Alabama liberals - yes there are a few - got their panties in a wad this week when someone started a rumor that Troy King, Alabama’s Attorney General, “is resigning.”  The rationale given by these individuals was that King had been caught engaging in a homosexual encounter.

I’m not going to speculate as to whether King is or isn’t going to resign (word is that he is not).  I don’t personally care about his sexual orientation (my sources deny that he is gay).  I’m not even a fan of his (I endorsed and voted for his Democrat opponent in the 2006 election).  However, I think that the manner in which this story has circulated has been egregiously reckless.

As Danny - easily the most “connected” Alabama blogger - put it, the story is “thinly sourced.”  I think that is being generous.  Right now all that we have are the farthest left of the political spectrum, people who were itching for a reason to go after King, citing unnamed, supposedly reliable sources that have thus far proven decidedly unreliable.  This includes such noted luminaries as Glynn Wilson (he’s got credentials!) - the man who brought us Dana Jill Simpson.  Wilson is known to have a fleeting relationship with the truth and a political axe to grind.  Actual news outlets have not written a single word about the alleged scandal, despite numerous assurances from the leftists that such a story was immediately forthcoming.  Funny how organizations that have to adhere to ethical standards don’t publish rumors, isn’t it?

The allegations about King may prove to be completely true - but they also may prove to be wholly unsubstantiated.  Given the extreme gravity that such allegations have in our society bloggers should exercise more caution.  I would suggest that, if unsubstantiated, the claims cross the line of “actual malice” in terms of defaming the AG.

One thing that strikes me as a bit amusing is the way that the Democrats pushing this rumor seem to take considerable glee in calling Republicans gay.  The Democrat Party is supposed to be a tolerant, gay friendly party, after all.  Instead they frequently use shouts of “he’s gay!” as weapons against political adversaries as though being gay was despicable, which seems a bit at odds with their proclaimed values.  Just last month the kids at Left in Alabama continued spreading rumors that Florida Governor Charlie Crist is gay.  Of course Crist is now engaged - to a woman.  Democrats are quick to tell you that there is nothing wrong with being gay and that it should be accepted as perfectly normal.  If that is the case then why use it as a weapon and call it “embarassing” (sic)?  Maybe Larry Darby wasn’t an aberration in that party.

Update:  The honorable and decent Glynn Wilson of the illustrious and world renowned Locust Fork Blog has magnanimously backed down from the rhetoric ever so slightly.  He even deleted some sexually charged comments from his blog, which is an improvement as he typically only deletes comments he disagrees with.

[A] couple of Republican bloggers are now trying to convince me that the story on King is only partially true, and that he will be denying it in some fashion soon. It will be interesting to see what venue that takes.

As far as I’m concerned, I don’t care if he’s gay or not.

This entire episode should go down as a lesson for those who use personal attacks on people’s sexuality for political purposes. It’s disgusting, but that’s how Karl Rove won many of the political races he ran, including George W. Bush’s defeat of Ann Richards for governor of Texas.

That’s called hedging, folks.  Wilson realizes he may be wrong, although he’ll never admit it.  He appears to be lecturing himself in an indirect manner since he was one of the individuals using a personal attack on someone’s sexuality for political purposes (he loathes Republicans).  We’ll see if he learned his lesson, but I won’t hold my breath.

And for anyone who would blame the blogosphere for this, the rumor mill was around a long time before the Web or even the printing press. Yellow journalism ruled in the 1800s, word of mouth and fake pictures worked well enough for George Wallace, Rove took it to another level altogether, and now we have e-mail and blogs.

Since the churches are not even very Christian in the way they are passing around rumors about Obama being a Muslim on their tax exempt e-mail lists with faith-based federal tax money, a practice Obama wants to expand even though he’s been on the wrong end of it, we should not have any sanctimonious hand-wringing about the lefty blogs or the nutroots.

Every bit of this story was driven by lawyers in Montgomery, one of the dirtiest towns for politics in America. And King does not deserve much in the way of sympathy. His past comments about gays and his fervor to kill people in prison and his unethical acceptance of gifts should be enough to disqualify him for public office anyway.

