Coleman Gets New Hatchet For Power Line
Source Minneapolis St Paul Star Tribune
Poor Nick Coleman at the Star Tribune is yet again is in a tizzy fit over Power Line. Apparently this time partly because Power Line received the "Blog of the Year!" in the 2004 Weblog Awards.
In a feigned offering of a truce Coleman says "The end of the year is a time to bury the hatchet, so congratulations to Powerline, the Twin Cities blog that last week was named Time magazine's 'Blog of the Year!'" But follows imediately with "Now let me get a new hatchet."
While naming names of The Big Trunk and Hind Rocket, he goes on to try insinuating conflicts of interest with their employment and other activities. Somehow Deacon is suspiciously missing. Probably because he is in Washington DC instead of the Twin Cities. A few excerpts.
These guys pretend to be family watchdogs but they are Rottweilers in sheep's clothing. They attack the Mainstream Media for not being fair while pursuing a right-wing agenda cooked up in conservative think tanks funded by millionaire power brokers.
They should call themselves "Powertool." They don't speak truth to power. They just speak for power.
I work for a dopey old newspaper committed to covering the news fairly while Powerline doesn't make boring commitments. They are not Mainstream Media. They are Extreme Media. Call them reliable partisan hacks.
That's what they call me: A reliable partisan hack, even though they sometimes like columns I write about dumb things Democrats do. I have criticized many dumb Democrats, but Democrats don't matter these days. All the power is in the hands of Republicans, and Powerline's job is to make life easier for them. Mine isn't.
It appears they are not making Nick's life any easier either as Nick tries to be (choke) fair and balanced.
Powerline is run by Ivy League lawyers, one of whom (Johnson) is a vice president at TCF Bank in Minneapolis and works for Bill Cooper, an ex-state Republican Party chairman. Johnson and Hinderaker are fellows at the Claremont Institute, a conservative think tank that seems to be obsessed with gays and guns and wants to return us to the principles of our founders, although I can't determine if that includes Ben Franklin's skirt chasing.
Mainstream or Extreme? We report, you decide: Last month, Claremont gave its Winston Churchill Award to that visionary statesman and recovering drug addict, Rush Limbaugh!
But Extreme bloggers don't tell truths. They tell talking points. Powerline is the biggest link in a daisy chain of right-wing blogs that is assaulting the Mainstream Media while they toot their horns in the service of ... what? The downtrodden? No, that was yesterday's idea of the purpose of journalism. Extreme bloggers are so hip and cool they can make fun of the poor and the disadvantaged while working out of paneled bank offices.
"We report, you decide" Now where have I heard that? Plagerizing fox are we! And Coleman tries so hard to draw conflict of interest lines that it is comical.
But enough. It's time for auld acquaintance to be forgot. So as a gift to Powerline, let me try my hand at some blogger-style "fact-checking."
1) "It's totally unexpected," Johnson, the banker, told the newspaper after Powerline won "Blog of the Year."
But the Aw Shucks Act doesn't fly. Powerline campaigned shamelessly for awards, winning an online "Best Blog of 2004" a week before the Time honor. That online award was a bloggers' poll, and Powerline linked its readers to the award site 10 times during the balloting, shilling for votes.
And so did every other blog in the running link to the Awards and shill for votes. It isn't exactly the same as running for president of the United States. There is a lot more and it is pretty amusing, so read the rest.
Also Power Line's reaction.
Also Power Line's reaction.
posted @ 1:25 PM | Permalink
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