"Rush is the man," said Jeffrey Toobin on Journolist.

After Sarah Spitz said she'd immensely enjoy watching Rush Limbaugh die:

Rush cannot be replaced. What people miss about Rush is that he is just astonishingly good as a broadcaster.  He is compelling, funny, entertaining. I haven’t heard Thompson often, but he’s probably pretty lame. Ingraham is ok. I never listen to Hannity on the radio. But Rush is the man.

And for that Jonathan Strong of The Daily Caller counts Toobin as one of the "Heroes of Journolist."

***

On July 20, Rush talked about Journolist, and mentioned Toobin:

Friend sends me a note, "Rush what do you mean? What do you mean here this 'small time, crazy, left-wing bloggers'? Jeffrey Toobin, Eric Alterman, Paul Krugman Joe Klein are crazy left-wing bloggers? They're treated as giants." Let's take 'em individually. Eric Alterman. Do you know who Eric Alterman is? The left may treat him as a giant. I know that they do. He's a kook! He's a far-left fringe kook. But do you know who he is? Do you? Jeffrey Toobin. You might know who he is. He works for the least-watched cable news network in history, CNN. He also worked there when they had viewers. I know he's considered a giant. He's a "legal correspondent." He's considered to be above reproach.

There is no journalism. These people are not journalists. They're propagandists, whether it's Jeffrey Toobin or Eric Alterman or Krugman. Yeah, he's a New York Times columnist; he's a propagandist. He is a giant because he's in the New York Times. But my point is whether it's people you've never heard of on this list writing for blogs you've never heard of or whether it is names you never heard of, it's the entire Washington media -- and it's pervasive. I really do think that the take here is there is no media. This is the big myth. You know, the German historian Carl von Clausewitz once stated "War is diplomacy by another means." Well, journalism is just propaganda now: The government putting out its agenda by another means. There are no reporters. There is no journalism. It's just liberalism....

Eric Alterman and Christopher Hitchens -- on Bloggingheads.

This just went up, so I haven't watched it yet, but I'm ready to presume it's the best Bloggingheads of all time. I love Hitchens -- on camera even more than in writing. And as for Alterman, click on the "Alterman" tag to see what I think of him.

"The image of Alterman in handcuffs is not only funny, it is, on a conceptual level, just."

Ooh! Dennis Perrin is exulting in the Alterman arrest:

... I must confess that reading about Eric Alterman's brush with the law in New Hampshire gave me a happy jolt this morning, for the image of Alterman in handcuffs is not only funny, it is, on a conceptual level, just. This guy is one of the biggest pricks in American political journalism, a classic liberal elitist devoted to the US corporate state, and a firm believer in the "gatekeeper" role of what passes for intellectual culture in this country. And, naturally, Alterman considers himself one of the gatekeepers....

"Ever since the beginning of blogging-time, I have worried -- in public and on blogging panels -- about the loss of the media's gatekeeper function . . . Particularly when the media profess to strive toward objectivity, punditry/gatekeepers play a crucial role. My problem with the punditocracy has never been that they are pundits, but that they are so incompetent at the job they do."

Right. What we need are "competent" gatekeepers to make sure that the rabble know their place. And Alterman is more than willing to help keep this arrangement in place.

Sadly, Alterman got off easy, with not so much as a single baton strike to the gut, or a brief shot of pepper spray in the face.

Yikes. I had something to say about the Alterman arrest in my 7:15 post, and I considered going into my extraneous antagonism to Alterman, but decided to leave it at just a reaction to his presentation of the incident. But now that Dennis has raised the larger question, let me remind you of this post of mine, attacking Alterman for saying we need "some sort of, you know, blogging -- you know -- council, where we could condemn people." And this one. And this NYT column I wrote (free IHT reprint), where I said I "rankled" at his "impulse to control." So I've got to agree with Dennis that there's some poetic justice when the wannabe gatekeeper gets ousted.

Eric Alterman tries to talk his way out of getting arrested for criminal trespass...

... fails and keeps talking in self-justifying email to various bloggers. At the scene of the New Hampshire debate, there was some confusion about where he, as a journalist, was supposed to wait and...