This is rich even for Wilson.  His comment is typical of the hate blinded left who can’t even think without an image of Karl Rove dancing in front of them.  His defense?  (Paraphrasing) “Don’t blame me!  I’m part of the rich history of rumor mongers.  And Karl Rove did it, damn it!”  Wilson once intoned to me and others that he only deals with facts.  It seems that once again that little claim has been shot to hell (again) as he is using his space for National Enquirer caliber material.

Wilson isn’t man enough to just admit he crossed the line and stop.  No sir.  He has to go down flailing wildly.  First he swings at Karl Rove who, as best I can tell, has absolutely nothing to do with this story.  Then he attacks churches.  Then he goes after lawyers (that’s ok, Glynn, I’m not a big fan of them either).  In other words it is everyone’s fault but his own.  Typical liberal drivel.  Take no responsibility for your own actions.  Plus, Wilson personally thinks King isn’t fit to serve (even though a majority of Alabamians differed on that point), so that further justifies saying anything he wants without any proof.  It would be funny if he wasn’t damaging a real person’s reputation.

You also have to like his “fervor to kill people in prison” quip.  It certainly isn’t the most accurate statement.  Troy King does stridently support the death penalty, as do I, but not just for “people in prison.”  No.  Only for the most heinous of criminals who earn their punishment by ruthlessly killing others.  (King also supports the death penalty for child rapists, but the Supreme Court saw fit that that wouldn’t happen.)  Wilson would have you think that King wants to indiscriminately kill off prisoners.  You see, Wilson is using a technique that only a few “journalists” as learned as himself can attempt.  He thinks that gratuitously mischaracterizing a person’s beliefs when they conflict with your own is acceptable when your goal is to bias readers against the person in question.  What a consummate professional!

Oh well, another news day has passed and all of the liberal’s prognostications about impending articles from certain publications are still untrue.  But don’t think all of them are as restrained as the good Mr. Wilson.  Now some are gloating that they were able to get King removed from John McCain’s website.  Stay classy, guys.

I also found this comment on the celebrity gossip site PerezHilton.com:

Yep, another hypocritical Republican… send him to IRAQ to fight his precious war & bring back our BRAVE SOLDIERS!
Impeach Bush
Impeach Bush
Impeach Bush today.
Thank you.

Very typical.  And very sad.  I hate to see such an advanced case of BDS.  Can you imagine a converstaion with that guy?  You might mention Brett Favre’s possible comeback for a team other than the Packers and this fool would blame Rove or Bush.

Reactionary Update:

Neal Boortz just reported (July 16) on the Troy King rumor: IMO he wanted to believe the rumor because he doesn’t like King, noting that King enforces the “sex toy” law (which was proposed and passed by Democrats BTW). But, after a little last minute research, Boortz decided to back off, concluding that until a credible news organization reports a story or until King holds a press conference, he will stay away from the story.

IMO had Boortz bit on the rumor, he would have been dropped by WVNN by day’s end. For my part, I already had the WVNN phone number dialed in ready to hit ’send’.

That is a favorite quote of mine given by a spokesman for Bob Riley in response to asinine speculation on some blogs.

Today we have this headline on a Reuters story: Poll: Most Americans don’t read political blogs.

A majority of Americans do not read political blogs, the online commentaries that have proliferated in the race for the U.S. presidency, according to a poll released on Monday.

Only 22 percent of people responding to the poll said they read blogs regularly, meaning several times a month or more, according to the survey conducted by Harris Interactive.

…

Unlike traditional, mainstream media, blogs often adopt a specific point of view. Critics complain they can contain unchecked facts, are poorly edited and use unreliable sources.

I’m not sure if that last sentence is directed towards blogs or the “traditional, mainstream media.”

You can read more about the study on the Harris Interactive website, although the actual questions used to form the poll are not included.

The study and accompanying headline over little insight into the meaning of the data, though.  I would suggest that most people in this country aren’t terribly interested in politics and therefore wouldn’t be inclined to read political blogs.  Political blogs are the domain of the politically active and the political junkies.  Harris Interactive should have asked how many of the respondents actually cared about politics and followed up by asking them to name their two U.S. senators as proof they are at least minimally knowledgeable about politics.  Some quick looking around the internets at other polls indicates that typically only about 30-35% of people can name both senators, which isn’t much more than regularly read political blogs.  The 65-70% that aren’t politically involved enough to name their senators should be excluded from the sample population.

