Thursday, April 03, 2008

Is the military buying bloggers?

I know it's a cliche, but you really can't make this up...
A study, written for U.S. Special Operations Command, suggested "clandestinely recruiting or hiring prominent bloggers."

Since the start of the Iraq war, there's been a raucous debate in military circles over how to handle blogs -- and the servicemembers who want to keep them. One faction sees blogs as security risks, and a collective waste of troops' time. The other (which includes top officers, like Gen. David Petraeus and Lt. Gen. William Caldwell) considers blogs to be a valuable source of information, and a way for ordinary troops to shape opinions, both at home and abroad.

This 2006 report for the Joint Special Operations University, "Blogs and Military Information Strategy," offers a third approach -- co-opting bloggers, or even putting them on the payroll. "Hiring a block of bloggers to verbally attack a specific person or promote a specific message may be worth considering," write the report's co-authors, James Kinniburgh and Dororthy Denning.
I learned of this report from Brad Friedman, whose response was simple:
Why won't somebody please buy me off?! I'm a "prominent blogger", or close enough to it. I'm starving over here...
My theory is that Brad isn't prominent enough. But I can name a few who are: Marshall, Moulitsas, Skinner, Avarosis...

I'm not saying they have been purchased (in fact, I don't think they have been) -- simply that they've crossed the prominence threshold.

As I have not. Nevertheless, my Beloved Readers will -- but of course! -- accuse me of taking the pay-off, not because I live well (Brad and Larisa will confirm my parlous circumstances, should anyone care to inquire), but because I say things that people do not wish to hear. That is your sole criterion for the presumption of bad faith.

Now, the truth is, I could become a truly prominent blogger (as opposed to a somewhat notorious curmudgeon) very rapidly -- if I wanted to sell the addicts the dope they crave. In fact, I have strong reason to believe that, through the simple expedient of creating a fake website out of whole cloth, using a large amount of "borrowed" material -- I could, within a mere day or two, garner triple the readership attained by Cannonfire over the course of four years. Of course, one can fetch stats of that sort only if one is willing to publish an absurd H-O-A-X targeting everyone's favorite she-demon, Queen Hillary the Evil.

It has been said that intellectuals read to be challenged while the mediocre read to have their prejudices confirmed. What more can one add?

4 comments:

gary said...

Yes, it's too bad that you are not willing to publish "an absurd H-O-A-X targeting everyone's favorite she-demon, Queen Hillary the Evil."

Didn't you just do that the other day?

Anonymous said...

"My theory is that Brad isn't prominent enough. But I can name a few who are: Marshall, Moulitsas, Skinner, Avarosis.."

No, the military would be more likely to want "I'll do what ever want just get me Elected" Hillary Clinton.

JS

Joseph Cannon said...

That is NOT Hillary's attitude. You have described Obama's attitude. He is the one who has deliberately and deceitfully used false charges of racism.

And he is a crook. Stop parroting the progblogs while thinking that you are capable of original thought. Do some real research into Obama's lies and corruption.

Anonymous said...

I'm telling you Joe, Kos is CIA. Listen to him admit he started the CIA training program in December of 2001, mere months before founding DKos. This screenshot reveals he may have still been working for them after the founding of DKos in May of 2002. It is a fact that in his speech, he claimed his stint with the CIA ended when he began working for Howard Dean. He announced this contract June 9, 2003. Said Kos:

"I’ve been on the road a lot the past few months ( . . . ) the bulk of it was for my new political consulting firm (alongside my partner). I spent this weekend in Burlington, VT, where we officially accepted work on behalf of presidential candidate Howard Dean."

Ileana