“REALITY-BASED” MEANS NOT REAL, according to the Linguistic Society of America. Sort of like the difference between “grape juice” and “grape drink,” I guess.

THE ARMSTRONG WILLIAMS SCANDAL is sending shock waves through the PR world.

MORE ON RATHERGATE: From Hugh Hewitt, in The Weekly Standard.

I MENTIONED GM BEFORE, but now it’s Apple that’s having problems with the blogosphere:

The Electronic Frontier Foundation said yesterday it would defend bloggers’ right to protect anonymous sources who disclosed that Apple would release a product code-named “Asteroid.” A lawyer for the group said it’s one of the first cases nationwide, if not the first case, that would address whether Web loggers, or bloggers, can protect confidential sources. Apple filed the suit last week in California.

I think that bloggers should have the same rights (no more, no less) that other journalists possess under applicable law. But I’m pretty sure that Apple wouldn’t have subpoenaed bigshot journalists at all.

This has Bill Hobbs rethinking his computer purchases. He’s looking at a Dell Inspiron 700m in place of an Apple. I have one of those, and as I noted earlier, I’ve been quite happy with it. But now when people ask me why I don’t own a Mac, I can blame Apple’s heavy-handed tactics.

UPDATE: Some readers think I’m being unfair to Apple when it was just “defending trade secrets.” But Bigwig sent a link to what he says is the post in question, and it looks like the same kind of thing, only without photos, that GM was upset about. It’s just a leak of a product announcement ahead of Apple’s PR schedule; I guess that you could call that a “trade secret,” but it hardly seems to justify such a vigorous response, and it makes Apple look bad to me even if (as isn’t at all clear to me) they were entirely within their legal rights to do so.

Robert Tagorda has more thoughts.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Eugene Volokh looks at the California shield law and remarks:

So if a blog is considered a “periodical publication” — which most blogs are (the exact “period” in the sense of interval between posts isn’t fixed, as it is for a newspaper, but they are “periodical” in the sense that they publish repeatedly, and are usually expected to have new material at least as often as many standard periodicals) — then it sounds like they have an open-and-shut case. We don’t even have to ask whether bloggers are “journalists”; so long as they are “person[s] connected with . . . [a] periodical publication,” they are entitled to disregard subpoenas that call on them “to disclose the source of any information procured while so connected . . . for publication in . . . [a] periodical publication.”

I’m not at all sure that I approve of such privileges, but if they exist, then bloggers should benefit just as much as bigshots. Here, by the way, is an article from last month’s New York Sun on how bloggers threaten special privileges for journalists simply be existing. Maybe — or maybe they broaden the constituency for such privileges.

MORE: A contrary view:

And really, does a “free society” really depend on getting out Apple’s latest product developments ahead of when they want it to get out? Not even a little. Even if PowerPage is a blog, do bloggers want to push this point as far as the EFF is doing and demand full press shield privileges? I’ll tell them the same thing I tell trademark attorneys who keep push, push, pushing their ever-growing bundle of rights on the rest of the world: Be careful what you wish for.

Hmm. I want parity, but I’m not crazy about press shield laws. And an awful lot of what the Big Media folks report is just as trivial as Apple’s latest product developments.

Meanwhile, Shannon Love says that I’m wrong to criticize Apple here.

MORE STILL: Here’s an article from the WSJ on the lawsuit (free link). Excerpt:

It will be difficult for Apple to prove that Think Secret’s coverage violated its trade secrets, says Robert E. Camors, an intellectual property lawyer at Thelen Reid & Priest LLP in San Jose, Calif. Trade secrets usually deal with the formula behind products — not simply the details about the products’ release, he says. Secondly, it would be difficult for an Apple rival to benefit from the news the site has reported. “No competitor can design and market a product in two weeks,” he says.

Seems weak to me, too, but that’s not my field.

DAVID HARSANYI:

Here’s some advice on bribery: If you’re out to corrupt a journalist, bribe one who doesn’t already agree with your position. It’s just sinful to squander tax dollars on paying off a supporter. Good press should be free.

True, Armstrong Williams is hardly a journalist, but rather a commentator with a self-described conservative agenda. He was dropped by his syndicate (as well as The Denver Post) for accepting $240,000 from a public relations firm hired by the Department of Education to promote No Child Left Behind.

Williams was greedy. The Department of Education was flat-out wrong. And the whole affair is tawdry.

Indeed. He has some thoughts on RatherGate and blogs, too.

IN THE MAIL: Varieties of Conservatism in America, a volume edited by Peter Berkowitz and containing essays by a rather broad assortment of thinkers.

