"Bush's Blogger Envy"

Washington Post staffer Dan Froomkin has his take on the President's meeting with the adoring sycophants milbloggers last Friday.

Hey, I was just happy to get mentioned in this article, vice the first one in the WaPo by Michael Abramowitz. In that one I'm just quoted without attribution and no link. Damn Blackfive and his Huge Presence anyway! ;^ )

I decided to drop a note to Mr. Froomkin.

Dan - at least you mentioned and linked me! Blogger heaven, right?

You're right - the President didn't offer up much in the way of true newsy stuff, and I at least wasn't naive enough to expect that he was going to. Nor, really were most of us. My sense of things was that the White House communications crowd were trying to give some props to people they see as a generally friendly (though we aren't all completely friendly, I ragged on Rumsfeld through most of his tenure) and told the President that I was not a fan of invading Iraq as preface to my question on the subject (which I'll be posting tomorrow).

But you get big props from me for quoting with attribution and linking... which is more that I can say for Abramowitz!

We aren't the rubber stamps we appear to be, nor is the milblogging community as homogeneous as it might appear.

But since most of us exist as a counterpoint to what we see as the MSM viewpoint, we do, therefore, tend to present things in a different light.

Myself, I try to tell the stories not told - and no, I don't focus on the negative ones - why? Because the MSM is going to do that, it sells papers, on-air advertising, supports the narrative, and the MSM is a business, with only so many column-inches and air-time to work with.

I don't suffer that constraint, in a sense, so I try to tell the stories not told, present the views not heard, which support my retired soldier narrative.

Unlike some of my fellow, higher-traffic bloggers, I know I'm not going to supplant the MSM, nor do I even want to try. I complement, contrast, and do some fact checking now and again, within my areas of personal expertise.

And did you know that one of the people at that meeting serves on an advisory committee to a Democrat Representative?

I bet you didn't. Because you didn't look, because it doesn't fit your template for us.

Cheers,

John

The Kossack response I've found thus far is this (and I admit, I haven't been looking very hard) and is from Markos himself:

Pretty pathetic -- Righty bloggers acting like fangirls in a meeting with Bush at the White House. These kinds of things are pretty silly, which is why I skipped the "blogger meeting" with Bill Clinton. I had better things to do with my time.

Here's the first rule of politics I learned -- politicians never give up anything interesting. Staffers do. So I'll meet with staffers all day and have a blast. But with the politicians? They're generally worth little more than a photo op, and I don't care for photo ops.

Heh. He's right. So, now I have emails and face time with... staffers. And I got to meet the President and not just in a "receive" mode, either. Isn't that what Kos just said to do?

Digby was, well, let's just say Digby was even less impressed. Hey, fair and balanced, that's us!

Note to Kos and Digby - if Mrs. Clinton wins, and her staff suffers a brain infarct, and I get invited to the White House - I'll still be impressed with the majesty of the office, and give the occupant thereof polite attentiveness, and won't go with the intent of getting in their face. That's just not useful. And I'll try to cultivate the contacts with a democrat communications team, too.

Why wouldn't I? After all, whoever sits in the office - they're the President. Even when I didn't like what he was doing, or saying, or how he was behaving with interns, President Clinton was still my President, and I'd have accorded him the same respect in person I gave President Bush last week. Even if I didn't have to because I was an active duty officer during his Presidency.

It's just polite.

But then - that's one of the many differences between I and those who suffer BDS and CDS.

Update: Fuzzybear Lioness unsheathes her claws and takes a swipe or two at Mr. Froomkin's attitude. All y'all otter go read it.

Update: The left side of the Milblogosphere has been heard from. H/t, Ry.