Topic: NewsBusters
In a Jan. 10 NewsBusters post, Mark Finkelstein recounts "a conference call for bloggers conducted this afternoon by Snow and Brett McGurk [pictured here], the National Security Council's Director for Iraq -- adding, "I had the opportunity to participate on behalf on NewsBusters" -- during which Snow said, "Thank God for blogs." Finkelstein offers no further clarification, so we will be forced to assume a few things.
First, we assume that Snow is thanking God for conservative blogs; we don't think for a moment that a Republican press secretary is praising his Creator for the existence of, say, Daily Kos or Atrios. We can also probably assume, since Finkelstein doesn't make a point of saying how liberal bloggers participated, tjat only conservative bloggers were invited to participate in Snow's "conference call for bloggers." (And given the virtual silence in the conservative blogosphere regarding Spocko, it's safe to assume that his situation never came up in the conference call either, thus permitting an opportunity for Snow to thank God for him, too.) It's highly unlikely that Snow would acknowledge that any liberal blogger plays a role in, in Finkelstein's words, "cutting through the MSM clutter."
And what "MSM clutter" would that be, exactly? When the broadcast networks refused to air the Democratic response to President Bush's address last night? When ABC and NBC uncriticially reported Bush's latest Iraqi troop readiness goal? When a CNN correspondent declared, despite the evidence, that Bush is "very, very popular" in Montana?
Finkelstein has apparently forgotten that not all bloggers are conservative, and liberal bloggers have many of the same bias complaints about the MSM that conservatives do.
