Dan Froomkin Gives Lefty Blogs A Boost
By kowalski Posted in User Blogs — Comments (5) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
Dan Froomkin pumps out his "White House Briefing" column almost every day for the Washington Post's website, to keep us all better informed of what he thinks we should know about the White House. Thanks Dan!
Today, he's being especially helpful, not merely in explaining the new polling data that shows a drop in Bush's approval rating; he's also giving an indirect boost to a big portion of the Left-wing blogosphere with his Bush's Approval Takes a Tumble column.
About halfway down he starts linking to some graphics put together by DePaul University Kellstadt Graduate School of Business (!!) Professor Stuart Thiel. But Froomkin doesn't just ask for the data to generate these graphics himself, nor does he ask the Professor to regenerate the graphics minus the catchy titles ("Bush Approval: In Fact, It's A Gas?" -- cheeky!). Instead, he links directly to the Thiels graphs, and to Thiel's website, which is a real hoot, especially the John Ashcroft from Porn Pictures photomontage, but also noteworthy for its list of links:
Here is the spread in approval rating polls since Bush took office, from DePaul University economics Professor Stuart Eugene Thiel's wonderful Professor Pollkatz's Pool of Polls Web site.
Man! Check out the blogs and other internet news sources that Professor Thiel recommends!
Atrios
Daily Kos
myDD.com
Brad DeLong
Oliver Willis
Brand Democrat
Talking Points Memo (Josh Marshall)
Daily Howler (Bob Somerby)
Donkey Rising (Ruy Teixeira)
JuliusBlog
ConWebWatch
MaxSpeak (Max Sawicky)
The Rittenhouse Review
The American Leftist
The Wage Slave (scorecard of Bush Evil)
BuzzFlash
Smirking Chimp
Salon.com ($$ subscription)
The Nation
Democrats.com
Tapped (The American Prospect)
Froomkin actually mistakenly elevates Thiel's title at DePaul -- he's actually a visiting professor. Last year, he taught ECONOMICS OF DECISION MAKING and LAW AND ECONOMICS using Richard Posner's book as a text!
Especially, and you read some of the things he says, and the way he says them...you think: this an Economics professor at a graduate school of business?...and then you get this feeling about Dan Froomkin and the kinds of people he thinks are "wonderful"...kind of like...I don't know...post nasal drip, or maybe a fungal infection in an awkward place...in other words, glib, pissed-off, disgruntled twits, preferably as far to the left as possible, as long as they're useful for his column.
Read over the body text of Thiel's statistics lesson on that page...you can't miss it.
And FWIW, I actually enjoyed visiting the American Leftist website from his page today for one reason: the Ruckus Society is listed under "left, left links" even on their website. The Tides Foundation, you remember, gave more than $204,000 to the Ruckus society from 1999-2002. They were the ones who rappelled down the face of the Plaza Hotel to hang that unforgettable banner during the RNC.
I guess after 2002, Teresa decided to stop (overtly) supporting some of the left left, at least while her husband was getting ready to run for President.
When I saw that, I realized that a lot of my personal handwringing over being a little harsher in the past few days was misplaced. I'm not so worried about it now. (That doesn't mean I'm going to do more of it, but I don't feel guilty.)
Have you seen what they call LGF over at the American Leftists? Little Green Fascists. We've been worried about profanity, etc., here, and that's good, but I'll tell you, the standards we hold ourselves to are a lot higher than some.
But I've just gotta say it: Dan Froomkin is without question a lying weasel-faced Democrat shill.
No surprise he trafficks in lefty websites.
I just have this specific and deep-rooted dislike for everything Dan Froomkin says and does. He's one of the dozen or so people in the world that I just detest - along with Noam Chomsky, Eric Alterman, Louis Farrakhan, Barbra Streisand, Kate Michelman, Mitch Albom, Michael Irvin, David Duke, Peter Singer, and Rick Reilly.
Yes, that Rick Reilly.