A guy came over and asked me who I was and I told him I was a colmunist for The Nation and he told me I had to leave. I thought he was kind of rude, so I asked him his name, thinking it might go into Altercation the next day. He refused to answer me I asked again. He refused again. But I was following him out when he went to get a cop. The cop told me to leave the room and I did. We left the room, past where the people were handing out badges to go into the reception and I figured the entire drama was over. But the cop kept yelling at me to leave. I didn't understand. I thought I had left. I asked him to stop yelling, I had left. He kept telling me to leave. In retrospect, I guess he was kicking me out of the building and I didn't understand, but it was really mystifying and annoying and I told him I wanted to speak to his commanding officer. We went over to the commanding officer and I, calmly and politely, sought to explain that I didn't know why this cop was continuing to hassle me. The first cop kept interrupting me as I tried to explain myself and finally I turned around and said, "Can I please finish a sentence here?" That's when the first cop decided to arrest me. He handcuffed me behind my back and took me outside.... Anyway, I never refused to leave and the only time I raised my voice was when the first cop would not let me explain what I had thought was a massive misunderstanding to his commanding officer.

"I never refused to leave" seems to mean "I never said I was never going to leave." Can it possibly be the generally applicable rule that a person can stay put and discuss -- however politely -- whether the demand to leave makes sense? Missing from the account is whether Alterman was asked to show his press ID. Anyone could claim to be a columnist (or "colmunist") from The Nation, and the police had the responsibility to secure a building where the presidential candidates were going to appear. This is a serious matter. I can't understand why Alterman would want to make this difficult work any harder for them, and a display of belligerence would, I think, from their perspective, make him look more suspicious. Here's the New Hampshire statute:

I. A person is guilty of criminal trespass if, knowing that he is not licensed or privileged to do so, he enters or remains in any place.... III. Criminal trespass is a misdemeanor if:... (b) The person knowingly enters or remains:.. (2) In any place in defiance of an order to leave or not to enter which was personally communicated to him by the owner or other authorized person....

ADDED: More here.

When bloggers are too intrablog.

I blog (and vlog) about blogging sometimes, but I also try to resist it. For example, in that famous outburst of mine on Bloggingheads recently, I didn't want to impose on viewers by putting a remark that offended me into context, because I didn't think it made sense to appropriate Bloggingheads time to explain an old fight among bloggers. I think viewers (and readers) must get annoyed at bloggers going on about blogging. And I know I'm doing it now. But I ran across this Bloggingheads segment where they go very intrablog for a whole segment and talk about something that they assume we get, but in fact, they are talking about something -- "Blogroll Amnesty Day" -- that I've never even heard of. I mean, I blog a lot, every day, so if there's something about blogging that I haven't heard of, I have to think it's obscure enough to require an explanation. And not only do they talk about it a lot, they are oblivious to the possibility that viewers don't know what they are talking about. Not to mention the problem of whether we'd care if we did know. Last week, I was on vacation, taking a bath in my hotel room and, like the web addict that I am, for something to listen to, instead of something normal like soothing music, I put on the newest Bloggingheads episode. So there I am, lolling in the hot water, listening to Bloggingheads creator Bob Wright and internet god Michael Kinsley and they start talking about me -- me and that time I raised my voice and got mad talking with Garance. And Bob is giving background on the story that includes the sort of thing I thought I'd be misappropriating Bloggingheads time to go into. And asking Michael Kinsley to care. And Kinsley acted like he sort of cared a little, though not enough to really want to rake over the details. Which seemed sensible to me. Anyway, I'm thinking about this because I'm actually going to record a Bloggingheads with Bob today where we'll go into what I called the "old blogosphere flamewar" when I was trying to work through my minute of excessive emotion with Garance. And then we'll also have to talk about my minute of excessive emotion with Garance.... And, good lord, what's this?! So we'll also have to talk about what Garance and Eric Alterman had to say in a new Bloggingheads about me and that time I got mad at Garance. Sigh. It's all sooooo intrablog. And vortex-y.

The Blogger's Code of Conduct.

What do you think of this code? The trouble with a speech code is... well, I hate speech codes! But aside from that general principle, what I foresee is endless argument about the meaning of the terms in the rules and how the rules apply. These discussions will be tedious and full of self-serving assertions. For example, Rule 6 (as it currently appears in the linked wiki):

We ignore the trolls. We prefer not to respond to nasty comments about us or our blog, as long as they don't veer into abuse or libel.

