Tête-à-Tête-Tête

Hotair and Ace of Spades are must reads for anyone who wants to get an overview of right-of-center opinion. They each have multiple entries per day, so you get insight on almost any topic, as well as differing opinions (Allah & Ace are athiests, some of the others are evangelicals, some are pro choice & others are pro-life, etc.). Hey, I read Kevin Drum for much the same reason: concise analysis that represents lefty thought on most of the topics out there. The main thing about all three sites is that they don’t necessarily give the party line talking points (believe me, brother, that’s a rare thing in the blogosphere…..most of the ‘big’ blogs are mirror sites and little else).

Ed is a great addition at hotair.

Personally, I never read redstate unless it’s via a link from a lefty site. Ever.

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Instapundit will provide you with any necessary links to Dr. Helen or Volokh, so you can use him as a one-stop-shop to get the relevant forwards (if you don’t mind the effort involved in overlooking the hourly links to Ann Althouse).

I’m here to help.

Seriously? I’ll think more about HotAir - but it being a Malkin project, I expect it to be kind of unhinged. What little I have read there has tended to confirm that suspicion.

Ace of Spades… oh wait - that Ace of Spades. I used to read there a little bit- I think I even got into an argument in the comments back in ‘04… That’s not a bad idea. For some reason I thought you were saying “Flopping Aces”… That one - I can’t help but wonder if it’s secretly a parody site. AoS may be a good candidate. I’ll add it to the poll.

I started reading Ace of Spades due to a recommendation Ricky made on his blog a long, long time ago.

And I admit I am a balloon-juice junky. There is the wildest and wackiest community of commenters there that I have ever seen. Unreasonable most of the time but absolutely hilarious all of the time.

I’ll start checking in on Hot Air from time to time but it is impossible to read everything you would like to read. There is just too much of it.

Strike-the-root.com is a good site for those of us who have a bit of a soft-spot for anarchy.

I’ll think more about HotAir - but it being a Malkin project, I expect it to be kind of unhinged.

It is definitely rightist in its opinions, so you’re not going to “like” it any more than I “like” washingtonmonthly. I’m just pointing out that you’re going to get opinions & links from people who are actually conservatives (and no small amount of libertarian thought) instead of Republicans. There is a huge difference. There is no shortage of Republican musings out there. Or Democratic musings. I’m just noting that you can bypass all that blather (I certainly try, since you can get D and R talking points in any - any - blog comments section) and get honest opinions from those places, realizing that you’ll be diametrically opposed from the get-go.

We all know where we can go to get what the ‘movement’ wants us to say. Lord knows, I do. Lord in heaven above, that is so boring.

BTW, thx for the shout out; I’m not completely a-political, but I’m no longer willing to be one of the things I mentioned, a conduit for what the right is saying. I hate the political parties, both of them. I hate the GOP, I just hate the DNC worse. I’m sure I’ll venture into some political opinion sometime in the future, it just won’t be one of those “look what they’re saying on redstate! I agree and here’s why” and then reword what everyone else is saying sort of things.

Political blogging peaked a few years ago. Now, it’s little more than a bunch of people all saying the same thing with only the “here’s my witty attempt at smearing those god-awful people that I hate, those @#$%ers” personal attacks being the overarching difference. So, whenever there’s a story, you can almost guarantee that whatever the party’s talking points will be, will soon be put forth on most of the “big” blogs with the only difference being in the way they insult the opposition (I’ve often found that the monitor & keyboard don’t fight back, so you can call someone anything you want if you can accumulate enough of an audience that NEEDS to read someone typing nasty stuff about someone else). Well, I don’t “need” to see someone call Democrat X all sorts of nasty names any more than I need someone to call, say, Karl Rove all sorts of nasty names; just argue your case. Sadly, there are few places that do that. Instead, it’s “so and so sucks, and here’s why they sucky-suck, those sucking sucks” filled with hundreds of comments about why they really DO suck and why anyone who doesn’t agree is stupid, racist, stupid, a ne’er do well, stupid, selfish, stupid and probably likes Hitler. Apparently, there is a huge audience for that sort of thing. Apparently, a lot of people “need” to anonymously type horrible things about people that they’ve never met and would never say to someone’s face in a million years.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve done my share of drive-by commenting. I just don’t have an overarching need to do it. All. The. Time. Every. Day.