Or, for a somewhat less-sophisticated example of brawling within the Big Tent, you can read this post and follow the links!

There’s also a companion volume, Varieties of Progressivism in America, that looks interesting, too.

NOBODY EXPECTS the Oxford Inquisition.

(Original story here.)

BLOGFLUENCE: Here’s something from Zephyr Teachout that I didn’t know:

In this past election, at least a few prominent bloggers were paid as consultants by candidates and groups they regularly blogged about. . . .

On Dean’s campaign, we paid Markos and Jerome Armstrong as consultants, largely in order to ensure that they said positive things about Dean. We paid them over twice as much as we paid two staffers of similar backgrounds, and they had several other clients.

While they ended up also providing useful advice, the initial reason for our outreach was explicitly to buy their airtime. To be very clear, they never committed to supporting Dean for the payment — but it was very clearly, internally, our goal. . . . Imagine Howard Dean hiring Maureen Dowd!

Somebody tell Oliver Willis! Meanwhile, apparently, I’ve missed out on yet another gravy train. (Thanks to Ed Cone for the tip).

UPDATE: Here’s Kos’s disclosure post, sent to me by a reader who thinks it’s inadequate. I’m not so sure, but the interesting disclosure to me is the one above, about what the campaign thought it was doing by hiring Kos, rather than what Kos thought.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Tim Blair has thoughts.

MORE: Jeff Jarvis has much more on this subject, including this observation:

The campaign used these guys. The campaign knew that. But the bloggers didn’t. The bloggers thought their wisdom was being sought out; they were paid to consult. No, they were paid to market, to flack.

Read the whole thing, which is about culture and trust. Meanwhile, Markos sends this email:

The problem with Armstrong Williams is two-fold: 1) he did not disclose the arrangement, and 2) he was paid taxpayer dollars. If Williams wants to be paid by Scaife or any other right wing think tank or funder, then It would be whole different matter.

The problem with Zephyr is that she fails to note that Jerome and I (mostly Jerome) set the Dean campaign on the path of blogging and MeetUps. Jerome had the first Dean site up on the web, the first Dean-specific blog, set up MeetUp for them, and was the catalyst for the netroots pro-Dean movement. THAT’S why we were hired by the campaign, to offer more such suggestions. Given that our relationship was with Trippi and not Zephyr, I’m not sure what jealousies or internal politics we ran afoul with Zephyr.

Note that Jerome quit blogging after he joined their campaign (at a time MyDD got more traffic than Daily Kos), so if they were paying for favorable blogging from us, that didn’t quite work out. Remember, he was the biggest Dean booster online. Instead, he worked as their Director of Internet Advertising. As for me, I disclosed the arrangement and had a link to that disclosure post up on the site for the entire duration of the arrangement, even though we were being paid essentially for Jerome’s work, not for anything I was doing.

So 1) I disclosed the arrangement, and 2) I didn’t take taxpayer dollars. If this isn’t enough to satiate you and other critics, so be it. But really, I’d like to hear what more you’d think was appropriate.

In any case, given that Daily Kos is self-sufficient now, I quit the consulting biz. Though I reserve the right to go back in if I want to help a candidate I believe in, with full-disclosure as I did before.

And Jerome emails:

I was on blogging hiatus during the time I worked on the Dean campaign getting paid, Aug to Dec, 2003. Actually on hiatus from much earlier to much later.

As I say above, I’m not actually convinced that Kos or Jerome did anything especially wrong here — not withstanding my tweaking of Oliver Willis, who seems a bit overexcitable these days — but the dynamic with the campaign interests me. I think that Jeff (and Zephyr) are right that the issue is a cultural one more than a legalistic or formally “ethical” one. I don’t want a Code, which people will promptly lawyer to death. (Trust me on this one). I want attitudes and norms.

On the other hand, Kos may want to be a little embarrassed about writing this. Or at least a bit slower to take that kind of tone in the future.

STILL MORE: In response to my comment just above, Kos emails:

What’s your point here? The administration is using tax dollars to pay conservative pundits (and crazy amounts at that). Williams says there are more. Until people own up to who is on the take, I’m willing to assume they all are.

Why that should be embarrassing is beyond me.

Indeed.

The point, however, is that Kos is being treated rather more generously above than he’s treating others (and, I suspect, more generously than he would treat me were our positions reversed, though I hope I’m wrong about that), and yet he is happy to presume the guilt of, basically, everyone who disagrees with him. I could just as easily ask how many other lefty bloggers (since Zephyr says there were more, too) were on campaigns’ payrolls, and pronounce the entire lefty blogosphere suspect.