When does a vigorous, challenging writer become a "troll"? When is something "nasty," so that we should keep silent (and expect you to understand the meaning of our silence), and when is it "abuse" or "libel" (so that we should respond)? If you say something mean about me and I don't respond -- and I profess to follow The Code -- does that mean I judge you to be a troll and I concede that you have neither abused nor libeled me? Or why don't we have a big discussion about the infinite subtlety of the weasel word "prefer"? Here's another attempt at a blogging code. Here's a big write-up on the codification efforts in the NYT:

A subtext of both sets of rules is that bloggers are responsible for everything that appears on their own pages, including comments left by visitors.

This is a terribly damaging idea that would stultify debate. But I do think bloggers need to respond and delete when they are notified about certain things, like threats of violence, clear libel, and the fraudulent appropriation of a person's name.

[The codifiers] say that bloggers should also have the right to delete such comments if they find them profane or abusive.

Should? Obviously, we do have this right! I think the point must be that other people don't have the right to criticize a blogger who deletes something if it's whatever The Code ends up saying is deletable. But that is absurd. If there is a code defining deletability, people will argue about whether the standard of deletability is met and also -- not everyone will subscribe to The Code -- about how deleting is repressive. And, of course, there will be assertions of selective deletion -- that is, people will accuse the blogger of only deleting the profane/abusive comments that go against the blogger's ideology. And these accusations will probably be correct. But we'll have to argue about whether they are correct. Won't that be fascinating? ADDED: As you can see from Memeorandum (and as you would predict), a lot of bloggers are writing about the NYT article. Here's Captain Ed:

This is one of those well-intentioned but doomed reform efforts that sound reasonable but will have no chance of changing anything. Before the reform leaves the dock, it has already split into several "standards", which will cause confusion on which logo means what rules and under which circumstances. Bloggers and commenters will have to look for logos, and then will endlessly argue over each individual post or comment as to whether it meets the guidelines.... Most of us came into the blogosphere to get away from editorial restrictions imposed by others. We allow our own judgments and values to guide our publications. That may result in some bruised feelings from time to time, but our readers make the decision as to whether we have met their editorial guidelines, and that should be good enough in a free market.

Ntodd -- who is always saying mean things about me! -- says:

Why do we need any "recommendations" from the leading lights of Web2.0? The whole point of blogging is to bring personal styles and thoughts to bear, not to follow some guidelines that wicked smart people who earn money doing consulting think up. Oh yeah, sure, they're soliciting comments, like this will be some big Come To Blogger Jesus thing and we'll all talk about our feelings, sing Kumbaya, tearfully hug each other at the end of camp and promise to write each other. Then as soon as Mom and Dad pick up us, we'll promptly go back to our old lives and friends and forget about Tim and Jimmy and the cute girl--you know, whatsername--in Tent #4 and the camp mascot dog, Sadie.

Virgil Libertas calls the NYT "Miss Blog-o-Manners" and tells it to "go piss up a rope."

It is nice to see the Times has its eyes firmly on the important issues of our day, rather than unpleasant shit like Iraq, or Afghanistan, or Darfur....

Now that I think about it, the NYT really has an interest in siding with the blog-o-niceness movement. Bloggers are a threat to the Times in part because we can do so many things that a mainstream newspaper can't. So wouldn't it be great if we were stuck with their standards? Stop being vicious and wild! Write like the NYT, and maybe people will just read the NYT. Here's Dan Drezner:

I hereby predict it will go nowhere... The one fascinating thing about [NYT writer Brad] Stone's story is what's not in it. Despite endless complaints about rising partisanship in the blogosphere, no example was given of declining civility in the poliitical [sic] blogosphere. That doesn't mean it's not happening, of course, but it's still surpring [sic] that Stone failed to offer up such an example.

