Hurray?
Leading off this front page (below the fold) article, entitled “Missteps test faith of Patrick devotees”:
With the latest headline, dissent erupted in the blogosphere. “The caddy didn’t matter. The drapes don’t matter. This matters,” wrote Charley Blandy, a cofounder of Blue Mass. Group, the state’s leading left-wing blog and a strong voice for Deval Patrick during last year’s gubernatorial campaign.
And later in the same article,
But over the last couple of days, some of the liberal bloggers who were Patrick’s strongest champions in cyberspace sharply criticized the governor for calling Citigroup, which has extensive business with the state, on behalf of the parent company of the controversial subprime mortgage lender Ameriquest, on whose board Patrick sat until last year.
“He simply cannot advocate to a company that does business with the state, on behalf of a company that does business with the state, and with whom he has a prior relationship in this way,” wrote David Kravitz, another cofounder of Blue Mass. Group. “At best, it’s a major-league ‘appearance of impropriety,’ and he of all people should understand why such appearances should be avoided. And, frankly, I wonder whether this doesn’t tread dangerously close to the dividing line between appearances and the other thing.”
Well, at least we know they’re reading.
In other news, Joan Vennochi’s column today is a sober and, probably, pretty accurate assessment of the ongoing power dynamics on Beacon Hill. (Short answer: DiMasi’s winning.) She also passes on this tidbit, which I found extremely funny for reasons that will shortly appear:
Veteran political operative Michael Goldman … is starting up a new venture, called the Political and Public Policy Insight Group, with Paul Trane, another consulting veteran.
Or P-P-PIG, for short. Moral: ALWAYS check your acronym before you settle on a name for your new business.
UPDATE: Charley’s now-famous post has hit the AP newswire.
I have to admit I was a little teary eyed when I first read this post. Just be happy you weren’t quoted in they Herald’s lead story today!! Ah, the Herald.
A) They couldn’t bother calling either of you for comment. I find it lazy they’d just pull a few quotes, especially when the both of you have a short paper worth of comments on the subject available.
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B) That you guys were the only ones in the blogosphere represented. I think both you and Charley are among the best voices in Ma’s progressive blogosphere: both eloquent and usually poignant. However, as I’m sure you’d both readily admit, you don’t speak for everyone. There’s a lot of differences among the progressive blogosphere on opinions and – since this article was about what supporters thought about this latest gaffe – it would have been nice to grab a diversity of voices for such an article.
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C) There’s a front-page article on this stupid phone call for a third day in a row
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D) He has another “mug shot” as Steverino would call it. These pictures are just rediculous.
for Globe photographers if he ever moves around any furniture at home or in the office.
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From today’s photo, it’s clear they are dying for a shot of him wearing a hoodie and carrying a T.V.
Check the caption
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Governor Deval Patrick chewed on his appendages at the Massachusetts High Technology Council breakfast in Burlington yesterday. (Josh Reynolds/ASSOCIATED PRESS)
If you look closely at the paper–I don’t know whether you can see it here–it looks like he is pulling his tongue out of his mouth.
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That is no accident.
I don’t agree that it was lazy not to call us. We’re bloggers, so it’s a good assumption that we’re saying what we think about an issue in our blog posts. We weren’t taken out of context or quoted inaccurately.
Blog posts are public comments. No need for Lisa, or any reporter, to call to confirm before using one than for David to call, say Joan Vennochi before he comments on her column.
It’s not that I wouldn’t want my blog to be quoted; I just think it would be polite to call and ask for any qualifications or additional thoughts. If I were a reporter, that’s what I’d try to do. Obviously, you’re free to disagree with me and it isn’t a huge deal.
There were at least THREE BMG Bloggers quoted in today’s Globe article, “Missteps test faith of Patrick devotees.”
As some one who tries to stay steady..even if the wind blows hard for one day.. I am keeping my eyes on the big picture and on the depth of Governor Patrick’s goals and abilities.. nIce to know that Blue Mass Group represents all sides of this issue. Here is my quote from today’s Globe.
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“I just know that this is such a huge human being, a deep human being, and one that has the best intentions for the Commonwealth and for the whole concept of civic engagement,” said Susan Wadia-Ells, a holistic health educator from Manchester -by-the-Sea who volunteered on the campaign. “there are so many people who are dying to trip him up and give him a really bad bloody nose because he’s trying to change some systems here. And this is only the beginning.”
any posters who wonder who eavesdropped on Patrick’s cell phone call, or why only Emily Rooney broke the inside story on the drapes and furniture, or who is behind the hack attack.
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I’m sure they will, though, as soon as they finish paging through the thesaurus for synonyms for “rabid lambs.”
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Good call David.
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The only “fix” I can imagine is to roll with “PAPPI G” — and get a photo of Goldman with David Ortiz for the homepage.
Select the logo.
…and they aren’t quite sure who Ryan is! That would mean clicking through to HIS blog!
