There’s a game that the mainstream media plays. You take a high profile person… follow them around… wait for them to say something controversial… and them hammer them to death for saying it.

You can see the method at work in Dean Barnett’s article on the Ohio 2nd special in the Weekly Standard. To Dean Barnett Paul Hackett never had anything to say during the entire campaign besides calling the President a son of a bitch… it wasn’t his positions that attracted the blogs to him, but his foul mouth.

It’s real easy for people to pontificate about people they’ve never met and situations that they’ve never experienced, but all they are doing is helping to perpetuate the myths that the media helped create. Since it’s obvious that Mr. Barnett didn’t bother to follow the race until after it was already over and the coverage was primarily about people jockeying for credit, it’s easy to see why his perspective has little relationship to reality.

For those of you who missed it, here’s the real reason that Paul Hackett became the darling of the blogosphere:

I’m for limited government, I’m for fiscal responsibility, I’m for a strong national defense, and I’m for fair trade. What do these concepts stand for? That means I don’t need Washington to tell me how to live my personal live, or how to pray to my God. And I don’t need Washington to dictate to my wife the decisions that she makes with her doctor, any more than I need Washington to tell me which guns I can keep in my gun safe.


That statement that Paul Hackett made in the first debate against Jean Schmidt was what first got the blogosphere excited. It wasn’t till the very end of the race that USA Today and the New York Times started harping on Hackett’s slams against the President, long after Hackett had gained the support of the liberal blogs. (NOTE TO SELF: email links to the audio from the debates so that Mr. Barnett can have a clue as to what actually happened during the race.)

The reason was Hackett’s fusion of Democrat and Libertarian principals. The computer geek types that are prime movers in the blogosphere have a very strong libertarian streak. Tap into that and you’ve got a lot of friends. Start talking about censoring video games or regulating political speech online and you’ve got a lot of enemies that could care less what political party you belong to.

Paul Hackett hit on a real nerve with his failed campaign. The media, the DCCC, the DNC and other politicians would be smart to take the time to figure out why instead of parroting each other.

BTW, if you asked me Paul Hackett could never mention the President again and it would do nothing but help him. His real target is Congress and the sooner he focuses on that the better. As for calling Rush a fat assed drug addict, more power to him. Nothing more pathetic than Democrats trying to look dignified as Republican shills piss all over them. Anyone who tells you different is an idiot.

(via Swing State Project)