Last week, it was discovered that Dave Weigal, a Blogger for the Washington Post who wrote about Conservatives, also attacked Conservatives on the JournoList. He was fired immediately and it hit Memorandum quickly. The private face was different from his public face, thus he got fired.
During that time, Robert McCain (The Hunter S. Thompson of the Right Blogosphere) defended Weigal, and Dan Riehl (The Elvis of the Right Blogosphere) called him on it (a few times). Even the great Blogress, Ann Althouse (the Gothy Law Professor) had some dealings with the Journolisters. Before we discuss the role of the Right Blogosphere with both the GOP establishment and those who are elected officials (i.e. The Southland Fundraiser post will be written tomorrow night), let's look at sins of Ezra Klein.
Remember watching the early "good" (Seasons 1-3) seasons of The Sopranos? Before they gave Tony Soprano a conscience and Middle Class airs? Tony used to talk about "This thing of ours," that the regular folk did not understand the rules to.
Uncle Junior had power by default because he waited his turn (and then Tony took over and Junior became leader in name only). Ezra Klein is like Uncle Junior. Andrew Breitbart is offering $100,000 for the Listserv, and as a commenter on Althouse put it:
Just occurred to me: the more innocuous the contents, the faster someone will grab the offer.
As of 10PM PST, no one has stepped forward to collect. But Jonathan Chait of The New Republic and Matthew Yglasias of Center for American Progress say "Nothing happened," Who are you going to believe?
Ezra Klein has youth whereas Uncle Junior was fading. But youthful arrogance can be a dangerous thing (I speak from experience). When you are in the business of disseminating information about the Government and its players [i.e Reporters], and then have everyone speak in with the same theme (again, Rush Limbaugh does it continually on his show), questions will arise.
If there is collusion (especially during election year 08), then there damn well better be (when the Republicans take the over Congress in 11) a Congressional inquiry about who had their hands on the scale of getting out information on both candidates. If Klein is smart, he will lawyer up tomorrow and quit the Washington Post before his employers get subpoenas (and when I am up on the Hill, they will).
To stop all the questions about Journolist, all Klein has to do is release all the info written there to Wikileaks. If leaking against the Bush administration is good for the New York Times, it is even better when it is done by our so-called "watchers," Choose quickly Ezra or you may find yourself in Chickentown.
And Dan Riehl and Robert McCain? Hey, I defended the Hevesi's and Chartier's (major Dem figures in NYC) because they are my friends, Robert gets the same slack. However, Riehl is right that the GOP have no clue (on a national level) how to work with Bloggers. But I have an answer. Meanwhile, I hope you both (Dan and Robert) talk this over a beer at Armands Pizza. Stay tuned.
My question: If the 400 reporters on Journolist affected the outcome of Election 08, should Ezra Klein go to jail?