Cafepolitico.us Blog

Over at the site Foreign Policy(which I highly recommend), blogger and visiting Scholar at the Carnegie Foundation, points out that like so many other mainstream politicians, President Obama uses bloggers as a scapegoat to deflect legitimate criticism of his policies, which is a tactic that has been rather in vogue for several years. John McCain also bad-mouthed bloggers during the 2008 campaign and the mainstream media often criticize bloggers from both the left and the right side of the political spectrum when those bloggers dare to point out the media’s factual errors or lazy reporting.

In sum, it would seem that neither politicians or the media like accountability too much.

Here’s the thing- both conservative and liberal bloggers serve an important purpose in this information age particularly as so many people look to internet news sources for their news. Blogs are simply a result of the ever-expanding opportunities for people to interact on the web.

Are some bloggers irresponsible windbags? Sure. Do some blogs not provide sources and links for some of their factual assertions? Yes. Do most blogs add their opinions to news stories? Of course- that’s kind of the point and people who read blogs generally understand all of this. But for Obama to minimize the importance of blogs, particularly the larger, highly trafficked, influencial conservative and liberal blogs, is just stupid.

What I find interesting is that most presidential candidates, and Obama in particular, patted themselves on the back for their own grass-roots campaigning and use of blogs as a way to get information to party activists- the campaigns saw it as an indication of their tech-savy outreach programs and ability to interact with the common folks and I don’t think Obama would have dissed blogs during the campaign specifically because of that fact.

So, Obama may not pay much attention to the blogs, but you can be damn sure his aides and advisers do.

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