By Chris Covert
Rantburg.com
The website Buzzfeed announced that the Mitt Romney campaign held a meeting between Mitt Romney and his wife Ann and several conservative bloggers in Washington DC last Wednesday.
The meeting was supposed to be private, but the leftist Huffington Post broke the story. This writer only learned of it first through the website Protein Wisdom and then Robert Stacy McCain just yesterday
What specifically transpired at the meeting is shrouded in mystery. Presumably the Romney campaign, to their credit, wanted to meet with a number of influential writers of the online right and reach out to them, so to speak. For that they should be commended
McCain mentioned in his post about the meeting which he says never happened and he was never there, that in 2008 bloggers were shut out at the Republican convention. Some of them went anyway. The Romney campaign's meeting appears to be a 180 degree change from how establishment Republicans view bloggers.
Once they were viewed as a wild bunch of individuals who could not be herded for a political message, and now they can be. What a difference four years make, I guess.
Erick Erickson, whose Redstate.com blog I read daily, mentioned the issue of bloggers in a post entitled, "Why We Can't Have Nice Things", in which he criticized many former and current co-bloggers for their childishness and insouciance with regard to a united conservative message.
The man has a point. He mentions that starting in 2004, when he joined Redstate, he has come a long way, to being on the radio and even a commentator at CNN. A number of other writers for conservative publications can make the same claim, including Dana Loesch of Breitbart. He contrasted the sudden rising stars he has noticed with any number of others who have not risen as far and as fast as he has due to maturity problems, or as he puts it, who never grew up.
Calling grown men and women childish ought to be the first hint something is terribly wrong with an argument. It is ad hominem, useful to go after your political opponent, but ultimately a betrayal of allies when used against them. Erickson doesn't need a target when he pulls the trigger on both barrels. He can hit a lot by failing to be specific. It's how innuendo works. The left is expert in that tactic and has been for years. Erickson certainly has come a long way.
So, I am pretty sure he has a specific co-blogger or two in mind. I mean they all can't comment at CNN about conservative politics, not certainly expecting to keep their jobs.
Imagine one of the worst cable news channels, suffering from literally decades of decline exacerbated by a well deserved reputation of malaise brought on by their extreme liberal viewpoints and basic disdain for the hoi poloi. And now Erickson crows he's at the top of his game at this network, calling those who have not risen to his haughty heights, immature.
What if, all of a sudden a large coterie of conservative bloggers, undisciplined and immature, start being commentators there. Oh, the humanity! I can well imagine when Andy Jackson's buds from the south walked into the White House.
"I ain't cleaning up this mess!" was probably one of the most uttered statements by the White House staff at the time. I guess CNN wanted to avoid being placed in the position of having to say those immortal words again.
Makes this old man of 58 shed tears of joy, though. Were I even on the radar. Not successful because I never grew up. Makes me want to fire up the old Playstation 3, if I owned one.
Erick Erickson reminds me of a snooty boss who compares his success with others, and declares his path superior. An impressive path it is for Erickson, indeed. Nice work to criticize an amorphous group for their lack of maturity without stating in baldly specific terms why he is so much better, other than the maturity issue.
But, Erickson is a trained lawyer. He could argue rings around me using his logic and his point of view, even though to me arguing with a lawyer with a specific agenda, is fighting a battle his way. I'll lose whatever issue is before me every time.
I think Erickson was finished so allow to to retort, and I have used this argument many times. It is simple math:
Writers are like basketball players. Anyone can write; everyone writes. Not everyone gets to go to college to play basketball, only a small subset of those do. And only an even smaller subset of those get to the elite colleges, then a smaller subset to the pros, followed by the tiny subset of those who actually make it in the NBA, and lastly by the tiniest minority of all, NBA stars.
So it is with writing. Only a tiny minority get to the top of their game, ever. In basketball is is based on drive and talent. According to Erickson it is based on maturity as well.
But I can promise you that NBA superstar Kevin Durant will never go before cameras and declare the reason he is so good is because his rivals are so immature.
Chris Covert writes Mexican Drug War and national political news for Rantburg.com