The sages of Beverly have lost it. Whether because Kerry Healey’s poll numbers are not rising quickly enough to suit them, or because they never really liked Kerry Healey that much anyway (Matt has said more than once that he’d probably have backed Mihos in a Republican primary), or because the increasingly likely prospect of a Democratic Governor is messing with their minds, a blog that for a long time teetered between being a respectable outlet for conservative bloggery and a spewer of GOP talking points has gone over the edge.
They’ve trivialized an 11-year-old boy having his head cut open by gang members with a piece of glass. They’ve slandered a former US President by calling him a sex offender. And now they’re laughing as Deval Patrick’s family is dragged through the mud in an effort (which, by the way, will almost certainly backfire) to score cheap political points for Kerry Healey. That’s not political discourse.
I’ve long wondered what their traffic is really like, and whether they became the “voice of the conservative blogosphere” ’round here simply by default. (Bruce is without question a much better blogger.) They don’t make their traffic stats public, after all — what are they hiding? In any event, I have no idea how much traffic we throw their way. Probably not much. But I have no choice but to remove them from our Mass o’ Politics feed until they recover their sanity. I’ve noted that they’ve apparently recently been expelled from Google News as well — no HubPolitics posts later than October 6 are appearing over there.
I’ve commented (intelligently) on every one of those posts recently and…Guess what? No one is posted.
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Gotta love allowing a dissenting opinion!
David you and the sages from Beverly are going to be rubbing elbows at the piano joint aren’t you? Play nice! For what it’s worth my comments have always been posted but most of the repsonses are worthless. I think we at least raise valid points when we go toe to toe with the Porcupine and others. As for the posts themselves I have always thought that the Margolis brothers get attention only because their breed is rare in Mass, generally they have no real quality.
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Also, why can’t I find BMG on Google News, I know you guys are listed?
I had to cancel my appearance at Project B.A.R. owing to a stupid cold that I haven’t gotten rid of. Bruce was crushed, needless to say! đŸ˜‰
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We’re not in Google News either. They’ve been doing an ongoing purge of blogs.
Blogs offer great news and commentary. I am writing a letter lol. Feel better.
Google News was how I discovered this site….
I had Patrick and the gubernatorial race as Google News alerts, and I would get so annoyed when reading a headline like “Deval doesn’t provide proof that he doesn’t beat his wife”. Glad to hear they’re off of Google News.
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I subscribed to their feed until a few months ago. There’s just no substance. On bloglines.com (my feed reader), you can see the number of bloglines users that subscribe.
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Bloglines user subscriptions:
HubPolitics : 10
BMG : 57
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Not a very scientific comparison, of course, but food for thought.
I’m glad you guys are finally doing this; it should have happened months ago. There hasn’t been an intelligent post on that site from as far back as I can remember – and I’m not just saying that because they’re conservative. There’s a lot in me that’s very conservative too, yet they’re more Howie Carr than Howie Carr honest discourse.
Referring to the attack on a young Deval Patrick with a piece of broken glass wedged into a soda can — an attack which left him “a very bloody mess” — as getting hit with an empty soda can is like saying that someone who got stabbed with a knife was bruised by 4 ounces of metal.
I agree that the Sages of Beverly have not only lost it, they’ve always been off the deep end.
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But isn’t this book-burning? I mean, if what they have to say is so absurd, wouldn’t they help discredit their own team?
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They are the only major conservative political blog in Massachusetts (Bruce is a hybrid). I’m afraid we give the wrong perception if we start knocking them off our list because we think what they have to say is absurd.
I’m sure the Sages think what we have to say is absurd too. They call us moonbats!
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I vote for putting them back up, just for the sake of letting others see for themselves and come to their own conclusions…but I feel I’m in the minority here.
I’m not suggesting we call out the BMG tac team to launch a DOS attack over there. As if I even had any clue what a DOS attack actually is.
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I’m just deciding that I don’t have to link to their posts anymore. They can keep writing whatever they want.
Book burning? You are equating removing a blog from the blogroll–whose presence at all on the blogroll is a courtesy to begin with–of a privately owned webpage to book burning?
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This is deeply silly.
BMG is NOT on their blogroll – or even link section.
[DemsforHealey comments.
available at http://www.alexa.com
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yesterday (10/12/2006) http://www.hubpolitics was ranked 1,595,244 and had 127 sites linked to them.
http://www.healey.com was ranked 614,355 had 35 sites linked to them.
http://www.deval.patrick.com was ranked 244,296 had 111 sites linked to them.
http://www.bluemassgroup was ranked 233,041 and had 159 sites linked to them.
Hub Politics’ coverage and “analysis” ranges from party line regurgitation, sensationalism, and just plain making stuff up. And comments of certain friends of mine, whose opinions are contrary to those of Hub Politics (read: sane), often fail to get posted. I’ve seen within the local blogosphere a recent spike in HP criticism and I hope that this move by BMG will start a larger trend leading other online and MSM outlets to examine the intellectual honesty of HP.
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Something ain’t right with HP. I could be wrong, but the Margolis Brothers seem too smart to be only capable of their pander-ific, low brow, single minded commentary. (Honestly? Kerry Healey can do no wrong and has won he first two debates by a landslide according to them.) I wonder if an interest in politics and a pride in their writing are the main motivations for writing Hub Politics?
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They bought that???????? This just proves that any analytical skills they may or may not have once had are now completely gone.
stop posting all the things HubPol beats you on (or that you refuse to cover)?
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And an example of that would be…
is that I probably won’t read what they post anymore. I don’t have unlimited blogging time, and what time I spend on something other than writing for BMG is spent reading sites I consider worthwhile. As should be obvious, they’re off that list.
They’ve always published my comments except for my most recent one, which called into question publishing a Rick Barton (he’s the guy running against John Tierney) press release verbatim while at the same time having a Barton for Congress ad running on the site. I simply asked “What category does this post fall into: news or commentary?” Either they don’t have a good answer or they stopped by and actually read my blog. Hub Politics are prime examples of “glass jaw conservatives”.