The Defensive Get Defensive

I got online and saw this hit on my stats counter.

Michael Hussey (rhymes with…) over at Pushing Rope (rhymes with…) dropped my name at Blurbex. Mikey charged that progressive bloggers LIKE ME link to other liberal sites, connect with only like-minded opinions, piggy-back on other bandwagons and therefore blah blah blah. In other words, Homeboy called me a lazy, narrow-minded b*tch.

Kate is refering to a comment I made at Blurbex. Wayne Garcia called Peer Review "the best conservative blog in the state." Kate shot back, "Best conservative blog in the state? Quite a compliment. That's like saying, 'You don't sweat much. For a fat kid.' Garcia asked Kate if she had something against fat kids. I think Kate should just be happy with Garcia not bestowing the title of best Florida conservative blog to Right Wing Howler.

Here is what I said in the Blurbex comments.

As for Kate's comment on Peer Review, I think too many Florida progressive bloggers get locked into reading sites that reaffirm their opinions. I see bloggers link to posts from Think Progress, Daily Kos, Atrios and Americablog. The points I find troublesome is a). that these bloggers are solely relying on the opinions of others and not doing their own research b). Florida lefty bloggers aren't getting opinions from a different perspective.

For the record: I actually linked to a Peer Review post about a Tom Gallagher press release/email to supporters. Mr. C is right. It's bad.
peerreview.blogs.com/fl/2006/04/gallagher_camp_.html

Now many of you will note that I never used the words "lazy, narrow-minded b*tch." What you fail to understand is the power of truthiness. With truthiness, a person can state an opinion as fact without such bothersome things as evidence. Kate feels in her gut that what she writes is fact. Kate is guilty of of what is known as "dowdify." She is attributing a statement to me that I have never made about her person. I do feel that lefty and righty blogs are guily of relying too heavily on the A list blogs. Those A list blogs steal research and don't link back to investigative bloggers like my pal Ron Brynaert. He broke the plagiarism part of the Jeff Gannon/Talon News scandal. He now writes for Raw Story. Good for him.

My point is bloggers should do their own research. It will give a blogger a better understanding of issues and make one a better blogger. No one has to change their opinions or agree with me. Bloggers should be held to the same journalistic standards as the media. Get the facts right. If you make a mistake then post a correction. Bloggers who don't then have no credibility fact-checking the media.

John F wrote, this comment, over at Kate's blog.

Lemme guess, Mike is going to call me out next because I only link to Hockey Blogs, Tampa Bay sports blogs, and non-hockey, sports Tampa based bloggers on Boltsmag, right?

This is the guy who's wasted a load of Tommy's time by ranting about Sticks of Fire on his web site and causing a stir.

Methinks Mike is just trying to get more attention for his viewpoints -- and by doing that, he is attacking others so that his name will be dropped farther and wider... It'd be very nice if he just wrote content that won him approval of his peers -- not attacked his peers so people would show up at his blog to view the attacks.

John, I honestly don't read your site. I'm a Flyers fan and the Lightning are going to get crushed by the Ottawa Senators. The Lightning's goaltending sucks and the Senators have the best young offense players in the NHL. That's not a good combination.

You don't write a political blog. There isn't anything for me to agree or disagree with. If you write a post about raising the debt ceiling or soft money donations then that's a different story. I don't have a beef with you since I don't read your blog. I wasn't aware that Kate had a beef against me. I didn't read her blog until today.

As far as "my attacks" goes. That spawned from comments in other people's blog. I was asked several times in the very early days of Sticks of Fire to write on that blog. I turned it down because of reasons Tommy and I have agreed to keep offline. What I will say is that Tommy wanted me to write about Florida politics issues. My old blog was national politics and personal entries. I would send content over to Tommy because I knew he covered Tampa and Florida. This was material I didn't intend on writing. We talked about the Tampa Courthouse scandal. We both agreed it was an important story. We also agreed that the other person should write it. I eventually did. Tiny linked to the post. Tommy bugged me for months to write the post and he never so much as mentioned it on his blog. That certainly is his right. I fail to see why he wanted me to do a investigative post. Why even bother asking me?

Tommy asked for political activists to send him material. This is surprising since I know Tommy has not responded to emails from the Kathy Castor campaign and Kenneth Quinnell of the Sunshine State Progressive Bloggers. Tommy wrote a long-winded post, defending his right to solicit activists, without explaining why he wanted activists' material. Now that takes talent. I wish he would state why he wanted activists emailing him. Tommy would be the first to admit that he is not a political activists. I suspect that Tommy wanted to compete with the local newspapers and get a potential scoop. The tiny problem with that is Tommy blows off emails from political activists.

My problem with Tommy writing about politics is the same as Ron Brynaurt had with Steve Gilliard. Except Tommy's language is squeaky clean. Tommy can post a picture (which is horrible) of Brian Blair and make a snarky comment. Tommy used to do some thoughtful writing during his blogspot days. That's what I like to see. I didn't mind his gavel-to-gavel coverage of the Strawbeery Festival when when he did great coverage of Tampa and Florida. Sticks was a must read blog for Floridians. That's what I like to see again.

For the record: Tommy thinks I'm far to the left. I'm actually a third-way Democrat. I have had disagreements with Blogwood. Norwood sent me a friendly email awhile ago. I read Norwood's site (when it was updated) even if I don't always agree with him. I had recent discussions with Tommy. Sticks readers seem to take this more personally than either me or Tommy. Kids, it's not like we're going to have a paper, rock, scissors challenge to the death. It you want to think so then more power to you. The Tommy and Michael feud has all the intensity of a Andy Kaufman & Jerry Lawler wrestling match.