TPM should remove the Bull Moose blog link.
I think the "TPM Approved Sites" link to Marshall Wittmann's Bull Moose blog should be removed, and these are my reasons.
Marshall Wittmann is not a Centrist of any kind. He has been:
- a communications director and advisor for John McCain
- congressional relations director for the Heritage Foundation
- director of legislative affairs for the Christian Coalition
- a senior fellow at the conservative Hudson Institute
- in the first Bush Administration, he served as deputy assistant secretary for the Department of Health and Human Services after founding "Jews for George"
Those are not Centrist credentials. Those are NeoCon credentials.
I've read Wittmann off and on; he's not a bad writer. I've also noticed that he never gets upset with Conservatives. He is upset now; he is in a high dudgeon over the Lamont-Lieberman race. The Moose denounces the (non-existent) Swift-Boating of Joe by Progressives, Liberals and Centrists. But if you page back a couple of years, 2 years, 2004 to be precise, you won't find the Moose grousing about the actual Swift-Boating of John Kerry by Conservatives. It would have ruined his chill. In fact, I've never read Wittmann getting upset at anything, even being called Rovian, until now.
Marshall Wittmann is a NeoCon, straining to support an indefensible failed war, the defining NeoConservative war, and even wanting to expand it. (Calling the Iraq War a failure is a Centrist position.) Wittmann is like a David Brooks, except that David Brooks is honest about being a NeoCon.
So I am asking for a call to action. Dump Wittmann from TPM. This isn't about a diversity of opinion; TPM could add Ann Coulter and claim it was more diverse still. This is about truth in advertising. Wittmann is a NeoCon, and I don't like NeoCons putting on Moose skins or Donkey skins or any other kind of skin. The Moose is a stalking horse Conservative.
Strikes me as an incredibly odd request, a bit on the outrageous side.
It says right at the top of TPM: "Talking Points Memo by Joshua Micah Marshall." It doesn't say it's a democratic (small d) or even Democratic site. It's a blog by one person, with people filling in for him sometimes. Those are his personal picks, his blog roll. I betcha anything, judging from some of his writing in the past, that he doesn't always agree with the views of Juan Cole or Mickey Kaus or Jonathan Alter, but he still has them down as recommended as well.
Do you only read the opinions of those you agree with most of the time? (If yes, I have only one word: yikes!)
It's puzzling that you would even ask for this. Where did you get the idea that the public should have input on this? Where did you ever see a blogroll that wasn't simply the blogs that the blogger likes to read to be challenged by other's thoughts, not always necessarily in agreement with views?
Matter of fact, what strikes me about his blogroll, what they all seem to have in common is what you say about Wittmann:
You're like trying to do the community consensus thing. That's what this site is for, not that one. That one doesn't even allow for comments, didn't you notice?
July 24, 2006 3:15 AM | Reply | Permalink
CSears is both condemning Marshall Wittman and offering a sentence. I would have gone for drawing and quartering, but then you would have rightly pointed out that that hasn't been on the menu for a very long time. Pity.
Of course, blogrolls are a personal issue and Joshua Micah Marshall has said on occasion that he isn't quite as liberal as many of his readers are. Moreover, he likes to engage with intelligent conservatives and centrists.
The more important question remains: Is Wittman guilty? He does admit to most of what CSears mentions. If it's in his bio that he worked for McCain, the Heritage Foundation and the Christian Coalition, then he's certainly not hiding it. So we have to throw those charges out.
But is he a NeoCon? He might admit to that, too. I don't know. Lately he seems to have lost his humorous persona just when his NeoCon buddies are in danger. That has to say a lot. Here's a passage from a recent post:
I would say that if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's probably a duck. With the passion of this post and many others like it, I think that Wittman is being more honest now than he has ever been.
But you're the appraiser so you get the final question about authenticity: is Wittman really a NeoCon in sheep's clothing? Along those lines, is the DLC really a front organization for the NeoCons?
July 24, 2006 3:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
I don't happen to have read the man's commentary enough to even be able to label him. I'm not Josh Marshall & I haven't recommended reading him to anyone, because I haven't done much of it myself.
Matter of fact, the original post here, mho, would have been interesting had it been phrased this way: "What do others think, why does Josh Marshall recommend Wittman's blog?"
All that said, I do think it would be wise for people active in left of center politics to actually read what "Neo-con" thinkers & others given similar labels like "Neo-liberal" are thinking. Rather than, you know, ignoring and just listening to your own echo chamber.
July 24, 2006 7:23 PM | Reply | Permalink
artappraiser,
reading your comment, you are saying that "it is a bit on the outrageous side" that I would be even make such a request to remove the link to Wittmann's blog since I do not have ownership of the TalkingPointsMemo blog. It is true that I do not have ownership of this blog, hence the nature of a request; otherwise I would do it myself.
Also, as a TalkingPointsMemo reader, I was asked to join TPMCafe. Since I was asked, and since I joined, I do have membership and hence I have standing in the debate; admittedly, not much.
Furthermore, if you go back to Joshua's early post's about TPMCafe you'll see that he said " the site will also be a forum for TPM readers to discuss and debate the issues raised on TPM as well as to raise and hash out questions we're not discussing, but that you think we should be." This is rather wide ranging, sufficiently wide ranging for my purpose.
In response to your question, "Do you only read the opinions of those you agree with most of the time?" the simple answer is no, I do read the opinions of those I disagree with. In particular, I read Wittmann's opinions, and I disagree with them.
My reason for wanting Wittmann's blog removed from the list of "approved sites" is the word "approved." If Joshua had used the word interesting then I would have no objection. If he had classified Wittmann's as a well written (a stretch, not bad is a much lower bar) NeoCon site, again, I would have no objection. But he uses the word approved, and I do have an objection with that. Hence the purpose of my request.
Your next step is to accuse me of lacking a fine sense of irony.
July 24, 2006 3:17 PM | Reply | Permalink