Burnt Orange Report

They don't develop their own netroots community/link to many conservative web communities because if they did, we'd actually have legitimate reason to complain. Brad DeLong and Kos are pretty much reasonable people who have strong (but thought out ) liberal opinions and occasionally say stuff that could be seen as harsh, but the Freepers and the community at LittleGreenFootballas genuinely are a bunch of kooks. This, plus the fact that said conservative blogs are so often simply an extension of the same old top-down message seen on talk radio and more (even Glenn Reynolds sounds like Rush when it comes to foreign policy and some other things), and those who don't fit that category are either libertarians, somewhat moderate/nuanced (Dan Drezner) or have harsh disagreements on some personal pet peeve issues (Andrew Sullivan), and the GOP structure can only officially handle unquestioning support.

I nearly choked when I read what implied that DeLong is a radical. Hardly so; have you read his posts cheerleading job outsourcing? As an economics professor, he makes a case I can't really argue with, in large part because I can't really understand what he's trying to say.

Anyhow, he's hardly a godless commie.

At any rate, I suspect that the average Oklahoma voter will look at this, and probably say, "hmm, the Internet, I hear they have that on computers nowadays."

Byron, you're rumormongering again like the whole Perry affair. But that was then. You don't know the total story. Carson was not just asking people to check out daily kos. He also had an ad on the Nathan newman blog. His ad was next to a picture of an Iraqi child whose brains were blown out. People get mad at that. Nathan is pretty much charging the soldiers with child murder and Carson is advertizing with this extremist. Asking Oklahomans to send him to the US senate? American soldiers are dying in Iraq. Show some loyalty if you want people's votes. The whole story plus links, which you don't have is on my blog.

Well Ricky, it's good to see that you took a break from your lust for Jenna Bush to investigate the matter. I'm sure that if anyone is interested in hearing your side of the story, they'll follow your link.

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I did a fast search there when this first came up, and then a more thorough one later when I had more time: it looks to me that Carson is exaggerating more than a bit on his "half conservative/half liberal" linking in posts. His linkage weights considerably to the left side of blogdom, rather than the right/libertarian.

That said, I'm against snarking on someone for links in posts as the RNSC is doing. My view is that you link within a post to whomever and whatever best illustrates your essay, regardless of their political affiliation. The concept is to provide background material that the reader can view for themselves and then make up their own mind on your arguments.

Legetimately, you critique the argument and the content of a post, not the linkage, unless the linked-to-source clearly rebuts the point the author is trying to use it for - and that's still criticising the content/argument.

The RNSC is engaging in pretty cheap tactics here. I could find a number of things to critique in Carson's stances and voting records, but his blog links wouldn't even be at the bottom of my list.