I hope people wake up and notice how the Kathy Sierra story is being leveraged (something I talked about here). A woman received real threats of violence. Those threats are criminal, and Sierra's case is being handled by the police, as well it should be. Nasty, cruel, ugly, unfair, mocking, abusive speech is a completely different matter. Anyone who blends the two subjects is selling out free speech and should be called on it right away. This repressive movement is gaining momentum. Be alarmed now, before it digs in any further. Anyone who wants to write a nice, well-mannered blog with a kindly, benevolent comments section is welcome to do it. But if they also want to stigmatize cutting, mocking, aggressive speech, I'm going to aggressively cut and mock them. Of course, they have the freedom to try to stigmatize the bloggers like me who don't want to be nice, but all they can really do is be nice, nice, nice themselves. And readers will decide for themselves who they want to read. IN THE COMMENTS: Mike reminds me: "I thought we had already agreed to have Eric Alterman police the blogosphere." Oh, yeah. How did I forget that! I recently wrote two -- one, two -- blog posts about it and a NYT column!

"Bong Hits 4 Jesus," "Bong Hits 4 Jesus," "Bong Hits 4 Jesus"...

It never gets old, does it? It's funny, and it will always be funny. "Bong Hits 4 Jesus." People will be laughing about that line in Conlaw classes years and years from now. I hope the Supreme Court writes an interesting opinion, so it can be a main case in the case book, to lighten the load of studying free speech forever. Oh, you think I'm not taking drugs seriously enough... taking drugs seriously... taking drugs ... heh heh heh... what are you, the principal or something? The Principal of the Blogosphere? Eric Alterman already has that job, so settle down. It's time to talk about "Bong Hits 4 Jesus." Heh heh... It never gets old, does it? Well, I had a nice, detailed post on on the "Bong hits 4 Jesus" case -- boringly aka Morse v. Frederick -- but my computer ate it last night. It got the munchies. I had all the lines from the Justices that cracked me up, like when Justice Ginsburg tried to make a hypothetical out of the notion -- who knows why it popped into her head? -- what if instead of "Bong hits 4 Jesus," the banner had said "Bong stinks for Jesus." Now, I assure you I'm not high. For one thing, it's 6 a.m. For another, I haven't been anywhere near marijuana since I sat next to those guys at a Kinks concert in 1973. Also, it's illegal. And unlike some people, for me, the fact that something is illegal is enough to keep me from doing it. Now, take down that banner! Don't you see the Olympic torch is coming through town? It's a torch to ignite all the hopes and aspirations and lofty, sporty thoughts of mankind. Not a cue to light up illicit botanicals. Since I lost the heart to reconstruct my hilarious post from scratch, let me link to Dahlia Litwick's write-up and offer a little commentary:

... [Joseph] Frederick wanted to annoy school administrators, and he wanted media attention, and as we discovered today, he chose well on both fronts. He was suspended for 10 days. And we are out in droves to cover his case.... [A]ccording to Kenneth Starr, former righteous independent counsel—now tanned Californian law-school dean—the fate of the drug wars depends upon the unconditional school message that drugs are bad, yet schools cannot enforce that message because smartass kids keep undermining them.

I love that Ken Starr is the one embodying the principal's censoriousness. Like a perfectly phrased 15-foot banner, he's the perfectly chosen purveyor of high school moral standards.

Starr's alternative...: Schools get limitless discretion to craft broad "educational missions" and are then free to squelch any student speech that "undermines" them.

I love the way that formulation is so well-framed as a general principle yet so utterly disturbing. To be fair, Starr doesn't argue for "limitless discretion." He argues for deference to the reasonable decision of the school official.

Souter ... insists that the "bong hits" statement itself should be scrutinized for its meaning. The way Cheech and Chong might strive to seek meaning in a Hansen song. But Kneedler responds that the only person who can determine the banner's meaning is the educator who banned it. "But won't the principal always prevail?" asks Justice John Paul Stevens. Um, yes. That seems to be the point.

Souter had a really good point, actually. Kneedler was making a distinction between speech that supports illegal drug use and speech that advocates legalizing marijuana. Souter posited that "Bong hits 4 Jesus" could be construed as an argument for legalization, through the literary device of ridicule.

By the time Douglas Mertz gets up to argue on the students' side, it looks like he's already won, if for no other reason than the justices appear horrified by the limitless [sic] power the schools are asserting. But somehow he manages to trigger a second, more terrifying episode of paranoia in them. "This is a case about free speech, not drugs," he opens, but Roberts clocks him with: "This is a case about money. Your client wants money from the principal for her actions." Then Kennedy jumps in to ask what kind of kid would go after "a teacher who has devoted her life to this school, and you're seeking damages from her for a sophomoric sign."