One of the more interesting findings that the media reports conveniently omitted was that 30% of regular blog readers consider blogs more accurate than the mainstream media, while 22% consider them less accurate and 48% deemed them “about as accurate.”  Also, nearly twice as many respondents classified as regular blog readers consider political blogs more valuable than mainstream media.

The poll comes on the heels of another Harris Interactive poll in which 54% of all adults said they “tend not to trust” the press. Ouch.  Radio led both Republicans and Democrats (!) as the form of media they tend to trust.  “Internet news and information sites” (not sure if that includes “political blogs”) was second among all adults in the “tend to trust” ranking.

I’ll climb on my soap box now…

Personally I like political blogs (as you might expect).  I think they are a great way for politically interested individuals discuss what is happening in the halls of power.  You should approach them with the proper perspective, though.

Bloggers have agendas.  Deal with it and don’t forget it.  One could argue that traditional media has them as well, but they are filtered more finely through editorial processes.

You can learn from blogs, but don’t trust them to be accurate.  Do your own independent research to confirm or deny anything you read on a blog.

Commenters can be mean and ignorant (the two typically go hand in hand).  Don’t take it personally.  Ignore it if you can.

Some bloggers think they are junior journalists, but they aren’t.  It takes no formal training to operate a blog.  Theoretically our work doesn’t measure up to the standards employed by reputable news outlets.  Keep this in mind.  If you’ve been reading about something salacious on blogs for a while, but it hasn’t made it into the mainstream media there is probably a reason, namely a dearth of concrete details and credible witnesses.  Say what you will about corporate media ownership they are in business to make money and scandal sells.  If they can justify printing a story that will attract ears and eyeballs you can bet your house they will run it - if it meets their standards (and occasionally when it doesn’t).

I don’t pretend to be some type of reporter and I don’t put on airs that I am unbiased.  I try to be factual and I beg you to point out any errors I ever make.  You’re not going to hurt my feelings.  I choose not to have advertisements here; we are all exposed to enough of that.  I blog because I’m a political addict and this is my hobby, my outlet.  It’s a hell of a lot cheaper than golf.  I’m not a trained writer - and it shows.  I enjoy vigorous discussion and I try to be respectful to opposing viewpoints.  You’re always welcome to kick off your shoes, look around, and engage in a dialog.

From the bluegrass state:

Kentucky Representative Tim Couch filed a bill this week to make anonymous posting online illegal.

The bill would require anyone who contributes to a website to register their real name, address and e-mail address with that site.

Their full name would be used anytime a comment is posted.

First of all, this is not the same Tim Couch who played quarterback at Kentucky.

Where to begin…

Would his law only apply to domains registered or hosted in Kentucky?  How would the website operators really know whether or the information provided was real?  Would I personally have to research the background of every commenter?  Most importantly, I pay for this domain and web hosting so I should be able to post whatever content I damn well please - regardless of the author.  There is that pesky 1st amendment.

On one level I understand and appreciate what he’s doing.  I personally don’t blog anonymously.  I feel that it “keeps me honest.”  Anonymity brings out typically unpleasant extremes in people.  But it also allows certain people to speak more freely and opens up dialog that might otherwise be restrained.  On balance I’ll take the wild west internet of Mr. Couch’s civilized version.

I usually try to maintain a certain, minimal level of decorum with respect to some of the crazy lefties in Alabama, but sometimes it is hard.  At one time we had a Kos-esque site dedicated to overthrowing Senator Sessions.  When Ron Sparks choose not to run that little shop of humor decided to pack it up.  But let not your spirits sink at the prospect of no humorous leftist propaganda: there is still Left in Alabama.

