MORE HEAT THAN LIGHT?

There is an interesting article in today’s Washington Times about the blogosphere, and more interestingly about the difference between the left lobe and right lobe of the blogging universe, by Jim Geraghty of NRO's TKS.

The difference in the two halves, which are roughly equal in their size, if not their influence lies, in Geraghty’s opinion as I read him, in the substance and style of each.

The right, Republican half, does have a sort of discourse, with arguments back and forth in the old-style debating tradition. Hugh Hewitt, for instance, was adamant that Harriet Miers was an excellent choice for SCOTUS replacement of Sandra Day O’Connor. The White House obviously concurred, but the largest part of the Right Hemisphere RESPECTFULLY [my emphasis] disagreed and pushed for a candidate with deep and longstanding conservative credentials.

Eventually, some sort of equilibrium was reached and the Bush White House withdrew the nomination, Harriet Miers showed class in bowing out gracefully, and Samuel Alito was nominated.

All done in a more or less business-like fashion, with a calculus based on rational political consensus that the SCOTUS did need a reliable conservative, not an untested lawyer with no judicial experience who was touted by Harry Reid and some other prominent Democrats.

The memory of Souter, Stevens, Brennan, Warren all resonated in the Republican institutional memory and therefore Bush succumbed to the fear of appointing another defector. [JFK nominated Whizzer White, who became a stalwart conservative, so defectors go in both directions.]

The only touch of excess that I can remember on the right was the reliable Ann Coulter who thought Alito was too pliant, and I believe it was George Will, who thought that Justice Kennedy was a liberal.

When the Left got the word about Alito, it predictably went into hyper-manic hysteric conniptions about "Scalito" and the impending end of civil liberties and a woman’s right to choose.

The all-too-pliant females and girlie-men on the left went onto blogs and Chief Androgyne Kerry finally saw the light from Davos, making him reach a new level of culturally effete nonsensical symbolism by phoning his colleagues, or rather yodeling from the Swiss Alps, to organize a senseless filibuster.

He did this because the blogs were shrieking maniacal gibberish to the effect that the sky was falling, the end was near, and someone had to filibuster by throwing his body in front of the train.

Of course, Kerry endeared himself to the ultra-left, outflanking earth-tones Al Gore in prostrations to the mindless radicals who have never met a payroll nor won elective office, but who do contribute to the squeakiest wheel. Over-decorated veteran Kerry reported to duty and the Democrats managed to muster 25 votes for a filibuster against a SCOTUS nominee with a two-to-one majority in all the polls.

Geraghty doesn’t need to spell out much, but ends his article with a kindly admonition to Democrats:

In the Miers case, it could be argued that bloggers on the right saved the president from making a critical mistake, and nudged him onto the path that ultimately led to a enormously significant part of his presidential legacy. But bloggers on the left are pushing their party into a difficult wilderness. The angry "net-roots" denounce any Democrat for deviating from their agenda, without a moment's thought of trying to run for re-election with a liberal record in West Virginia, North Dakota or Nebraska.

Republicans can find strength and success by listening to their like-minded bloggers; Democrats can find strength and success by ignoring theirs.

Pretty much says it all, doesn’t it?