Saturday, December 10, 2005

Feingold on Lieberman

I know it's Shabbas but it's basketball season...

I am hearing via the blogosphere from a Republican source I find un-credible that State Senator Katie Stine will run for Attorney General in 2007 and that Rebecca Jackson is looking at the Auditor's post. Keep in mind this is coming from the same person who hates Democrats worse than I hate Republicans. I don't call people names. She does.

Keep in mind that I support the Democratic Party. I am a loyal Democrat who believes that one must treat others the way I want to be treated. I defend Joe out of respect for him whether those to the left of me like it or not. If that makes me unpopular among the blogosphere, so be it.

However, this is a partial transcript from Morning Sedition on Air America Radio.
MM: What do you make of Democratic Sen. Joe Lieberman and his arguments for staying in Iraq?

Feingold: Well, he's a very good friend of mine and I think Joe is one of the finest persons in the United States Senate, but I completely disagree with him on this. Joe agreed with the idea into the idea that we should go into Iraq apparently as part of the greater "War on Terrorism" -- I never bought into that. He apparently bought into the idea of the urgency of dealing with the `weapons of mass destruction' - I didn't. And now he continues down the line with the White House with this idea that we shouldn't have a timetable and everything is going `just fine' over there militarily. Well, I was over there. And of course every time our military fights we win, but that's not the issue. The issue is whether or not we're encouraging the insurgency or not. And that's where I'm awfully sure I'm right and I don't know if Senator Lieberman is listening to General Abizaid and General Casey, our top generals in the area. THEY SAY that our presence is feeding the insurgency.

So to me the only logical conclusion is - unless you want encourage a horrible insurgency and foreign terrorists - you do NOT talk in terms of staying there "as long as it takes" (so they say) because that is going to encourage the very opposition that we do not want to encourage.

So, I'm a friend of Joe's but I am completely in disagreement with him - as are almost all the Democrats.

MR: Would Sen. Lieberman make a good defense secretary?

Feingold: Well, I think he'd probably do a fine job for this administration. I'll tell you this - I disagree with Lieberman tremendously on this issue and on many other issues, but he is man who keeps his word and I think would be much more straightforward on this issue than Rumsfeld has been. Rumsfeld and Cheney have been FRIGHTFUL in their willingness to deny the reality in Iraq.

I disagree with Lieberman's assessment of what's going on there, but I think he'd be a person with a much greater likelihood to be a person who would tell the truth.
Let me re-state again that I did not support this war at all and I applauded Senator Lieberman back when said Hussein needed to be released of his power. What I think people should do is listen to General Wesley Clark because he knows what he is doing on this issue being he is a veteran.

Atrios has his comments on blogging for prospective bloggers. Excerpts follow:
1) My blog doesn't exist to promote your business, your pet cause, your blog, etc... and I'm under no obligation to do so. Having said that I'm always open to hearing about cool and interesting things.

2) If you want to my attention or that of other bloggers the worst way to do it is to send an email which says "please check out my blog" or "please blogroll me." The best way to do it is to send a link to a particular post and include the content of the post in the email. I'm much more likely to read it then.

3) While I read a lot of blogs I don't, as some imagine, have the entire blogosphere jacked into my head. There's lots of good stuff out there that I'm not aware of. I can't read everything.

4) If you're thinking about starting a blog to make money, don't. If you start a blog and manage to make money, great.

5) If you're upset that your blog "only" gets 2000 hits per day you have a strange expectations. You Command An Audience of Two Thousand People Every Day. Holy shit! That's a lot. Nothing wrong with wanting more, but it's still pretty incredible. On 9/11, a record day for him then, Instapundit got about 5000 hits.

6) To have a very high traffic blog a necessary condition is that you post consistently a lot. It means that great writers who take a lot of time to craft their prose are unlikely to have a high traffic blog. That is not unfair or wrong or anything, that's just not how you generate consistently high traffic. If you are a tremendous writer who spends lots of time crafting your prose, blogging is perhaps not the best medium for you except as a useful tool for self promotion if your goal is high daily readership.

7) It's quite possible that you have a wonderfully interesting blog to other people that doesn't actually interest me much. I have my own idiosyncratic interests and preferences. Maybe the layout bothers me. Maybe I have a hard time reading it for some reason. Maybe there's something about your writing that rubs me the wrong way. Maybe your focus just doesn't interest me. There's no reason I need to be a fan.

8) Presumably bloggers with less traffic get slightly less email than bloggers with more traffic. It may be easier to get their attention with something good. That should not be interpreted to mean that I'm discouraging people from emailing me, just that I can't always process all of the email I get.

9) If all of the "elite" bloggers and the DLC have conspired to opppress the True Progressive Voices of the Internets then no one has let me in on the plan, and certainly no one has given me a lot of money to help make it happen.

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