Burning out……again

I will be taking a few days, just to get away from this. I get like this in the summer time. My interests in blogging wane around this time.

I just feel like this whole political writer thing is just getting old. Politics is just getting stale.

I’m not saying that I am going to quit. But, just do not have the motivation to write anymore.

I’m around, I’m just not writing much.

Sorry. 🙁

-Pat

The Southern Avenger on "Lindsey Graham Republicans"

When Lindsey Graham denounced Ron Paul-style libertarianism and advocated for George W. Bush-style neoconservatism during a speech at the South Carolina Republican Convention, it was worth pointing out that Graham’s suggested GOP path is the road to nowhere.

Quotes of the Day

If we are to restore the principles of religious liberty, it will be necessary for State governments–and for Christian people in particular–to stand united against an ever-growing, ever-menacing federal leviathan that is intent on destroying the safeguards and foundations of a once-proud constitutional republic, which was, after all, rooted and founded upon Christian principles.

His evidence for this claim is two quotes by Rush Limbaugh. One saying Obama’s instincts on terrorists are wrong; the other saying that Obama is, with his policies, hurting America. There is no statement that seems strong enough to justify Frum’s assertion. Limbaugh seems to be using the same tone parents often take with their children when they’re engaged in self-destructive activities – ‘Do you want that shelf to fall on your head? Keep pulling it.’ His statement seems more hypothetical than anything else. If anything, Frum’s willingness to attribute Rush’s statement to ODS is evidence of his own crusade to caricature Limbaugh as a political Snidely Whiplash tying up the GOP’s future and placing it on the train tracks.

However, what’s most ridiculous about Frum’s statement is his belief that “no prominent liberal figure” ever accused the Bush administration of wanting to harm America.

Site Numbers

I haven’t posted these in a while… They’re down a little… Mostly because I’ve just not been blogging as often; as I am getting a bit bored of the whole thing… But here they are:

Site: “Political Byline (New Site)” [ http://www.politicalbyline.com/ ]

Total counter state:

Hits: 169461
Hosts: 94554
Visitors: 114054
Sessions: 126575

From the begining of the month:

Hits: 8189
Hosts: 5146
Visitors: 6074
Sessions: 6722
New Visitors: 3420

Last week:

Hits: 3527
Hosts: 2723
Visitors: 2908
Sessions: 3046
New Visitors: 1454

HEH!: Liberal Columnist rips off Liberal Blogger

Gee, I wonder; would this be the 21 century equilivant of “Dog eat Dog?” 😛 or Dog Bites man…. or Dog something… 😀

Oh, it’s funny and you know it! 🙄

It seems that Liberal Columnist ripped off a Liberal Blogger. Talking Points Memo reports:

Maureen Dowd in today’s NY Times:

“More and more the timeline is raising the question of why, if the torture was to prevent terrorist attacks, it seemed to happen mainly during the period when the Bush crowd was looking for what was essentially political information to justify the invasion of Iraq.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/17/opinion/17dowd.html?_r=1

Uh-oh.....
Uh-oh.....

(click image for bigger pic)

TPM’s Josh Marshall on Thurs:

“More and more the timeline is raising the question of why, if the torture was to prevent terrorist attacks, it seemed to happen mainly during the period when we were looking for what was essentially political information to justify the invasion of Iraq.”

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2009/05/bubbling.php

Doh!
D'oh!

(click image for bigger pic)

All Dowd did was change “we were” to “the Bush crowd was”.

Now, I’m all for cutting & pasting. As a blogger I do it all the time, but I always give credit.

So, if this isn’t outright plagiarism by a top NY Times Editorialist, than I’m a happily married, straight man with 4 kids, 2 dogs, a lovely 2nd wife of 15 years with a girl half my age on the side.

Which I assure you all, I am not.

Josh has a valid point. When we bloggers use content from other sites, or we copy something, we ALWAYS; well unless someone’s being an prick or something like that, credit the original source and link to that source article. Like I did this piece. What Dowd did was totally unprofessional and just plain rude. Of course, when called on it; Dowd is in full backward cat crawl mode:

New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd, in an email to Huffington Post, admits that a paragraph in her Sunday column was lifted from Talking Points Memo editor Josh Marshall’s blog last Thursday.

Dowd claims that she never read his blog last week but was told the line by a friend of hers. In a follow-up email, she forwarded her desire to apologize to Marshall, writing that had she known, she would have gladly credited Marshall.

josh is right. I didn’t read his blog last week, and didn’t have any idea he had made that point until you informed me just now. i was talking to a friend of mine Friday about what I was writing who suggested I make this point, expressing it in a cogent — and I assumed spontaneous — way and I wanted to weave the idea into my column. but, clearly, my friend must have read josh marshall without mentioning that to me. we’re fixing it on the web, to give josh credit, and will include a note, as well as a formal correction tomorrow.

Oh Yeah, the old “I got it from a Friend” line…. Josh chimes in here:

Indeed. Dowd got busted and now she’s trying to walk it back. She’ll be either fired or will take vacation till the heat blows over…. or at wost, end up as lackey over at MSNBC with the rest of the Plagiarizing idiots. (You know who I mean… I hope.)

Boy. Take a break from Blogging and all the cool stuff happens. Wow! 😮

Others on both sides of the political asle blogging about this one: HotAir, NewsBusters.org, Townhall.com, TBogg, theblogprof, skippy the bush kangaroo, Shakesville, Hullabaloo, The TrogloPundit, Crooks and Liars, RedState, the nytpicker, PoliBlog,Grasping Reality …, At-Largely, Roger Ailes, The Other McCain, TalkLeft, Hullabaloo, The Sundries Shack, Balloon Juice, Tim Blair and Lawyers, Guns and Money,Pajamas Media, Redhot,Don Surber, Daily Kos, Founding Bloggers, The Greenroom, ATTACKERMAN, Campaign Silo, JustOneMinute and Commentary