The elephant in the blogosphere
Babble on.
Well, it's about time somebody said it, and I might as well be first: when it comes to Canadian politics, Glenn Reynolds doesn't know his back end from a hole in the ground:
And Capt. Ed Morrissey -- who can claim a major role in this development with his breaking of the publication ban on the Gomery investigation...
OK, Glenn, how about this: find a single prominent Canadian blogger who agrees that Captain Ed "can claim a major role" in producing a Conservative government. Come on, big guy, put your money where your mouth is on this.
*crickets*
Y'know Professor, I want blogging to gain credibility with the masses as much as you do. The difference is that I'm not willing to sacrifice my integrity to push that agenda.
What a disgraceful performance on the part of the world's leading conservative blogger.
Babble off.
Update: Well, on the one hand you have Tarantino, Selley, Staples, Flea, Russon and even a keen American watcher of all things Canadian, Donovan weighing in on the sane side.
On the other hand, you have Janke and Wild Duck, praising Captain Ed, but with enough provisos and caveats to make a lawyer cry.
And neither of them mentions how Captain Ed convinced Jack Layton to finally throw in the towel on his support for Martin's government - you know, the one he propped up after the Brault testimony.
Updater: Kate, as usual, doesn't pull any punches. Read her assessment in full, because not only does she support my basic premise, but she rounds it out by giving credit where it's due:
His role was important, but it is more appropriate to credit him with exposing the Canadian blogosphere to a broader Canadian audience, through the controversy created when he published the (briefly) banned testimony. A good many SDA readers discovered each other by following the link from Captains Quarters back to here.
That was an extremely useful development for conservatives, and the furthering of a conservative agenda in Canada, and it's going to be exciting to see how that develops in coming months - and provincial elections, where a strong blogosphere might have far more influence than it does on the national debate.
I wish I'd written that. Here's what I did write prior to this post:
I enjoy reading every single one of the American sites I reference above. But I exhort each of these pundits to please, please, please stop saying a blogger was responsible for anything the Canadian Parliament or the Canadian voter did this year. You're doing your American readers a disservice by misinforming them, and you're hurting your own credibility with Canadian readers.
posted by Babbling Brooks @ 3:04 a.m.
7 comments
7 Comments:
You sound like a candidate for the Alliance.
Reynolds suffers from any number of maladies, one of which is overestimating his own import.
Yes, Cap'n Ed was influential. But people like Kate, Darcey, Steve, and Damian among the heavyweights were equally so, at least. And the "little guys" who are the vast majority of the BTs had a cumulative impact -- maybe not so much for their reach, but for the fact that they (we, really) found out we weren't alone.
Don't be so down on Cap'n Ed's role (some damn good bloggers were inspired to join the ranks by his work). But a helluva lot more went into Monday's results than what he did.
Keep on babblin.
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I completely disagree with you, Daimian. There is nothing in the lines you quote from Instapundit that is not true. Ed Morrissey can claim a major role. Your insistence that it was Jack Layton that brought the Martin government down is pedantic. Layton was in a position to bring the government down, in part, because of the publicity that Ed Morrissey gave to the banned testimony at the time that it was banned. Morrissey's intervention was important and timely - it roused the Canadian public, gave us access to a story that became very intense.
You might argue that the information would ultimately have come out, anyway. Perhaps it would, though we can't know that. Perhaps when it did come out, people would have been more interested in something else. Perhaps it would have come out in drips and drabs, with less cumulative effect. Perhaps we would not have been convinced that it was so important if the rest of the world had not been looking at us saying, "Wow, look what's going on in Canada."
You can disagree with Glenn Reynold's take on the matter, but there is a case to be made for his view, and the fact that he holds an opinion that you do not share doesn't mean that he "doesn't know his back-end from a hole in the ground."
OK, Patrick, I'll bite.
If it was publishing the temporarily unavailable Gomery testimony that led to the demise of the Liberals, why didn't it happen in April?
Oh, that's right, it's because Jack Layton propped up the Martinis in exchange for budget concessions.
Layton tried the same trick in November, and if Martin had made that deal, we would still have him as our PM tomorrow.
Please explain to me exactly how Captain Ed - a nice guy and a good blogger, but in many ways out of his depth on Canadian politics, just like Reynolds, Malkin, Bay, and others - drove any of that series of events.
You're reaching here.
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They got the rest of us to figure out what a Riding is?
I would like to see what, if any, the increase in bloghits for Canadian Bloggers were after Morrisey started posting Gormery. And after the Canadian MSM started bleating about it.
I can tell you that hits from Canadian IPs went through the roof on my little site during that period.
Perhaps Ed's best accomplishment was creating a controversey that helped entice some Canadians into reading other Canadian's blogs. The rest you've done yourself.
Ed didn't cause the downfall of Martin. But he sure helped the Canadian blogosphere come of age.
Ed didn't cause the downfall of Martin. But he sure helped the Canadian blogosphere come of age.
I agree wholeheartedly.
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