I was surprised to see Kennedy blatantly show sympathy for one party over the other like that. And Roberts's point seemed strange. Cases about things that happened in the past are nearly always, in some way, "about money." Why bring it up here? Because it's horrible that a poor educator should ever have to pay? Later, however, Roberts nails it. The case is about whether there was clear law that the principal should have known, which is required before damages are available against a government official who has what is called "qualified immunity":

Can we get back to what the case is about? You think the law was so clearly established when this happened that the principal, that the instant that the banner was unfurled, snowballs are flying around, the torch is coming, should have said oh, I remember under Tinker I can only take the sign down if it's disruptive. But then under Frazier I can do something if it interferes with the basic mission, and under Kuhlmeier I've got this other thing. So she should have known at that point that she could not take the banner down, and it was so clear that she should have to pay out of her own pocket because of it?...And so it should be perfectly clear to her exactly what she could and couldn't do. MR. MERTZ: Yes.

The opportunity for humor is ripe and Scalia snags it:

As it is to us, right?

Souter explains the joke:

I mean, we have had a debate here for going on 50 minutes about what Tinker means, about the proper characterization of the behavior, the nonspeech behavior.

One of the finest points in this case is what it means for a message to be "disruptive" (a key concept in Tinker). This case is about something that happened on the street and not in a classroom. The banner was, of course, silent, and the occasion was a parade. It's quite different from disruptive speech during a lesson. Scalia offered a distinction between "disruptive" and "undermining." The school's real objection is that a pro-drug message undermines the message it endorses. That is, they don't want disagreement and debate. They still convey their anti-drug message all the time, and this student isn't interrupting them or even distracting anyone from hearing that message. He's just delivering a counter-message on another occasion, and they object to the argument. That should be held to violate the First Amendment. But the Court can also say that this wasn't yet clear, which would save the principal from having to pay damages. It would, however, set the stage for the next suit for damages, as the Court can use this case to make the law clear. And it should.

"She's the only woman we got, practically."

Says Mickey Kaus -- talking about me -- with Bob Wright, in this segment of the new Bloggingheads. Gah! Am I talking about myself too much today? I really don't think it's all about me, but it's just one of those days. And, actually, I'm not talking just about me. I talked about retro sexuality, dirty words, and the scrotum-y look of Bill O'Reilly's neck or whatever the hell that first post was about. It's not all about me, but it is about me and some rather low things. And so Bob has this obsession with why more women don't like Bloggingheads, and how he had to ask me what's causing that -- hence Mickey's wisecrack -- and then how my answer was pretty much about my own opinion -- as a woman -- rather than more broadly stereotypical ideas of what women want. (Bob's very into gender difference.) Bob thinks I was "scathing," in that I called Bloggingheads "grim" and "remorseless." Whoops! He heard me. That was a rather harsh thing for a woman to say. Then there's this:

Bob: I think we should encourage Ann Althouse to come up with what would... Just turn her loose. She should do her dream Bloggingheads that women are going to like, and she should decide who she wants to do it with, and if they are game, we will get a camera to them, whether they are in the North Pole or North Korea. Wherever. Unless it's North Korea. We can't do that. We will get a camera to them. Mickey: The Bob Wright estrogen challenge. Bob: Yeah. Yeah. Mickey: That's good. Although I have a feeling... Ann Althouse is a pretty argumentative person, so the... Bob: She'll pick a fight. Oh, she and Eric Alterman. Mickey: I think that she's got to provide a sort of nurturing... Bob: The Althouse-Alterman thing, the Alt-Alt thing, is out of control...

Well, they left the thought unformed, but you can see what they both were thinking. I'm not really a good representative of the female mind, because I'm not feminine enough! They both essentially said that. Especially Mickey. But Bob did make an offer that I should accept. I need to come up with a Bloggingheads partner who would do the kind of diavlog that women would like, which, of course, I'll take to mean I get to do one that would be what I would like. Suggestions?

Eric Alterman contemplates whether he has "the typical liberal tendency toward fascism."

