The Dish

The big problem, as Jeff Jarvis sees it, is not that we are suffering from

an attention deficit ‚Äî that is, that we have so many opportunities for attention, we don‚Äôt know where to put it all; we‚Äôre overloaded, overdosed. This is an extension of the very old argument that life became too complicated when there is too much information available ‚Äî which implies that nirvana was sometime between the Garden of Eden and the Library at Alexandria. … I disagree… What I’m really suffering from is a relevance deficit. I want the means to discover and use the content I find interesting and good, the conversations I find worthwhile, the ads that help me get what I want to get, the emails that are worth answering.

That’s why blogs are still a growth area on the web, I think. Because they are a humanizing way for people to get a grip on all the myriad things vying for their attention online. They are filters of an idiosyncratic but reliable kind. They are the emerging brands of the new media era.

Heart-breaking. More context here.

"The second clause says no law may contradict the principles of democracy. Can you imagine millions demonstrating in Iraq, calling for same-sex marriage, like in Sweden, America, and Britain? Same-sex marriages means a marriage of a man with a man, or a woman with a woman. This is a terrible catastrophe, totally forbidden by Islam. Whoever marries someone of the same sex must be killed. Both must be killed as soon as possible and must be burned as well," – Iraqi Ayatollah Ahmad Husseini Al-Baghdadi.

What prompted the conservative exodus? One reader credits a blogger:

As for Bush supporters jumping ship over the last three months, I think that a lot of credit can go to Glenn Greenwald’s much-discussed post entitled, "Do Bush Followers Have a Political Ideology?," which used you as a prime example of how Conservatives had abandoned conservatism in their loyalty to Bush. Greenwald wrote it in February and after I read it I told my friends that it was the equivalent of the "touch of death" delivered by Uma Thurman’s character in Kill Bill, with Bush’s followers in the David Carradine role. They were dying and they didn’t know it yet, so they blathered about his piece for a while and about how you weren’t really a Conservative, but the noise they made became weaker and weaker as they were forced to accept reality. They’re toast.

At CATO, when Bruce Bartlett and I let rip on Bush’s betrayal of anything faintly resembling the conservatism we knew from the recent past, I noticed the absence of real dissent in a roomful of right-wingers. Fear and loyalty kept up the pretense for a while; and a hatred of the president’s enemies. When all else failed, some resorted to glib avoidance. But in the end, reality does indeed undermine even the most rigid of ideologies. And when reality wins, real conservatives cheer.

The conservative immigration ironies mount.

The Anchoress decides not to blog about politics any more. Wretchard sees some kind of sea-change:

My own hunch is that in the last two or three months there’s been a change in the tone of the blogosphere. Nothing definite, simply a change in atmosphere in proportion to the degree of abstract tendencies of the blogger. Authors who trafficked in ideas and concepts have altered the most. Some have paused to take stock, pleading disgust or confusion; still others have returned to writing as seemingly different persons; others seem to be suffering a kind of nervous breakdown, obsessed with hatred for one or more public figures or inventing new words and finding conspiracies in everything they see.

Is that a thinly veiled swipe at moi? No nervous breakdown here. My own catharsis was the period after Abu Ghraib was revealed. I gave up on Bush over two years ago. Reality bit me in the keister.

My own view is that what has happened these last few months has been the final collapse of denial on the part of conservatives about Bush. With the Iraq engagement offering little but incremental progress and demoralizing, daily bloodshed, conservatives are asking why they liked Bush in the first place. The "war-on-terror" loyalism has broken down. They look at massive spending hikes, a staggering and growing debt, a large expansion of executive power, the biggest new entitlement in a generation, Cunningham-type sleaze, and now a refusal from the president to build a huge new wall to seal off Mexico… and they cannot maintain the pretense any longer. That’s why the polling has collapsed. It’s not as if liberals or libertarians have become more opposed to Bush. It’s that conservatives have finally rubbed their eyes and opened them.

Ken Silverstein crunches the data and comes to a conclusion: "He is funny like Karl Rove is sexy."

(Broken link now fixed.)

Blair backs nuclear power for Britain’s future. If you truly want to address global warming, it seems to me an unavoidable decision. Money quote:

"The facts are stark. By 2025, if current policy is unchanged there will be a dramatic gap on our targets to reduce CO2 emissions, we will become heavily dependent on gas and at the same time move from being 80% to 90% self-reliant in gas to 80% to 90% dependent on foreign imports, mostly from the Middle East, and Africa and Russia.
These facts put the replacement of nuclear power stations, a big push on renewables and a step change on energy efficiency, engaging both business and consumers, back on the agenda with a vengeance. If we don’t take these long-term decisions now we will be committing a serious dereliction of our duty to the future of this country."

Isn’t it great to observe a political leader who’s actually concerned about the next generation?

I see that Dick Morris recently touted a Gore candidacy. Al’s doomed now.

There are no signs of reconciliation toward the president after his speech on immigration. Here’s Gary Bauer in his daily email to supporters:

"I understand the overnight ‘snapshot’ polling data on the president’s proposal was pretty good, but I cannot say the same for the reaction of conservatives. Your messages to me were overwhelmingly negative, suggesting you view this plan as little more than a ‘dressed up amnesty’ bill."

Here’s Richard Viguerie, a man who once rhetorically cast Ronald Reagan from the "conservative" movement:

"[Bush] may get his way, but he won’t get it this year. He may get it next year because the conservatives will be so angry at the Republican leadership – starting with the president, but the congressional Republicans also – that I’d be surprised if many, many don’t stay home, turning the congress over to the Democrats. And, of course, the Democrats, next year, would give the president what he wants because then they’ll be able to govern America for the rest of the 21st Century [with the support of former illegal aliens who had become newly-legalized voters]."

Not happy.

(Photo: Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty.)