Speaker of the House Starts Blogging 330
Bjimba writes "Denny Hastert, the Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, has just started his own blog on the official speaker.gov site. I don't know if he'll keep up with it, but from reading his initial post, it seems clear that he's not employing ghostbloggers."
His words seem genuine (Score:3, Insightful)
Notice no comment section (Score:4, Insightful)
I know I'd sure like to comment on Hastert's mention of fiscal responsbility. It's refreshing to know that cutting money to find deadbeat dads is top on the Republican's fiscal responsibility list.
Flame Warning Heaven forbid we cut corporate welfare to the most profitable corporations in the country. I wonder how many of them are actually headquartered in the country? Returning to anti-flame levels
Pretty good, but the Republican Playbook is bogus (Score:3, Insightful)
New Political Reality (Score:5, Insightful)
If we expect our policiticans to start web-logging their daily thoughts, we're going to have to be a lot less hard on them about what they say. Our politicians, like the rest of the human race, are going to have ideas that, when fully thought out, are really bad. In maintaining weblogs some of these bad ideas are going to see international publication.
Will we allow our politicians to recant later, and say "well, yes, I guess that article I wrote was racist/imperialistic/unconstitutional, now that I look at it again, please don't hold it against me?" More importantly, will the news media be willing to let things like that die or pass unnoticed?
(Yes, I used the preview button once, No, I didn't give this post a lot of thought.)
Why's that unusual? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Notice no comment section (Score:5, Insightful)
RSS feed missing. (Score:4, Insightful)
I have noticed that his blog does not have any sort of RSS/Atom/XML feed and that makes it difficult to keep up with his latest posts.
Another thing is that there are no places to post public comments. I wouldn't mind if the comments ended up being moderated but I believe there should be atleast some way to post comments on his blog. He could spend a few minutes of his day responding to the people or he could get a staff member to pick out a few good ones each week and he could reply. That would send a very good message to the people.
Should have named it speaker.HOUSE.gov (Score:2, Insightful)
There are *way* too many government people who don't understand DNS and abuse it because they don't bother paying attention. For a while there were standards for naming within .gov and .us, but they're widely ignored. If you're going to have DNS structures for geographical and governmental organizations, you should use them.
And too many (mostly US) government organizations are giving themselves .com DNS names because they think it looks cool. For instance
Re:New Political Reality (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Notice no comment section (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Pretty good, but the Republican Playbook is bog (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Yes, let's hope you support him (Score:5, Insightful)
As for Katrina, he said rebuilding seven feet under sea level didn't make any sense. Frankly, it still doesn't if you approach it with common sense, but emotional and cutural importance seem to have rendered this argument silent.
Re:Notice no comment section (Score:2, Insightful)
So, you had sex with a loser, got knocked up, and now that he ran out on you (surprise!), it's the government's job to find him for you?
Re:Why's that unusual? (Score:2, Insightful)
Sure, he *could* write a blog without spelling mistakes. But you've got to be kidding me if you think this is for real. There is absolutely no way a main stream politician like this would rif in true blog format - it is far too risky. Just like no company does anything publicly without the marketing folks scripting, no politician can afford to shoot from the hip. This just a lame attempt to 'connect with mainstream america'.
Re:Notice no comment section (Score:1, Insightful)
If by "destined" to failure you mean "read faithfully by thousands" you would be right.
For starters forget that its called a 'blog'.
And look at it for what it is: the seemingly unfiltered direct musings of the Speaker of the House. Provided he continues to put out meaningful posts
He has no competition. His page isn't substitutable. If I wanted I could run a nerdy news portal to compete with
But I can't do that to the "Speaker of the House blog"; no matter what I do I'm not the speaker of the house, even if my "This is what I'd be saying if I was speaker of the house blog" became a big success in its own right it wouldn't detract from the real one, ever.
cheers,
Re:Better Late Than Never (Score:3, Insightful)
Unless of course, success gets you a intern under your desk.
Re:Pretty good, but the Republican Playbook is bog (Score:3, Insightful)
Think about it. His blog is hosted on www.speaker.gov -- a US government website. As such, anything that even remotely looks like suppression of free speech would be taboo. The blog would immediately be "crap flooded", essentially DDoS'd by a rain of shit, and he'd be legally unable to remove any of the messages. Crap-flooding contains no useful information, but it is still "speech" and because the web site is a formal entity of the United States Government there would be nothing he could do to stop it.
Not everything boils down to Liberals vs. Conservatives, you know.
Re:RTFB (Score:3, Insightful)
All the republicans are doing is making my daughter or your son and your daughter pay for the messes he is creating..
Sure.. prez can't control the weahter, but could do a hell of a lot better job in managing the infrastructure and support that has made our country what it is. Obviously he doesn't care.
Re:New Political Reality (Score:3, Insightful)
Three points. First, if someone has a truly abominable idea, call them on it. You don't owe them your "understanding". If they are in a position of authority you'd fucking well better set them straight.
Second, this isn't a particularly new challenge for a politician. You've got a lot more opportunity to edit yourself in a blog than you do on the Sunday talk shows, and with the comments turned off, you don't have anyone interacting with you. The only reason Hastert, for example, might be more stupidly off-the-cuff in his blog than on television would be that his handlers aren't coaching him for hours ahead of time. Poor guy.