YET MORE: Zephyr Teachout posts an update in a separate post:

This has to do with OUR motives, not some contract, and no compromise on their part. Instapundit gets it right — this is about the market that’s created.

Furthermore, I’m not claiming that Kos didn’t have a disclaimer — he did, we’ve talked about this for over a year, there’s no revelation here. I don’t think the disclaimer was what I’d like to see, and I really wish he — and every other blogger/consultant — had an easy to find, prominent client list of all clients at all times.

But this isn’t about Kos or a few thousand bucks, and its certainly not about a $240,000 contract to shill for the federal government. As one commenter said, c’mon, that was wild west days — this will all calm down.

My interest–and where our focus needs to be, whether you’re a little green football or a kossack — is in collectively building a culture online where we figure out norms for people who both consult and write online so that readers can have the tools to be skeptical, active participants.

I’d like to see that, too. And Kos emails to say that I’m wrong, and that he wouldn’t jump on me if the situations were reversed — in fact, he doesn’t think there’s anything wrong with what the DaschlevThune bloggers did. We disagree about that; I think they should have disclosed.

Anyway, in the interest of getting some reader feedback on these issues, I’m opening comments for a while, until the trolls or the spammers get out of hand, anyway. Your comments on how these things should be handled — civil and free of unnecessary point-scoring, please — would be appreciated.

MICHAEL MOORE: A Karl Rove Mole? Might as well be:

The film maker may be a big hero to Hollywood, but the legacy of his films has been to discredit the causes he champions. Just ask John Kerry.

Fahrenheit 9/11 was timed to coincide with the 2004 presidential election for the sake of maximum interest and box office — but its publicity and controversy was a distraction to the Democrats at the moment they were trying to get their message out. Taking a stance against the Iraq war became more difficult, not less, after the movie was released, forcing Democrats to distinguish their criticisms from those of the silver screen conspiracy theorists.

Who can forget how Gen. Wesley Clark’s Democratic primary campaign had to spend several days extricating their candidate from the bear hug of the radical filmmaker? In the general election, John Kerry was likewise forced to walk the Fahrenheit tightrope — distancing himself from Moore without alienating the party’s liberal anti-war base that was turning out in droves and filling movie theatres with applause.

Indeed. Cui bono?

ROGER SIMON has some tough questions for Dick Thornburgh.

BALLISTIC FINGERPRINTING FAILS, and SayUncle says “I told you so.”

I’M NO FAN OF THE SENTENCING GUIDELINES, but I don’t really have a lot to say besides “jeez, can’t the Supreme Court answer this kind of thing with a single, clear opinion?” Previous courts seemed to manage. . . .

But this is Doug Berman’s moment to shine. Just head over to his Sentencing Law and Policy blog and keep scrolling.

TOM MAGUIRE IS DEEPLY UNIMPRESSED WITH BUSH’S SOCIAL SECURITY RHETORIC. Meanwhile, Nick Gillespie offers some advice on message:

The one powerful selling point to me about private accounts is that they might keep some money within families, to be passed down to kids or grandkids as an inheritance. I know from personal experience (or, rather, lack of personal experience) that an inheritance of even $5,000, $10,000, or $15,000 at the right time in a young person’s life can make a huge difference in all sorts of ways, from clearing out debt to providing a car (and hence employment opportunities) to a down payment on a house, and more.

It seems to me the inheritance angle is the best way to sell any reform–and it should be, because that is the one that can actually change and improve people’s lives, which is really the point of the reform effort. Nobody cares that the system is going “broke”–there are always ways to “fix” that (and we will, through pushing back benefits most likely). The whole government, despite any recent surpluses, is impervious to accounting rigor and standards. Nobody seems interested in attacking the morality of a mandatory savings system, either.

But what I think most people can get around is that a system that allows people, especially lower-middle- and lower-class people to conserve some capital over time is a good thing, regardless of any other ideological/political affiliation. . . .

Oh, and it would help to offer some specifics.

Read the whole thing, especially if you’re Karl Rove.

RAINING ON THE “DEATH SQUAD” PARADE: David Adesnik dissects the story that had some of the more excitable sectors of the blogosphere excited. So does Greg Djerejian and — interestingly, defending Rumsfeld in the process — Matthew Yglesias.