Some of them do, such as Dahl, Vennochi, etc. Yet, it’s not about them being quite sure of who I am, it’s about getting a fair and accurate representation of his supporters when there’s an article about that specific thing. David and Charley are certainly great people to talk to, but just talking to two out of three people who operate one website within the ma blogosphere is not an accurate representation of the diversity of viewpoints in that blogosphere. Furthermore, my banner is my own; I don’t cast it behind any other person’s blog – hence “Ryan’s Take” as opposed to anything less self identifying. Personally, I think people like Lynne or Sco, who were both exceptionally strong supporters in multiple ways, would have some great thoughts on all this bruhaha – opinions that would differ from both David and Charley and have a add to a stronger represenation of the lefty blogosphere, which was clearly one of Lisa Wangsness’s goals.
and indeed, Wangsness did quote some other folks who were more serene about the whole thing than we were. But they weren’t the lede. Too bad. But by all means, I hope people look into the MA blogosphere beyond just us.
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And then there’s the problem that it’s being reported as “Deval groupies are losing faith in him” … which is wrong in any number of ways, as I’ve stated. But whatever. Like I say, I think Patrick will be able to regain the initiative if and when he chooses to do so.
is that the way to get quoted on the radio, get in the paper, etc., is to be contrarian. “Deval backer trashes Deval” is a story; “Deval backer still likes Deval” is not.
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This has happened before — relatively early on in BMG’s history, my interview with a liberal former law clerk for then-Judge Alito who supported his Supreme Court nomination quickly became our most-read post, by a very large margin, and it got picked up not only around the national blawgosphere but in some MSM outlets as well. It’s the same principle. “Liberal lawyer doesn’t like Alito” is not a story.
We could:
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1. Go after other Democrats in power. (Not much of a surprise there, I suppose.)
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2. Become (or impersonate) Republicans that just happen to agree with Deval on everything. It would be kind of like the mirror image of the New Republic, that kind of vibe.
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3. Become so contrarian that we piss everyone off, and a renegade band of former BMG-ers forms a bad-ass contra-contrarian blog that gets all the cool contrarian press we were getting, and actually carries a progressive agenda in the end zone, with Deval Patrick on their shoulders.
The fact that “Peter Porcupine” is responsible for roughly 1 out of 3 posts here should give you all the cred with the Coulter crowd you need.
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Or, you could actually act like progressives and ask what the hell Deval thinks he’s doing.
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I’m betting you stick with coddling Republican apologists.
Still waiting to hear back. But we think she’d fit right in.
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We’re also considering banning those who are too liberal. That’s the problem with Democrats: It’s the liberals. They’re getting in the way. They lack balance and maturity, and don’t follow the centrist wisdom that we regard as Gospel here. Therefore they must be purged. We asked Marty Peretz what he thought, and he said it was a great idea.
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All those deemed acceptable by the editors of BMG (including Ann, of course) will receive their GPS ankle bracelets in the mail soon. They’re not to be taken off under any circumstances. They will identify you as “acceptably conservative” to others.
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Do not lose your ankle bracelet. Ann won’t like it.
I’ve often thought a strategy like #2 would be particularly satisfying and effective. If a fiscal conservative Republican ran for some federal office from MA and then once elected could start saying things like: my party has left behind fiscal responsibility, my party is dissing Massachusetts again – one of the founding states with great leaders throughout its history. I’ve noticed that its impossible to convince many conservatives of anything (or even to get them to listen) once they think you’re a democrat. But they might actually stop and think if one of their own dissented. And the media would love the contrarian nature of it. Charley – I’ll be your Rove.
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Although its kind of moot now that the right has imploded so completely.
who is looking at it? I understand you may be able to check an IP address, but that would just give you the company, not the person, right?
Came in the half dozen or so emails we’ve exchanged discussing issues, especially the ‘blogger/msm divide.’
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David Dahl at Political intelligence reads my posts, but I haven’t traded any e-mails with him yet.
He used to like my very snarky posts on Gabs and Reilly during the primary campaign.
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Your post on the 11th was very interesting, btw. Sounds like a crazy race.
When will the media learn that dissent, and discussion, and even disagreement, does not “leaving the reservation” make?
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It’s almost enough for me to barf. Charley says one negative thing about Patrick on one issue and suddenly it’s like, a serious split.
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Give me a break. The media are lazy hypocrites who wouldn’t know a good policy discussion if it bit them in their lazy asses.
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And yes, I am in a terrible mood today, so this just helps take the cake.
I’m reminded of how Bill Cosby gave his speech about the problems that he thinks the Black community needs to address, and the KKK now features it on their website as an example of “even a Black person thinks that Blacks are bad” .
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No wonder the GOP operates in lockstep.
…To toot my own horn, I was quoted in the Herald a couple of days ago–but was not identified by handle–for a comment I made over at Dan Kennedy’s blog.
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And a couple of years ago, the Glob had the good sense to publish a letter to the editor that I sent to them. They haven’t displayed such good sense subsequently, but I haven’t sent them particularly many letters. We keep trying.
Left wing?
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Maybe that’s the Globe’s way of marginalizing the blog. They used to do the same with television back when newspapers were dying due to broadcast news.
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Maybe BMG is a tad left of “Young Republicans for Deval Patrick”. But, not much.
a blog that hosts so many republicans and conservative
positions really should be identified as liberal or progressive or mainly for democrats.
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IMO.