Is That Legal?

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I think that the reason that Althouse sees hereself (and Reynolds!) as "non-partisan" is much better explained by her truly amazing lack of self-awareness. Sort of like her insistence that she's a feminist despite her near complete lack of support for feminist policies and her viscious (and partisan!) attacks on women and feminist issues.

A quote occurs to me:

"The lady doth protest too much, methinks"

I agree re why bloggers blog: The importance of being noticed. But I think you're mistaken re where Ann falls -- stands? -- on the political spectrum. She's just as often to the left as the right of center, although perhaps, being a sensible woman, ranges farther to the right and less far to the left:

Mugged by reality?"

Well, she does post on a number of topics where she disagrees with the "conservative" viewpoint. But, to lefty bloggers, a law professor at a liberal place like UW-Madison disagreeing more than occasionally with them is equivalent to apostasy in Islam: it's not well received.

And hey Eric, still using the ol' stopwatch to time precisely when Michelle Malkin posts vs. her travel schedule? Or has the blog-stalking thing lost its appeal? (Ann posts her travel times, sometimes with pictures. Maybe you could do a little investigating to see if she really was the places she claimed she was. You know, useful stuff like that.)

ELM: JohnAnnArbor, what exactly brought this on?

Your commenters (Matt and Mark anyway) are aware, I hope, that most Americans tell pollsters now that they belong neither to the Republican nor Democratic parties?

The rabid partisanship that could accuse Ann of "amazing lack of self-awareness" of her "vicious attacks" seems strange to normal people. In Normalstan, it is not at all unusual for someone to be a feminist and yet criticize extreme or ill-considered ideas from someone else proclaiming to be a feminist. In Normalstan, the idea that someone might bear right on certain issues and left on certain others seems perfectly okay. The oppositite tendency, to be a down-the-line partisan, or to identify with a cause so completely that you suspend your own critical thinking, is what seems bizarre.

Anyone who has followed her blog for any length of time knows that if Althouse is partisan, it is the Democratic Party to which she belongs.

What strikes me, as a long-time reader of Althouse, is how much of Ann's writing is about the appearances and conventions of politics and not about platforms and positions. She really is interested in Clark's 5% body fat, and Mitt Romney's short sentences, and the sunkissed O in Barak Obama's campaign logo. It's absolutely in character that the next biggest topic on her blog, after politics and law, is fashion.

So Ann's blogging about political theatre. Political outcomes are important, but for most people, not all-consuming. You can be informed and reflective and, incredibly, have no interest in waving a torch in the Kos or Redstate parade. Yet, like the dullards who can't comprehend a punchline, partisans seem incapable of understanding this. They reduce experience to the lowest common denominator, and the only axis of motive they understand is the banal one-dimensional political one to which they cling like petrified bats.

They need to hang out with more moderates ... and more cynics. I'd say more artists and poets, but artists and poets these days seem to have lost their sense of the ridiculous.

If you examine the topics she blogs on, if you examine the people that appear in her blogroll, if you examine the people she cites as sources there is only one conclusion that can be drawn.

And it ain't that she's non-partisan.

Her claim to non-partisanship is part of her smoke screen to provide a veneer of plausible deniability between her and her smear campaigns.

To see this more clearly, examine her shifting goals, and her admitting to ignore facts as she complains about Pelosi and the false accusation that Pelosi wanted a Boeing Jet.

http://althouse.blogspot.com/2007/02/that-has-nothing-to-do-with-family-and.html

There is no way to read through that post and conclude that Althouse is being intellectually honest at any step along the way.

Althouse has a remarkable capacity to create false dichotomies and found entire analyses on those false dichotomies. Last week in the NY Times she opined that law professors can either (1) make their students happy or (2) teach them to think like lawyers. That one might and can do both (without resorting to either Kingsfield-like oppression or touchy-feely hypersensitivity) never seemed to cross her mind. The partisan/personal dichotomy is just as false. Every personal thought expresses a point of view that has its place on the continua of partisan politics. And few are the bloggers who are purely manipulators without some personal stake in the points of view they advance. She likes to defy expectations -- that much I'll give her. But given her choice of targets and topics, you'd have a hard time convincing me Althouse isn't in her heart a right-winger. Not hard right. But she supports and has from the beginning supported the war in Iraq, and I suspect there's no more telling litmus test for our time. She's also remarkably adept at distracting from issues that really matter -- like her column criticizing the WRITING in Judge Anna Taylor Diggs NSA wiretapping decision WITHOUT EVER ADDRESSING THE MERITS.

Eric,

I've always been confused by why you like her. Her vapid opinions about politics place her squarely with John Yoo as an authoritarian (without the intellectual heft or evil certitude to argue the point effectively) . Yet, she has many wonderful friends who don't think she's so bad. I can't get over the fact that a woman who is not outraged by the treatment of Padilla, or who is ok with the execution of a Brazilian electrician, thinks Bush is better than Kerry, etc., etc. is someone sho can not be condemned by you, Jack Balkin, and Jeremy Freese to name a few.

ELM: I like her blog because I find it creative and interesting. In the blog world, that's an achievement.

I saw the best minds of my university destroyed by wordpress, sparking unreadable late nights looking for some extra hits.

ELM: This took me a second to get. But it's quite funny.

"she supports and has from the beginning supported the war in Iraq, and I suspect there's no more telling litmus test for our time."

Pat Buchanan, on the other hand, opposes the war and has from the beginning. Does that make him a liberal? Using the war as a litmus test for political views is basically useless. I realize that it's been made the article of faith on the left that support for the war makes one Satan's minion while hostility to it is a prerequisite to being a Democrat in good standing, but that doesn't mean they're correct. If they want to use it as a basis for a purge, they can feel free -- I'd be delighted for Althouse to change sides, although I don't see it happening any time soon -- but there's really nothing inherently liberal or conservative (or even Republican or Democrat) about one's views on the war, as we saw in the midterm, where numerous Republicans opted to rebuke Bush's handling of it.

If memory serves, Althouse voted for Kerry in 2004.

ELM: Not completely sure, but methinks your memory does not serve.

You're right. I poked around her site, and she went Bush in 2004 (but Gore in 2000).

people blog because they want people to read, and hopefully be swayed by what they write. just because you don't care about certain issues or are middle-of-the-road on some issues doesn't make you non-partisan. it just makes you less radical. people blog, not ouija boards.

It isn't an easy distinction to make, and partisanship isn't the word, but there is certainly something there. As an early reader of Talking Points Memo, you could follow his slide from standard bloggery loudmouth, to careful activist, aware of his power, and tried to use his position to effect politics. Not all bloggers try to do this, they see themselves as entertainers or journalists. Trying to be an activist makes you a worse entertainer, which is why I hardly read the TPM empire anymore. It's no longer the work of a geeky history major, but rather a neverending campaign. (Friedman is the equivelent for OpEd writers... he isn't just writing to inform, he is trying to steer the country from the OpEd page. Frustrating for him, and less fun to read than actual journalism.)

Posted by: ouijaboard at February 28, 2007 02:19 PM

people blog because they want people to read, and hopefully be swayed by what they write.

That's an a priori judgment at best, and ipse dixit at worst. People blog for many reasons, and while it's certainly true that many start for that reason with that aspiration - indeed, I'm willing to buy that argument for most purely political bloggers, and virtually every left-leaning political blog - it certainly isn't true for everyone.