Free Republic

SAN ANTONIO--More than one political venture has met an unseemly end in the hardscrabble landscape of South Texas. It was here, in 1948, that Box 13 gave Lyndon Johnson a dubious 87-vote primary victory, crushing former Gov. Coke Stevenson's Senate aspirations. It was here, two years ago, that a bitter primary fight for a House seat shattered a friendship between two Hispanic Democrats. And it was here, this month, in a rematch of that contest, that a blogger-led quest to defeat a mainstream Democrat and drive the party further to the left smashed head-on into the realities of local politics....

Suppose a Democratic strategist wrote an open letter to colleagues and clients analyzing this week’s election returns. “Republicans have very little to cheer about this election,” he said with some satisfaction. “But off-year elections are rarely harbingers of future performance. Democrats actually did quite well in 2003, to little effect in 2004.” Suppose further that the Democratic strategist signed his name to the letter and distributed it widely.And then suppose one more thing: that the Democratic strategist had not actually written those words but had lifted them wholesale from a liberal blog. (In fact, those words do come from such...

Media Matters, the Soros-funded media watchdog, made a big stink last summer about talk show host Michael Savage's assertion that some illegal aliens vote. Here is what Savage is quoted as saying on his July 26, 2004, show: "I'll go down the list of people who should not have the right to vote. Let's start with illegal aliens. Should they have the right to vote? Course they shouldn't, but they do. They're being courted by the Democrats as we speak." The so-called watchdogs at Media Matters responded, "Contrary to Savage's assertion, the U.S. Constitution grants voting rights only to American...

Friday, November 05, 2004 Blog OffOkay, I'm pulling the comments and taking off until Sunday evening or Monday morning. I'll resist the temptation to post a long-winded explanation, and just say that right now the blog is annoying me, perhaps for the first time since I've started it, and that's a sign that I need to put it on pause for a couple of days. So, get your bloggy goodness elsewhere and I'll see you at the end of the weekend... -Atrios 10:36 AM

Leftist blogger Atrios has gone off the deep end, selectively quoting President Bush in an attempt to make the point that Kerry was misled about exactly he voted for in regards to the Iraq conflict, peace or war... because he couldn't make his point if he DIDN'T selectively quote. Atrios wrote: Let's consider Bush's recent rhetoric. His latest ad says "Kerry voted for the Iraq war." When he asked Congress for the resolution, when Andy Card rolled it out after Labor Day, Bush claimed it was a vote for peace: You want to keep the peace, you've got to have...

There's a picture of progressive blogger Atrios here, and the picture is discussed here. One of the commentors in the last link speculates that Atrios is Duncan B. Black: Duncan B. Black holds a PhD in economics from Brown University. He has held teaching and research positions at the London School of Economics; the Université catholique de Louvain; the University of California, Irvine; and, recently, Bryn Mawr College. He also has been involved with grassroots political activism. Black is a Senior Fellow at Media Matters for America.