UPDATE: Here’s more from Jonah Goldberg:

Okay now, let’s clear a few things up. First of all, the “El Salvador Option” was used in — hold on, let me get my map, yes, yes, that’s right — El Salvador, not Nicaragua. Whatever the merits or demerits of American policy in El Salvador or Nicaragua, the effort in El Salvador did not lead to the Iran-Contra scandal. Newsweek seems to think that piling on negative associations with Latin American foreign policy will help dramatize a story they might not even have in the first place. After all, the substance of the initial story is that people inside the Pentagon are discussing their options. Someone reorder my adult diapers, that is scary!

What is particularly piquant — that’s right I used the word piquant — about the conflation of Nicaragua and El Salvador is that it suggests America’s entire effort “down there” was nothing but folly, hubris, and imperialism. That is, after all, what the Left believed at the time and still believes today. That’s fine, I suppose, but it should help remind all of us that the Cold War was not exactly an issue that received a lot of bipartisan consensus in the 1980s, despite the efforts of liberals today to pretend otherwise. We’ve heard a lot from liberals in recent months about how the Cold War was marked by a consensus across the ideological spectrum and how George Bush’s greatest failure is not pursuing a similar consensus on the war on terror. All of this is ahistorical and dishonest twaddle. . . .

What united opponents of American policy in Central America was a vague sense that we were on the wrong side. They tittered at Reagan’s declaration that the Contras were freedom fighters. They made movies that turned the leftists into the good guys in El Salvador. John Kerry, Pat Leahy, Tom Harkin, and other titans of international statesmanship actively worked against American foreign policy. “I see an enormous haughtiness in the United States trying to tell them what to do,” Kerry said about American relations with the Soviet client Sandanista regime. He lent his name to support groups aiding the Communist-controlled regions of El Salvador.

I have no doubt that opposition to the “death squads” was also based on revulsion at some of their excesses. But there can be no doubt that they were also vexed that we were fighting Communists at all. Moreover, our special forces were not sent to El Salvador to train anybody to murder people. They were sent to help stop the widespread civil chaos and murder being perpetrated by others. They largely succeeded.

He continues in the same vein, which makes me wonder if making comparisons to Central America will help the Left, or simply bring up a lot of things that a lot of people would rather gloss over today.

MORE BOOKBLOGGING: John Scalzi’s book, Old Man’s War, gets a very positive review from Prof. Bainbridge: “I was absolutely blown away; it literally was one of those ‘you can’t put it down’ books. I started reading it at lunch and had to force myself to break away two hours later in order to get some work done.”

I told you it was good. Judging by its still-high Amazon rank, a lot of people agree.

AUSTIN BAY has a RatherGate question: “If it was common knowledge that Mr.Burkett was something of a Bush-hating crank, why would someone of Ms. Mapes/Mr. Rather [ed: ilk? position?] accept information passed to him? Both people know the Texas political scene intimately; know the legitimate mantel bearers and the pretenders. It is understandable that they could have been hoodwinked by an insider, but by Burkett? ”

UPDATE: Much more in a roundup from Tom Maguire.

UNSCAM UPDATE: Norm Geras looks at Kofi’s new fix-it guy, who seems to have some grasp of reality, at least.

NOEL SHEPPARD WRITES that if the past few years have been a depression, as some have claimed, he’d like another, please.

THE DOWNSIDE OF THE lovely weather mentioned below is that my seminar room was roasting this afternoon. If my “cancel class at 80 degrees” rule applied to indoor temperatures, that would have been it.

IT WAS AN AWFULLY NICE DAY for January. I have a rule that I cancel class if it breaks 80 in January, and that won’t be triggered. But it hit the 70s and I had to take some time off to walk around campus. And, being a good geek blogger I had my digital camera with me. Here are a few pictures for the Knoxville expats and UT alumni who are always requesting such.

If you’re cold and miserable up in the dreary north, well, I’m sorry. But you can console yourself that, given the changeable quality of East Tennessee weather, we’ll probably have a blizzard next week.

But what I like about the weather here is that it is changeable. The thing I disliked about living in northern climes — like New Haven, Cambridge, or, especially, Heidelberg, was the absolutely unrelenting quality of winter once it set in. Here, it relents, and we appreciate the break.

A lot.

(Other pics moved to the extended-entry area to speed loadtimes; click “read more” to see them).

(more…)

GEORGE WASHINGTON AND THE DRUNKEN GARDENER: An interesting case of contracting around the problem.

EXTREME BLOGGING: Andrés Trevino is blogging his son’s stem-cell transplant.

SOME VERY GOOD PHOTOBLOGGING FROM IRAQ.

RATHERGATE CONTINUES: More on developments at GlennReynolds.com.

HEH. All I can say to IowaHawk is, “We’re not worthy!”

Er, and how did you know about the aviary and the smoking jacket?