I inspired his reverie, not because I accused him of having a tendency toward fascism. I just quoted something he happened to say while rambling along in a Bloggingheads conversation:

"I think it would be valuable if we had... uh... I mean, there's some sense where blogs correct themselves if you read enough of them, but I still I think it would be good if we had some sort of, you know, blogging -- you know -- council, where we could condemn people. Sort of... responsible body. You could still blog if you want. Nobody's going to stop you. But we're going to... everybody's gonna know that you're not to be trusted... unless you can sort of apologize or answer for yourself."

I thought it was revealing, and I used the quote (cut down a bit) in my NYT column yesterday. (Free here.) On the blog, I said I was "put off by the mindset he revealed" -- that desire to "blacklist" -- and in the NYT, I called it the "impulse to control." Alterman is right to read my quoting and characterization as a very harsh accusation. I wouldn't call it "the typical liberal tendency toward fascism," as he does. If I was going to use the inflammatory word "fascism," I wouldn't say "the typical liberal tendency toward fascism," which makes no sense to me. At the very least, I'd replace "liberal" with "left-wing" or "illiberal." The idea of fascism does come up in the comments. In the second comment, Jeff says: "The leftist will to power (and more importantly, control) rears its ugly head." A little further down, Mike just says: "Fascism - Oppressive or dictatorial control." And John takes a hard (but humorous) swipe:

Alterman is one of those pathetic little mediocrities who in another time and place would be a very dangerous person. Put him Weimar Germany, revolutionary France or early Soviet Russia and he would be full fledged rhetorical thug pushing the brown shirted masses to smash windows and heads. As it is, he is just fascist little prick whom you hope will disappear like a rash if properly ignored. I almost hope he would start such a council just so I can start blogging and get on the blacklist.

Later, Mike comes back with:

I don't think Eric Alterman is a fascist (though he is many other disagreeable things) but I find it amusing that it is his ilk who are prone to hurl that term, yet it is they who are the control freaks.

So Alterman is right to feel provoked and, really, embarrassed to have shown so much of an urge to repress and control. His own words were telling. It's not my habit to type out spoken word, and I don't monitor Bloggingheads episodes for stray quotes to use to make people look bad. That quote jumped out at me and demanded transcription. And I think Eric knows he was saying something bad. The pattern of the stammer, with the double "you know," is telling. Let's work our way through Eric's reverie.

1) It was a conversation. I was just sort of musing.

Right! That's why it's so interesting. The things people say when they let their guard down...

But still, it's fair game.

Damn right.

2) I do actually believe what I said. Ever since the beginning of blogging-time, I have worried -- in public and on blogging panels -- about the loss of the media's gatekeeper function. Now, I believe I literally wrote the book on this topic -- and it's about to go out of print for the second time, so if you don't own it, hassle Cornell University Press -- and I am as aware as anyone on earth, I believe, of the dangers of the misuse of that function. Almost all of my books deal with this tension in one way or another. But the fact is, the function is absolutely necessary. A democracy of hundreds of millions of people is functionally impossible for reasons it requires an entire book to explain. Particularly when the media profess to strive toward objectivity, punditry/gatekeepers play a crucial role. My problem with the punditocracy has never been that they are pundits, but that they are so incompetent at the job they do.

There you have it. Controlling speech seems to be his mission in life. What's he really saying here? He writes books, and he's obsessed with speech, but he's none too articulate. The "function" of "gatekeeping" is "absolutely necessary." And, speaking of functions, something is "functionally impossible." On a quick read, I thought he was saying that gatekeeping -- that function -- is functionally impossible. But no, what is functionally impossible is democracy. But you'll have to read his book to understand why. Here we see even more of the urge to control. You can't have your democracy, and there are a lot of complex reasons why you can't, as elite, intellectual study shows. I own the truth. I write the books. If you can get your hands on the hard-to-find book and spend some good long time with it, you might come to understand what I already know. I am the gatekeeper of this information explaining why you can't have democracy. Trust me. Notice that phrase "media's gatekeeper function." The media deliver information, but Alterman characterizes that as gatekeeping. The emphasis is on what they don't let out. Not having read his book, I'm not sure what he's driving at in point #1. I get the sense it's that voters are dependent on the media filtering the information well, and bloggers ought to improve that filtering, not bypass it. You don't want too much information, because it might be bad.

