I hear, more and more, mainstream rightwing news organizations attacking blogs on the left, and indeed blogs in general. A whole bunch of generalizations that could apply to the left or the right. They are attempting to frame the word “blog” the way they framed the word “liberal”. Consider this a warning.

The Electoral-Based Community:

…Democratic party seems to be under the impression that bloggers are an enormous, important constituency–and that it must go to whatever lengths necessary to win the hearts and minds of this virtual community.

…This seems like a major miscalculation, because the politics of the left-wing blogs are far out of the American mainstream. Where most of the 120 million Americans who voted in the last election bear a benign indifference to political matters, the left half of the blogosphere seethes with hatred for George W. Bush and his supporters. What’s more, the blogs take numerous positions that would strike all but the most passionate Democratic partisans as patently preposterous. For example, several of the left-wing blogs recently ran an advertisement that referred to West Virginia Senator and former Ku Klux Klan Kleagle Robert Byrd as an “American Hero.”

Also, the level of discourse on the Daily Kos and other prominent liberal blogs is not something that would be attractive to the majority of the American public. The writings are often obscene and usually relentlessly hostile and negative. Crude personal attacks, whether aimed at right-wing bloggers or politicians, are the order of the day.