The Carpetbagger Report reports that John McCain seems to be moving to the right wrt gay marriage.

Too bad.

[Tags: john mccain]

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I mean this as an honest question: Take a look at this page from WhiteHouse.gov. I haven’t spent a lot of time at that site over the years. Has it always been this blatantly political? [Tags: politics]

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Hao Wu, a Chinese documentary filmmaker and blogger, who’d lived in the US for 12 years, has been detained for a month by the Chinese government without being charged with a crime. Under the name Tian Yi, he’s been an editor at Global Voices. The site at this point has no recommendations for action… [Tags: china hao+wu globalvoices censorship]

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When the Pew Research Center was doing its latest poll (33% of Americans approve of Bush), they asked respondent to say the word that comes to mind when they think of Bush. Here are the top ten responses in descending order:

Pew asked voters to say what word comes to mind when they think of Bush. The top 10 responses in descending order were:

incompetent
good
idiot
liar
christian
honest
arrogant
strong
integrity
ass

Note that when “stupid” is added to “idiot,” it becomes the top choice by a wide margin. [Tags: george_bush politics pew]

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Matt Frei, in his Washington Diary at BBC.com, argues that W has become the nice guy. “The rank and file of his own party are now the nasties.”

Matt points to only two pieces of evidence: The ports deal and Bush’s support for a guest worker program for illegal immigrants. These are indeed two issues where I think Bush is right-ish: The uproar over the ports deal was over-simplified, borderline racist, and damaging to what remains of our reputation (that W has done so much to tear down) as an adult country ready to engage with the rest of the world. And Bush’s immigration proposal is way better than the Republican Great Wall of Mexico plan.

But two issues about which Bush isn’t dead wrong does not get him moved into the Nice Guy column in my ledger. [Tags: bush politics dubai bbc matt_frei]

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Ken Mehlman, chairman of the Republican Party, wrote to me today. The subject heading is “Their real agenda.” Here’s how it opens:

This week, liberal Democrat Russ Feingold called on the Senate to censure the President for a program that is successfully stopping terrorists. After months of searching, Democrat leaders are finally beginning to find their agenda: take away the tools America needs to fight terror. In the last 24 hours, fringe groups like MoveOn.org and Democrat leaders from John Kerry to Harry Reid to Dick Durbin have rallied to Feingold’s side, praising his grandstanding as a “catalyst” for the investigation of the President.

Weakening our national security is their agenda. Is it yours?

The Democrats’ real agenda is to weaken national security? I’ve heard Mehlman speak a few times and I think he’s a smart and personable guy with a sense of humor about himself. But this strikes me as a particularly low attack.

Granted, I’m just a liberal, fringe-groupie Democrat. (Congrats to MoveOn.org on being marginalized and demonized in a single email message!) [Tags: politics republicans ken_mehlman]

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Well, this is not something I expected to be blogging: Senator Bill Frist has blogged about filing an Online Freeom of Speech amendment to the lobbying reform bill, and cites Cluetrain as one of this sources.

He says some good things about why we need to preserve freedom of speech online, although the concrete portion of the bill (judging from his post) seems to be aimed narrowly at keeping the Federal Elections Commission from regulating blog posts as part of campaign finance reform. So, I left the following comment:

As one of the co-authors of the Cluetrain Manifesto, I congratulate you on your defense of free speech in the online, connected world. A free and open Internet is one of the great forces for democratic open societies worldwide, and it’s so important that our own leaders embrace it as you have.

Unfortunately, the openness of the Internet is in very real danger. For example, Net neutrality – making sure the companies who provide the “pipes” don’t get to favor particular content that flows through them – is essential. Then, there are governments and industries that would strip the Internet of its anonymity, which is as good as handing dissidents over to their totalitarian governments. The current length of copyright – so far beyond what the our Founders envisioned – holds back the outpouring of ideas, culture and innovation the Net could set free. Even if the Internet weathers these threats, the digital divide is real and a real inhibition to the equal-to-equal connectedness that is the joy and hope the Internet brings.

So, thank you, Senator, for your strong words supporting that great American value, free speech. It’s heartening to have you join the struggle to keep the Net open and free. I hope you will just as strongly support the conditions that enable the Internet to be a global medium for free speech.

Sometimes the world is weird in good ways. (Thanks to Dan Bricklin for the link.) [Tags: cluetrain bill_frist]

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Mario Sixtus has posted a podcast of his interview of me from a couple of weeks ago. It’s about 15 mins long. (Mario has dubbed in his questions in German but has left my answers in English, so if you don’t speak German you can always play “Guess the question.”) BTW, I didn’t put my fears of digital ID very well, possibly because they’re unfounded and thus can’t be put well: The mere ability to demand hard, digital ID I’m afraid will result in a widespread “Don’t shop here if you don’t like it” attitude, not to mention the fears I mention about what will happen in totalitarian states.

Mario points out that Handelsblatt has posted the podcast under a Creative Commons license, which he thinks may be the first time a major German publisher has used CC. Whether it’s the first or just one of the first, I still say: Yay! [Tags: podcast pr creative_commons]

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[ipdi] Over the horizon

This session is about looking ahead.

Micah Sifry starts with advice for organizers: Find the connectors among all those speaking. Go to the watering holes where people already are rather than expecting them to come to you. Online social networks that are tuned to work on politics may be the next big thing.

Eli Pariser of MoveOn.org warns that darkness may be over the horizon. There is a threat to our medium: We need to preserve Net neutrality, the lack of gatekeepers and the low barrier to entry. The threat is that cable companies and ISPs are trying to change the fundamental rules of the Internet. This should be an issue of personal concern to everyone at this conference. “Intellligence at the edge rather than control in the center is the fundamental design principle of the Internet,” said Vint Cerf, Eli says. There are two reasons for hope, he says: 1. Google and Amazon et al. are in a clash of the titans against AOL/Time-Warner, etc., so intervention can be effective. 2. This is an issue that people across partisan lines can agree on. He recommends NetFreedomNow.com

Valdis Krebs asks how you build networks. Not as part of a campaign effort once every two or four years, he answers. People make real connections by working together on some project. Influence is local; that’s where decisions are made.

Q: What about “GoodMail” from AOL
A: MoveOn has been concerned about this for the same reasons we worry about Net neutrality. “As soon as you move email into a tiered system in which there is commercially certified mail and then everyone else…” When MoveOn first started, it wouldn’t have the funds to deliver the mail. AOL’s white list stops all bulk mailers, so either AOL will continue to invest large amounts of money on its white list or they can say that it’s GoodMail’s problem. We think they’ll do the latter, which will mean if you’re a small or mid-sized entity that sends email, you’re going to have to pay that fee. Tiered email poses all the same problems as a tiered Internet would.

Micah talks about some tech for building genuinely local networks. All the panelists agree that the strong networks aren’t formed for politics but have other interests and centers. Micah, however, thinks that America is a relatively non-political culture. But laterally-connected online groups are changing this because people believe their ideas and contributions matter; by being connected to others, people don’t feel so powerless.

[Tags: micah+sifry eli+pariser valdis+krebs politics moveon]

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Micah Sifry has semi-transcribed the panel discussion this morning at the Politics Online Conference. The panelists were Alex Jones, Dan Gillmor and me, moderated by the estimable Chris Nolan. My favorite quote: “Sincerity is the Achilles’ heel of blogging the way objectivity is the Achilles’ heel of journalism” – Alex Jones. [Tags: media politics]

Dan Gillmor has an interesting post on this as well, from the point of view of an ex-journalist of unquestioned integrity.

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