3) If bloggers are going to perform this function -- that is, helping busy and usually uninformed people make sense of the world -- we are going to have to employ some sort of standard with which to judge their reliability. If they are pathological liars, psychopaths, religious or ideological extremists who cannot be trusted to tell the truth, well then, it'd be useful to have them branded as such -- in order to keep them from further infecting the body politic with even more lies, ideological obsessions, and intellectual corruptions. True, the mainstream media do not do a great job of this themselves anymore, but many people inside it do try. In many cases, their brands and relationship to their peers depend on it.

Speech as disease! Some speakers are sick, and they may cause infection! He would justify quarantines. This man does not believe in free speech. He will not put his faith in the marketplace of ideas and the remedy of more speech.

4) Bloggers tend to argue that this problem will sort itself out over time.

That's scarcely some eccentric blogger thought. It's the core idea of American free speech.

I worry about the "over time" part. I also worry about all the damage that can be done in the interim.

This is the mindset of a censor. Of course, you mean well. You're here to save us from ourselves.

And so I raised it on Bloggingheads.tv and offered up a notion in response. Maybe it's a bad idea. It's not as if I gave it any thought before I said it.

Well, you did write those books. This is your area of expertise, isn't it? It's just that you let the words tumble out this time, and it showed more ugliness that you would have liked. If only you could control things more, control freak.

But I'm not convinced it is [a bad idea]. Or at least, I've yet to see a better one. After all, it's a panel of bloggers; it's the judgment of one's peers and it would enjoy no power whatever, save the influence it amasses by virtue of the quality of its judgments. Just what is so threatening about that?

I'm not threatened by your panel. I simply loathe your censorious frame of mind, your fear of speech as sickness, your urge to control and purify, and your belief in the beneficence of panels. I thank God that I live in a country where the institution you dream of would not be allowed to "enjoy power." So now, instead of quivering in fear about what my supposed "peers" would like to do to me, I'll have another cup of coffee and a nice little giggle over the way you finally expressed some faith in the marketplace of ideas -- when it came time to talk about why your damned panel should be trusted. I love a little irony in the morning.

It's me and Jim Pinkerton on Bloggingheads.TV!

Enough with the Eric Alterman on Bloggingheads. My diavlog is up now. I'm gabbing with the estimable Jim Pinkerton. Topics (with times):

Iraq inspires Arab romanticism (as Isaiah Berlin predicted and Doug Feith didn't) (07:13) McCain is yesterday, Hagel is today. Giuliani tomorrow? (07:57) Romney's ecumenical appeal (02:18) Justice Kennedy begs for love and money (09:33) Britney shaves head, Anna Nicole completes career (09:22) Why Edmund Burke would like "American Idol" (04:56) What do women want? Not Bloggingheads.tv? (13:07)

Eric Alterman thinks there should be a "blogging council" to condemn bloggers who go wrong.

Alterman is talking with Mark Schmitt on the new Bloggingheads. They've just discussed the problem the Edwards campaign had with the bloggers it hired. (Eric says, and I agree, "You can't credibly blog for a campaign.... You can have a campaign blog as long as it's not a real blog.") And they're fretting about the way bloggers can damage a campaign by floating a rumor. Then Eric comes out with:

"I think it would be valuable if we had... uh... I mean, there's some sense where blogs correct themselves if you read enough of them, but I still I think it would be good if we had some sort of, you know, blogging -- you know -- council, where we could condemn people. Sort of... responsible body. You could still blog if you want. Nobody's going to stop you. But we're going to... everybody's gonna know that you're not to be trusted... unless you can sort of apologize or answer for yourself."