Third, what a sad state we're in when we elect people so fucking dumb we feel like we have to go easy on them when they say something stupid. I guess that's not exactly a new phenomenon either, the press goes terribly easy on Bush, to the point of tweaking his quotes to make them sound less illiterate. But now the public is expected to do it too? Count me out.
Re:His words seem genuine (Score:3, Insightful)
If there's anything that he needs help with it's setting up a glossary and having links for technical terms of art for legislation so that outsiders can understand the stuff.
Re:His words seem genuine (Score:2, Insightful)
Vote this man up, friends! His condescending use of the word "'Merkin" means he has his eyes on that ever-important World Stage! And "Hasturd"? Delightful! Surely this man is Slashdot's Will Rogers, combining folksy turns-of-phase with a shining wit and deadly satire. And knowing the order of succession to two places? Truly +2 informative; my five-year-old cousin was under the foolish impression that the President Pro Tempore was next up, and I simply had no authoritative source with which to correct him--until now.
Re:His words seem genuine (Score:3, Insightful)
Hell NO. This is a popular notion for some reason, but I for one don't want politicians listening to the great unwashed masses. That's exactly how we get into trouble -- they pander to the masses in order to get votes. Or to put it another way, exactly who are they supposed to listen to? You can find anyone who believes anything.
What I want politicians to do is listen to a small, trusted set of smart people and do the "right thing", regardless of whether it's popular or not.
Re:Yes, let's hope you support him (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:His words seem genuine (Score:1, Insightful)
Where you been? He doesn't believe in nation building, until he starts to engage in nation building. He doesn't believe in government handouts to the poor, until the hurricane comes and he believes in government handouts to the poor. He says he will get Osama dead or alive, then redirects to go to Iraq instead. He said he would bring honor back to the White House, then presides over a mess of indictments (coming up!). He ran his oil business into the ground, then walked away. He toyed with being a baseball owner, then walked away. He joined the Texas Air National Guard, then walked away. Shall I continue?
Re:His words seem genuine (Score:2, Insightful)
This was the whole rationale behind the British House of Lords - and the original inspiration for the US Senate. Its purpose is also served somewhat by traditional monarchies operating under otherwise democratic systems. This is because you need someone (or some people, or both) who are taking the long view of what's good for the country. Without it, you get bread and circuses, followed by revolution. Happens every time (or, at least, it has so far).
Comment removed (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:RSS feed missing. (Score:5, Insightful)
On the down side I got am automated response that said current franking rules don't allow personal responses to non-district people. Might put a serious cramp on a comments section if he can't legally respond at all except to those voiced from people living in his district. I would have to say that is a rather poorly thought out rule considering his position as he now has responsibilities with a nation wide scope... the same applies to reps with certain committee responsibilities that engender decision making responsibilities that impact far more than just a rep's constituency.
Re:Notice no comment section (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Yes, let's hope you support him (Score:3, Insightful)
Educated rebuilding is the smart thing to do, but it's far too costly and angers too many people, so that's precisely why it won't happen.
Theoretically, a tornado can happen at any point on the earth, but we can at least mitigate that sort of localized damage. Only hurricanes (periodic on the coast), earthquakes (periodic in certain areas), and tsunamis (rare) can cause the widespread damage the U.S. clearly can't cope with.
Re:His words seem genuine (Score:3, Insightful)
The only problem with your plan: No such set exists.
Re:His words seem genuine (Score:5, Insightful)
You mean, like, a monarch who listens to his courtiers?
Oh. awesome.
Yes, it sounds good to say that you as a leader should not swayed by popular opinion and should follow your core set of principles. But.. what happens when those principles are unpopular? Well, guess what: you lie to the people. If you're confident enough, you'll tell yourself that It's For Their Own Good. Lots of people think they're doing the Right Thing.
But unless you want dictatorship, the masses have to be trusted. The great unwashed masses, as you call them, are actually reasonably smart and moral. They are not a mob. They are you. You are saying you do not trust yourself. You want a strongman to make the tough, unpopular decisions that you and your neighbors cannot. Well, Saddam is available.
So out with democracy then? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Yes, let's hope you support him (Score:3, Insightful)
Y'know, there is Truth, but it has many facets. If you walked up to a young child at his father's wake and said, "Y'know, your father was too fat. He'd probably still be alive if he didn't eat so much," you're telling the child the unquestionable Truth, and by some ideologies, the we should Always Tell Children the Truth. But it's only one facet of the Truth. You could focus on how much the father loved the child, and how as a result the child will always be taken care of because his family loves him soo much too. Those are also undoubtedly facets of the Truth too.
The facet of the Truth you fasten on to in a particular time and place reveals a lot about you, your values, and your priorities. In particular it reveals whether the humanity and suffering of other people is a reality for you, or whether they're just props in your narcisssitic self-narrative.
There will come a time when we ought to make painful decisions about the future of New Orleans, and it will be soon. But it is wise to be circumspect in this matter. Much of the fate of the city will be determined by the collective effect of the decisions of its refugees. A wise policy is to see to the immediate needs of the victims, see how things develop, and react in a practical, efficient yet humane way. By rashly betraying a premature position on this, Hastert has not only solidified a "rebuild everything at any cost movement", he'll probably have to jump on board in order to show that he is not unfeeling. The best interests of the victims will in any case be lost in the shuffle.
Re:His words are lies (Score:3, Insightful)