First things first. Do you know why I put names in the blog titles? Besides the obvious reason, I do it because Google loves blogs. In the next day or two, that name will be one of the most searched on the web, and a lot of those searchers will be landing right here. 
Now on to substance.
Blog envy: I secretly love it when leftist bloggers blog about and link to me (not a secret anymore). I like driving them crazy. Dedicating a whole post to little old me must be a way of releasing pent-up frustration. Right or wrong, I enjoy every minute of it. However, I have yet to ignite the ire of a real journalist or even someone who writes guest op-eds. Getting under the skin of someone with a newspaper column would be the “big time.”
Power Line has hit the big time so many times, I’m sure they’ve lost count. The most recent event happened yesterday when the Star Tribune published a guest op-ed written by someone named Camille J. Gage. You may remember the newspaper from the Nick Coleman episode. The poor guy did a poor job at hiding his envy and frustration.
In this week’s episode, Gage accuses Power Line’s John Hinderaker of not checking facts and implies that his allegations of voter fraud in Racine, Wisconsin, are false. She writes:
As a graduate student in public affairs at the University of Minnesota, I recently heard an in-class presentation by John Hinderaker, who, with partner Scott Johnson, runs the Powerline blog. Powerline played a role in breaking the Rathergate affair and was recently named “Blog of the Year” by Time magazine.Prior to Hinderaker’s presentation, the week before the November elections, I visited the Powerline site. To my surprise an Oct. 27 post covered alleged voter fraud in Racine, Wis., my hometown. The charges involved the registering of illegal aliens to vote. The story seemed outrageous, so I made a few phone calls to check it out.
What I discovered was troubling. There was no factual basis for the voter fraud allegations. Powerline posted the story based on the word of a single individual employed by the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR). This was hearsay at best, posted as “news” at a time when voter registration efforts by the Democrats and 527 groups were coming under fire by conservatives.
At class I asked Hinderaker if posts to Powerline were fact-checked. He was dismissive of the question, so I asked if he was aware that the Racine voter fraud story was inaccurate. He stated that he was not, slapped his hands together and stated that the blogosphere was all about speed and therefore did not allow for fact-checking. Mr. Hinderaker went on to say, “Our readers let us know when we get it wrong.”
And therein lies the cautionary Catch-22: Bloggers may serve as media watchdogs, but who will watch the blogs? Do you have time to fact-check what you read online?
Gage sounds very reasoned, calm and knowledgeable, doesn’t she? According to John Hinderaker, she is incorrect. He expressed his frustration:
The piece accuses us of a failure to fact-check. The author refers to a news story we linked to last October which related to voter fraud in Wisconsin, and says that she “made a few phone calls” and determined that “[t]here was no factual basis for the voter fraud allegations.” No hint as to whom she called, or what information she learned that demonstrated that the allegations in the news story were false….I talked to Commentary Editor Eric Ringham today, and he acknowledged that the Strib didn’t do any fact-checking at all before they accused us of not fact-checking. That’s right: None. Zilch. Zippo. Nada. And Ms. Gage, if that’s really her name, has no knowledge about the voter fraud scandal which has now resulted in a federal criminal investigation.
The voter fraud allegations are now being investigated by the feds, and Gage accuses Power Line of not checking the facts? By the way, who did she call about the allegations, and what did the person say? She says Power Line relied on the “hearsay” of one source, but didn’t she do exactly the same thing? What she just tried to feed us was hearsay. At least Hinderaker named his source. What makes Gage more credible than Hinderaker? Her bias is showing, and it’s not very attractive.
While I don’t like the lies and innuendo of blog-haters, I do enjoy seeing their petty and juvenile envy awkwardly hidden behind pseudo-intellectual meanderings, which are usually nothing more than dressed up ad hominem.
Gage could have gone a few steps further and asked Hinderaker for a quote for her op-ed or at the very least, to clarify her perceptions. She could have easily fact-checked herself but didn’t. Gage wanted to make the point, the insinuation, that “wild, wild west” bloggers can’t be trusted. In a feeble attempt to do so, she turned the mirror on herself. Her bias against conservatives in general and Power Line in particular, was poorly disguised. That Gage is a Howard Dean contributor is the final nail in the coffin of common sense. Nice try, though.
Hinderaker is preparing a response, and I know it will be a good one. I will update this post as soon as it’s up.
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Around the blogosphere: Commonwealth Conservative, Real Politics …
Update (5:42 p.m.): Regarding Power Line’s fact-checking, a commenter provided these links: Voter Fraud in Wisconsin and Voter Registration Probe Unearths Potential Fraud in Wisconsin.