Let’s take a stroll through some of the current stories there…

We’ll start with this post that underscores liberals obsession with race.  A candidate (Republican, of course) sent out a campaign flier with what was, quite frankly, run of the mill campaign propaganda nonsense.  There is prolific use of the word “liberal” to describe his opponent.  He denounces his opponent’s public sector career by portraying the work as “taxpayer funded,” unelected positions.  The intent to make the opponent appear to be a leech, surviving on the public dole is clear even if it is absurd; I know a great many virtuous government employees and the source of their paycheck does not diminish their character or aptitude.  However, the “taxpayer funded” line is most certainly not peculiar to this race.  The author of the blog post jumped to the conclusion that the flier was racist because the Republican candidate is white, while the Democrat challenger is black and interprested nearly every claim in the flier as having racist implications.

It bears noting that the GOP candidate, Wayne Willingham, has previous ties to groups of dubious repute with respect to race relations (to put it delicately).  Within that context one would be justified to judge the campaign literature a bit more critically.  But, that is not germane to this particular scenario because the author of the post had no prior knowledge of Willingham’s background that might have prejudiced him to seek out racist implications in the mailing – otherwise the author would have most certainly mentioned this given his penchant for spotting racial strife.  So what we have is a “progressive” Democrat getting a campaign glossy in the mail and assuming that because A) one candidate told prospective voters that he is better than the other candidate and B) the self proclaimed better candidate is white and the denounced candidate is black the literature must therefore be racist.  The author’s own fixation on race caused him to independently interpret a rather standard piece of campaign propaganda as racist.

Honestly, if you think that “And there is only one candidate to represent Cullman County,” really means, “Do you really want a lazy black guy representing Cullman County,” then you have problems.  What would the author think is reasonable language to use when campaigning against a minority opponent?  Can you not even suggest that you are the better candidate without being deemed a racist?

Now, bringing the context of Willingham’s prior (current?) associations into the situation…  The only aspect of the mailing that can be interpreted as playing on race would be the decision to include pictures of both candidates.  It is typical to put your picture on campaign literature and while it is not abnormal to put your opponent’s picture on an advert as well, I think there is a possibility that it was done in this case to make sure that Cullman County voters know the race of each candidate.  Let’s be honest, Cullman County is not exactly known for being on the leading edge of racial harmony.

Moving along, there is also the frantic post about the latest vote to sustain Bush’s SCHIP veto entitled “Republicans Hate Children.”  The statement is absurd on its face.  They refuse to even acknowledge the rationale for voting against the bill and refuting it, preferring instead to argue that Republicans hate children.  It is as ridiculous as the argument that Democrats hate the troops if they vote against a huge increase in defense funding even if they are wiling to support a more modest increase.  You really need to read some of the comments following the post to do their nuttiness justice, though.

More race interjection (seems to be a theme).  John Edwards says he is the best candidate for the entire country.  This is interpreted by the left as him saying that he is better because he is a white male.  What is funny is that Edwards went out of his way to disavow such a notion, which means he expected his leftist supporters to seek out race or gender subtext in his statement.  How prescient!  If he read Left in Alabama he would known better than to assert he is the best candidate.  If you’re running against a minority (or a woman) you cannot, under any circumstance, suggest you might be the better candidate.  If you do then you hate blacks and women.

The “progressives” also labeled one of the state’s major newspapers an “undercover arm of the Alabama Republican Party.”  Why?  Because the paper had the unmitigated gall of suggesting that it would be good if the GOP was successful in ousting some of the old guard “mossbacks” in the legislature.  The author of the post states that the Mobile Press-Register is beating “the same old horse of Paul Hubbert, AEA and 2 year colleges,” and that the Republicans “have ridden that horse as far as it will go and it’s starting to smell” on them.  Based on some of the details of former chancellor Roy Johnson’s plea deal with the Feds she has a point: something does stink.  But it isn’t the old, tired story.  It is the fresh details of the breath and depth of the corruption.  Considering the fixation that the Left in Alabama crew has on a single plane owned by a state agency (just look at the number of posts written about it) one might think that smoke would be coming out of their ears over all of the corruption, but then again this story mainly deals with Democrats.  Better to play ostrich.

That is just a small sampling of what you’ll find on the leading “progressive” Alabama blog.  Take some time and look around.  You’re sure to be amused.