Alterman's affect is so flat that you can't detect if perhaps he's joking. In any case, I'm sure he doesn't think it is too likely to happen. But I was put off by the mindset he revealed. He'd like a blacklist. Anyway, if there were such a list, it wouldn't be the case that "everybody's gonna know" anything. We'd just be forced to blog about the damned council and what's wrong with it. It could never be neutral. Why do I feel so sure I'd be condemned by a council appointed by Alterman? Also in this Bloggingheads segment, Alterman complains that bloggers mix too much about their personal lives into their political opinions, as if they think the personal information bolsters the argument: "Tom Paine didn't say 'Common Sense' is a good idea because I'm such a hip guy." But of course, Tom Paine would have blogged, and he probably would have come across as a cool guy, and we would perceive that as bolstering his argument. Eric is especially perturbed by Andrew Sullivan's personal revelations, notably his description of curling up with his boyfriend in bed on Valentine's Day. I can't find that post on Sullivan's blog, and I looked through the archive of that week, which didn't seem too personal at all. In fact, it has an extraordinary variety of posts on many subjects that are not Sullivan's personal life. In the course of expressing his hostility toward personal blogging, Alterman lets us know that he went to a "dirty movie." Then it turns out it was the surrealist classic "Exterminating Angel," directed by Luis Bunuel and screened at Lincoln Center. This reminds me of the time my friend ridiculed the hell out of me for saying I was just doing some light reading, and then had to confess that the book was "The Clouds" by Aristophanes. [CORRECTION: Joseph Angier points out in the comments that the movie playing at Lincoln Center was "'Exterminating Angels' - which is some kind of new French arthouse quasi-porno film that screened as part of a Film Society of Lincoln Center festival last week." And I do hear Eric say the "s" in the recording. My point still stands though, because we're talking about a very classy, arty film.] ADDED: A commenter points me to Andrew Sullivan's Valentine's Day column. It reads in full:

We watched "Basic Instinct" last night with a bottle of champagne and freshly-made brownies. I'd never seen it before. It was washed down by a HD Sunrise Earth special on Machu Picchu. Life is good when you're in love and have a widescreen television.

Here's what Alterman said:

Too many bloggers feel that their private lives are intrinsically interesting. And maybe they are. But in a very unhealthy way. In a very Us Magazine, not even a People way. In an Us Magazine way. And I think that interferes with the quality of ... the ability of one to make one's argument on the quality of one's argument.... And I think too much blogging is taken over with too much cuteness, too much personality, and not enough of the quality of the argument.... Getting off the topic of silliness, like Andy, Andy, curling up... I just noticed this because last week he wrote about Valentine's Day, how happy he was to be curling up in bed with his boyfriend to watch a DVD. I'm like: Why do I have to read this?

I didn't find the post because I used the search terms "bed," "boyfriend," and "curl," none of which appears in the post Alterman referred to. Would Alterman's council condemn me if I wrote that I detect a whiff of homophobia? IN THE COMMENTS: Snarky, but true, from Undertoad:

[I]t's no surprise that Alterman doesn't like bloggers to show their personality. Because he loses in that category.

AND:

Beware bloggers of ill motive and shoddy skill. You are being watched. And for the glory of all the blogosphere and the citizens therein, you shall be brought to the scouring light of truth by this Council.

Look out!

"I find this very much akin to what we did with C-SPAN about 25-30 years ago."

HuffPo has a piece about Bloggingheads.tv — including the news that C-SPAN founding chairman Bob Rosencrans is putting money into it:

Rosencrans said he was instantly charmed by Bloggingheads TV when longtime friend Wright introduced him to it last November. "It got better and better as I watched it, and seemed like something really unique," said Rosencrans... Though contributors will continue to vlog for free, [Bob] Wright says he hopes to someday be able to pay them (and points out that he himself draws no salary, and has invested his own capital.) So far Heads like Matthew Yglesias, Ezra Klein, our own Arianna Huffington, Spencer Ackerman, Jonathan Chait, Joshua Marshall, Glenn Reynolds and the Alts — Eric Alterman, Ann Althouse and Jonathan Alter — don't seem to mind, nor does the still-ubiquitous and generously-browed [Mickey] Kaus.

The Alts!

Though obviously enthusiastic about the venture, Rosencrans said he has no plans to meddle in its success. "Bob has control - it's important that it's done based on his integrity and his vision," he said. "I find this very much akin to what we did with C-SPAN about 25-30 years ago — let it run, let it develop and the right people will take it on. Their integrity is the key to developing a very solid business." Also reminiscent of C-SPAN is its emphasis on substance over flash: "I love the civility of the discussion," he said. "That's unique on television." (That could just be because it's very difficult to imagine yelling at the mild-mannered and highly-respected Wright.)

I guess he didn't see the one with Byron York and David Corn. And I think Mickey kind of yells at Bob sometimes, doesn't he? It's not all that mild-mannered -- at least not all the time, isn't it? And there's some flash. Like that time Bob put a pencil in his ear.