After all, it’s only political disagreements.

Case in point: I’ve been boring you guys with my predictions of how the lefty blogosphere is going to wage its campaign against McCain (it won’t really be against McCain, who is a decent guy, but against Republicans and how racist they are and will be). You know I’m right. You know where the sites will be that will provide the daily “ammo” needed for everyone to all say the same thing. The same goes for the campaign against Obama.

Boring. Unimaginative.

In my opinion, of course.

Side note: I disagree with Malkin probably more than you’d think I do, but she gained big-time stature points with me by coming out so vehemently against the Miers nomination & the Amnesty bill; call her what you will, she cannot be called a Republican shill. That sort of thing is extremely rare.

Heh heh.. so you wouldn’t say that Michelle Malkin is a cheerleader for the GOP?

I honestly feel a lot the same way as you do about the political blogging. It doesn’t keep me from doing it, but at least it makes me feel a little bit dirty when I do.

I’m very pessimistic that the next president / congress will start walking us away from the edge of the cliff where it concerns keeping our society open, democratic, and getting it to live up to some extremely basic standards of decency in how we treat our own and deal with our neighbors. And it’s only a guess that “my” guy will be any more likely to do something good than the others. I really don’t anticipate a repeal of the military commissions act any time soon, nor do I expect a revivification of the Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board. After FISA is neutered (probably later this week, with a big assist from Senator Rockefeller), I don’t expect it to ever be reconstituted. I don’t expect a good ending in Iraq, and I expect the bad ending to come later rather than sooner, with more damage to us, Iraq, and the rest of the world in the meantime.

So, as little good as it does to try to promote the one person who will at least *say* we are going to change the rapidly deteriorating status quo in WA, I can’t help myself. I have to do my best to let it be known that I’m not happy - and supporting his candidacy is about the only way I know of to do it. And a blog is about the only place I can think of to do it. I’ll also bitch & grouse about things that are way beyond my ability to influence or control. I guess I’d rather feel like Don Quixote than like the little engine that couldn’t be bothered to try.

I have to do my best to let it be known that I’m not happy - and supporting his candidacy is about the only way I know of to do it.

That’s why I read ya, buddy, as it’s quite a leap from THAT to one of the many sites that would put forth something like “It rained today, I wonder what BushCo did to Karl Rove and Richard Melon Scaife to make them contact Halliburton & Exxon and make it rain on all the dark skinned people? Here’s what the wild-eyed racist Malkin had to say about it, or you can read the nutters at redstate, although why you’d want to is beyond me”.

I love political opinion. Love it.

I hate unoriginal thought and the regurgitation of party-line talking points wrapped around a zeal for hatred of “the other guy”. Ted Kennedy is a putz. Obama seems like a great guy. That I’d disagree politically with them should have no bearing on how I’d approach their personalities. In today’s blogosphere, you are judged by who you support, period. Doesn’t matter that I’d support Georgia’s peach care program, that I’m not on board with the Dem plan for expanding CHIP is enough to make me one of the bad guys.

However, when I go off on GOPers, THEN - and only then - would I be less of a ‘bad guy’.

Thus, politics is a religion, to some. Come on, you know it’s true.

heh heh.. so you wouldn’t say that Michelle Malkin is a cheerleader for the GOP?

Can’t see the vid right now, but she most certainly IS a cheerleader for the GOP. She’s not a shill, otherwise she’d have carried the water on Amnesty & Miers. Look, I know she throws Coulter-sized bombs at you guys & therefore is representative of what I noted above, I just used her as an example of someone who at least uses independent thought (as abhorrent as you may find the conclusions therein). Markos uses a good deal of independent thought, albeit outside of the campaign season (he is a party guy, first, after all). Glenn Reynolds does. Cap’n Ed does. More than 90% of the top 50 political blogs, though, IMO, are interchangeable, depending upon which side of the aisle they’re on. That’s my problem with the way things are, today.

I’d like to see Malkin in a cheerleader outfit, does that count?

I’d like to see Malkin in a cheerleader outfit, does that count?

How about just a sun hat and red high heels?