Ann".
Let me know if you ever get off that uncharted isle, MKH. I'll post a link on it at Ace's.
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I appreciate the fact that the previous poster noted that I had mistakenly referred to the author as "Mary Ann" rather than "Mary Katharine". This was my first visit to this site, and I regret the error. |
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