So the blogosphere is awash today in recriminations following an odd post from Zephyr Teachout which led to an absurd news story in the Wall Street Journal which led to Markos defending himself and Jerome pointing out the absurdity of Z's claim.

Zephyr later clarified her position and I commented on her blog there. (Ugh. Blogger. Bad choice there, Z.)

The problem with what Zephyr did is that she managed to take a story about the excesses of Armstrong Willams and turn it into a critical piece about a bunch of lefty bloggers who were, in fact, innocent of the charges she hinted about.

Zephyr's larger points about a "culture of blogging" are equally misguided. Her desire to have "credentialed bloggers" promise not to write about the people who are funding them seems short-sighted: many excellent bloggers are good precisely because their area of expertise is their employer, or friend, or co-worker.

Ultimately, most bloggers get their news from accredited news organizations like the NYT or the WaPo. They blend opinions and fact. And they don't have a reliable revenue stream. All of these should help drive home the fact that bloggers are useful precisely because they have an odd symbiotic relationship with the organizations they pick apart.

What Zephyr and others need to focus on is transparency because that's the one thing that does affect how people view a blogger. I don't care if you work for Richard Mellon Scaife so long as you say so loud and proud on your blog. That way I won't bother reading it.

The images on the site aren't loading properly. Through in a bad router that kept me off the internet most of the day and you've got a recipe for an annoyed Edward. In the immortal words of Mr. Bat, "Grr."

It's all over the blogosphere, but first check out this list comparing Rathergate to the WMD Mess. Some of the best ones are in the comments, so be sure to read down. A few choice favorites:

CIA Agents outed in effort to prevent or punish disclosure:

RG:0 WMD:1

Percentage of Iraqi people who view the US as "occupiers" as a result

RG: no data available
WMD: 92%

The comment thread is also a great example of Godwin's Law.

Howie is not all good or all bad, but today he's on fire:

Courting advertisers may be the motivation, but the appearance is awful. After all, the practice is deemed unsavory enough to warrant a Page 1 piece in The Post Co.'s newspaper.

The company has business interests that are affected by administration policies. It owns a bunch of television stations that have FCC licenses, for example. It even owns Slate! So are we being asked to believe that the Bush administration will not notice that The Washington Post Co. was neighborly enough to cough up 100K for the inaugural bashes? We -- meaning journalists who work in the newsroom -- don't believe that other corporations and trade associations give such contributions without expecting anything in return. In fact, we write about this sort of thing all the time, including yesterday.

And our corporate parent is now playing the same game.

By the way, The Washington Post just got an interview with the president for publication this weekend.

(What? No! Of course there's no connection to the hundred thousand. We have to beg for these interviews like everyone else! But imagine, say, some blogger writing the lead: "The Washington Post, which recently donated $100,000 to President Bush's inaugural, was granted rare high-level access yesterday in the form of a coveted presidential interview. A spokesman insisted there was no connection, but one grizzled media observer, who requested anonymity so he could still submit op-eds to the paper, said: 'Let's face it, the whole thing reeks.'")

Well put, Mr. Kurtz.

You know that loud table? The one that's obnoxious and seemingly oblivious to the somewhat classy restaurant you find yourself in?

Yeah, we were that table. After escorting Dwight to the Bush girls' favorite Democratic hangout, I rolled over to one of Jenna's friend's apartments. A few hours later, our ragtag crew found ourselves down onion way, enjoying some southern hospitality served up by an eph, no less. Then we made it to our table, where we proceeded to redefine the term "outspoken". Review of said restaurant forthcoming.

Later highlights included being locked out of an apartment building, learning Dwight had punctured a tire and managing to successfully avoid the disaster-in-waiting up in the Morg. All in a night's work, I say.

Read this piece on the new CNN chief. Guess what?

He just gets it.

Mr. Klein continually described CNN’s new news concept as "powerful, emotional storytelling," the kind of firsthand reality TV in which anchors emoted and opined more and even the most eye-glazing subjects—Social Security, campaign-finance reform—became stirring conflicts between opposing human faces. If it sounded like old-fashioned newsmagazine fare, well, Mr. Klein said he didn’t like the word "newsmagazine." It was something new, but he didn’t have a word for it.

"It’s almost like what you’d see on the History Channel five years from now," he said. "We can do it today. We’re living history."

Mr. Klein explained that this sort of long-form "storytelling" would fill more cable hours, so they wouldn’t be dependent on incessant interviews with Scott Peterson’s former girlfriend, Amber Frey. Mr. Klein said they had resisted covering the aftermath of the Peterson trial, which Ms. Grace and Mr. King had flogged ruthlessly for the last few years.

"You know, we killed our Amber Frey interview," said Mr. Klein. "We didn’t pursue it. Everybody else did an Amber Frey interview this week, and they did decent numbers. But we didn’t do it. You know, it’s about living up to the brand promise."

Sure, he says "emotional" a little too much, but the basic concept is straightforward: report the news rather than on the news, which Fox is famous for. The other day I saw a Fox anchor interviewing Zell Miller...he asked him, "Hey, remember at the convention, when you said that John Kerry was throwing spitballs at the enemy? Where'd you come up with that?" By contrast, instead of discussing useless political inside-baseball-trivia, CNN was showing a reporter standing in front of tsunami devastation asking questions to locals. That's news.