I endeavor to keep a comprehensive list of Alabama political blogs of all stripes.  Unlike some other blogs I don’t just link to ideologically compatible sites.  Nope, you might actually find an opinion you disagree with as you click through the list.  Such is life.

I’m busy, though, and I occasionally fall behind on adding new blogs.  Sometimes blogs that I read periodically aren’t on my blogroll either through my own oversight or because I assume they are already there.

Here are my newly added blogs, in no particular order:

• Captain Plaid
• Mr. Turnbow
• Real Alabama Politics
• Highway 431
• Bessemer Opinions
• Legal Schnauzer
• Punditry by the Pint
• The Clarion Caller
• AL Democrat Blog
• AL Republican Blog

If you know of any others that I don’t have please leave me a comment.  My only requirements are that they discuss either politics or non-celebrity current events (no gossip or personal blogs) and that they aren’t temporary, candidate specific campaign sites.  Of course I reserve the liberty to make exceptions to my rules!

Also, I’ll be sifting through the list in the coming week or so to determine if any of them have “gone cold” for too long and need to be removed.

After one brief week atop of an obscure ranking of influential Alabama political bloggers I’ve yielded the top spot to Danny.  I still think I’m too high.

According to a site called BlogNetNews this here little blog is currently “Alabama’s most influential political blog.”  Now I’ve been accused of excessive self deprecation before, but me thinks they might want to tweak their “proprietary” ranking formula.  To be fair, the realm of political blogs in the state of Alabama is fairly small so ranking at or near the top is somewhat unavoidable.  But, there is no way that this is the most influential blog in the state.

I have run into some political figures throughout the state who have at least heard of, if not personally visited, this site, but I doubt that anything I write has much influence on them or anyone else.  If I had to pick the most influential blog in Alabama I’d have to select Doc’s Political Parlor.  Danny, the site’s proprietor, is definitely the most “plugged in” blogger in the state and every pol I’ve ever conversed with about blogs knows about and reads it.

Kudos to Gordon Unleashed.

A while ago someone started up a pro John McCain website called Straight Talk Alabama.  Now the site is down “indefinitely.”

After a more than three month hiatus one of Alabama’s few conservative bloggers has found his keyboard.

A quick look around the Alabama blogosphere today revealed a number of posts on the Alabama Supreme Court’s decision to overturn a lower court’s decision to levy a $3.6 billion punitive award against ExxonMobil.

Doc’s viewed the decision through the prism of lawmakers who had been lusting at the windfall.  He included a quote from Rep. Yusuf Salaam who viewed the potential payoff not as an opportunity to relieve the tax burden on Alabamians, but as a chance to implement “progressive” legislation.  Translation: he wanted to kick start a bunch of unnecessary programs with money that would soon be gone at which point he would wail on the House floor that we needed to raise taxes to fund those “essential” programs.

The always humorous Left in Alabama predictably lamented the decision not because they felt there was compelling evidence in the case to support the huge award (at least they didn’t try to make such a point), but because it involved a rich oil company that clearly needs to be punished because it is A) large, B) an oil company, C) profitable, D) evil, and E) ostensibly Republican.

Birmingham Blues proffered innuendo from the previous election that this decision - which must have already been made for the narrative to hold - was delayed so that it didn’t hurt Drayton Nabers in his failed bid for Chief Justice.

One thing that should be kept in mind is that the huge multi billion dollar award was punitive damages.  This is not about reimbursement, i.e. compensatory damages, which the court upheld.  In other words, Alabama will get repaid for any money Exxon should have paid with interest.  This case was all about Alabama getting greedy and playing the jackpot justice game.

The case reminds me of how I would reform the legal system if I were king.  I’m not keen on loser pays ideas because that would effectively dissuade some credible plaintiffs from pressing charges when necessary due to fear of paying up if they lose.  I prefer a system where the successful plaintiff gets the compensatory damages, but the punitive damages do not go to the plaintiff.  They could go into the municipality, state, or federal coffers or could go into a charitably run fund that seeks to prevent the wrong that was perpetrated to bring about the lawsuit.  That would allow for people who have been harmed to seek out justice without fear of paying two sets of legal fees, but it culls out the others who just hope to get rich off of punitive damages - like the state in this case.