Wonked

Ana Marie Cox, better known under her Nom de Blog, Wonkette was the subject of the MSNBC Fast Chat interview (3 questions) this week. She talks about the incestuous relationship between bloggers and journalists, calling it a bastardized "Tracy-Hepburn" affair. She also calls blogging a resume builder for wannabe-journalists. Aside from the fact that I find that incredibly unlikely, considering I don't know of many bloggers on the right (which, in the interest of full disclosure, are almost the only ones I read) who have any desire at all to be "real" journalists excepting Mark Steyn who has made that transition pretty well, all those folks at NRO since they were journalists first and maybe Glenn Reynolds.

What I found most glaring in the interviewlet was this Q&A:

What did you think of the bloggers' role in the Dan Rather affair?
I think they did a disservice to the debate because they made the debate about the documents and not about the president of the United States. There was another half to that story that had to do with verifiable events of what Bush may have been up to.

So are we going back to fake but accurate? The bloggers made the debate about the documents and not the accusations they were being used to support? How dare they? After all, if an accusation comes from the MSM and/or the Left, especially if it elegantly blends in with their worldview expectations, then it must be true on its face. Any "evidence" only supports the veracity of the allegation, it doesn't actually determine the veracity. So she is upset (along with Dan Rather) because when the only evidence supporting this accusation that she so wants to be true turns out to be faked, the public casts doubt on these aspersions. She seriously can't believe that just because Dan Rather said it, on 60 Minutes no less, that people don't just accept it as the received wisdom that she does.

She doesn't get it, living in her Washington, DC fishbowl, that Americans pride themselves on not being sheep, especially when other people want us to. I don't think she's going to get it any time soon.