The Virtual War Room

As well as writing a blog for the past six months, I've been reading them.

I've come to the conclusion that Bloggers 2004 serve much the same function(s) as "the war room" did in 1992. James Carville and George Stephanopoulos worked for Clinton, planning strategy and firing off answers to the various charges made by primary and general election opponents.

Their skill and tenacity helped Clinton, already a gifted politican, come from far behind in both the primary and general elections.

In many ways, I imagine much of my blogging in this way. I've searched a lot of speeches, interviews and press conferences to demonstrate duplicity in Bush administration statements about Iraq, preemptive war, WMD, and terrorism.

For a great recent example of other bloggers doing this same kind of "war room" work, check out Calpundit's latest information about the Bush National Guard service record. It's stunning, suggesting that Bush may have been in disciplined in 1972, transferred to a "paper unit" and was quite vulnerable to Vietnam service. Calpundit doesn't answer all the riddles, but he has taken this farther than any mainstream media source. For one thing, he has physical evidence and real analysis backing up his claims.

Believe me, as someone who reads a number of blogs regularly now (check out the list on the right), this happens with great regularity on blogs. If I were a better blogger, I'd point readers to those cases more frequently.