I'm glad Klein gets it. This is exactly what I've been clamoring for:

The question of whether viewers want straight reporting in America—the kind that CBS, ABC, NBC and CNN had the resources to provide and often have—remains an open one. Walter Isaacson, former CNN president, biographer, Time managing editor and chief executive of the Aspen Institute, suspected they do. "As the world of journalism fractures into more and more niche opinionated markets, there will become more of a demand among a lot of people for straightforward reporting," he said. "Somebody has to actually go to the scene and report the facts. And people are going to want it."

GIve us straight reporting! Now!

Whew.

HFS is dead.

Wow. That was sudden. I still listened to HFS fairly regularly...what a loss.

I'd like to bow to our new El Zol overlords.

I don't often link to stories on dailykos because I assume most people will have seen stuff there. But this story is important to reiterate.

How keeping NH as first-in-the-nation meets any of his criteria for reform is beyond me, since the "little guy" who came out of their primary was John Kerry -- the establishment choice himself. And how fair was it? Not fair to the 48 other states which had no say in the matter.

Fact is, support for keeping IA and NH at the vanguard of the primaries is simply a selfish excercise (sic), borne of pure self-interest.

If Michigan and DC had held the first two primaries in the nation, I feel strongly things would've gone much differently. And now, having been to Iowa, I can honestly claim that people there are no smarter than the people here in DC or in Michigan. It's actually a nice segue to the ongoing debate in Slate between the authors of Blink and The Wisdom of Crowds.

Viewed through a time-slice prism, many Democrats indicated that Dean was their "gut choice" but that after some thought, Kerry seemed better. (Of course I'm talking about the post-pundit spin covering Iowa but before New Hampshire. Everything post-Iowa was dominated by Kerry's win and Dean's rally speech, so it was skewed). So how does this apply to the Surowiecki/Gladwell debate?

Put simply, the Iowa caucuses are an exercise in how not to conduct democracy, or a judgment system. Gladwell's argument that people make snap judgments with more accuracy than they do deliberative ones means that the typical Iowan, upon surveying the group, would choose the proper one to be the winner. Of course, with all the focus on Iowa and the candidates, you could say that this occurred months in advance of the actual vote. Everything after that point would be deliberative, and thus, muddy the issue. Surowiecki, on the other hand, might say that the actual Iowa caucus, where the crowd got to vote on a candidate, would be the moment at which the best candidate would emerge. Looking closer though, Surowiecki's thesis is based on an idea of error-correction: that with a large enough sample of people, the cumulative errors contradict one another and the truth is discerned. In a primary, where everyone votes for a candidate (especially if we use IRV, as I'd prefer), this would work. But in a caucus, voters talk to one another. Instead of having error correction, the person who seems the "most assured" or the "most knowledgeable" may convince others to join him. If this person is a self-confessed expert, then the entire point of Surowiecki's thesis, namely, that crowds can do better than experts in certain systems, invalidates the caucus as a crowd-method. Sure enough, the people who were best at convincing their neighbors and friends to vote for Kerry or Edwards managed to do so. The "wisdom" therefore was removed.

So on both levels, the caucuses undermine the tenets of both Blink and The Wisdom of Crowds. Instead the system rewards experts who have deliberated for months about their choice!

I'm not sure that much can be done to reduce the deliberation period for primaries. The media coverage saturation makes it difficult for most people to make a snap judgment. But the media often reflect an internal set of values not revealed to the public at large. If we could get the media to make a snap judgment about our candidate (that he/she's smart, hard-working and the best for the job) that was positive, we'd be set. So far as the primary process is supposed to generate the best possible candidate, adding states like DC and Michigan into the mix can only help to further that goal. Want to see if your candidate is principled and can stand up to the Iowa bullies? Ask him about DC voting rights! Want to see if your candidate can come up with solutions to America's problems? Ask him about urban issues like infrastructure decay and education!

There are few qualities I prize so highly as spontaneity. The ability to alter your plans, leave your worries behind and just ride a wave to an unknown destination is something I've always prided myself on. With age comes a little more coin, which means a little more ability to do impromptu trip-taking. But the little acts of spontaneous fun are still just as nice.

Last night, after planning to hit a regular event in the Morg, Ronald suggested we heat up the grill and light up the fire-pit instead. Within minutes, a car was at our disposal and I was running through Fresh Fields, Supermarket Sweep-style, snagging meat, mustard and buns for burgers.

Back at home, I busted out the brand-new patty-making machine (hand-powered, of course!) I received from the familial unit the other day. A couple blood and Worcestershire spattered countertops later, we had several hamburger patties ready for grilling, with a toasty fire already going in the fire-pit as well. While Ronald slaved over the grill, his friend and I kicked back and enjoyed the less-than-crackling fire in the crisp air. A little later, Loaf and Meat rolled by thanks to some last minute summons of said spontaneity.

A good time was had by all.

Next time, of course, things will be planned better. I'll invite people in advance, ask them to bring stuff, etc. The fire-pit will be properly laid, and the kitchen won't turn into a disaster zone. But the manic thrill of dropping everything and going in a different direction won't be there. It'll be fun but not quite as fresh.

Jill, Kevin and others were discussing Borf last night. Lo and behold, DCist answers our questions. Well, er, somewhat, I guess.

Here's my favorite Borf tag:

Cool, eh?