Wednesday, August 04, 2004

Instapundit continues to back away from the wreckage of Malkin's book, which just two days ago was an "audacious" conversation starter. He writes that Muller's latest post "seems to make Malkin's thesis regarding MAGIC intercepts as the basis for federal action look shaky..." Watch Insty carefully now...he puts his hands in his pockets, whistles, turns away, and -- YES -- he's changing the subject! "....though it doesn't make FDR look very good, either." 10:28:12 PM    comment []

Muller v. Malkin is turning into a pre-publication fisking of epic proportions. "OK, enough about research methods and terminology and book covers. Let's get to the meat of Michelle's claim, shall we?," writes Muller. He then invokes authority and begins to whack Malkin around the ring with it. The authority is a leading scholarly expert on internment, Greg Robinson, who seems to decisively rebut Malkin's central thesis about internment -- that it was justified by decrypted Japanese communications, and that these decoded messages (known as MAGIC) were the rationale for locking people up on the basis of their ethnic background. Robinson makes the case that Malkin's primary source on MAGIC was unreliable. Then: "Since there is nothing new in the author's case for MAGIC, my rebuttal will be brief... "Let me divide it into three parts: first, that the MAGIC cables do not present the image of a Japanese American spy network; Second, that the people who pushed the case for evacuation would not have had access to the MAGIC excerpts in any case; thirdly, that those who did have access to MAGIC did not base their decision on it." Other than that, I think he liked it okay. The book is due out on Monday. 10:12:51 PM    comment []

Hoggard emails to suggest a quick weblog conference in Greensboro, sparked by the uptick of interest in Internet campaigning by local candidates. Sounds good to me. Ideas: Free. Open to all. Not a lecture program, but folks with hands-on experience can guide conversation. Might could do it here in the conference room of my office building on a Saturday morning. Invite Mat Gross. Build a blog in real time. 4:43:23 PM    comment []

With the Florida state primary less than four weeks away, some veterans of the presidential primaries are at work for rival Democratic aspirants for the US Senate. Former Kerry campaign CTO Sanford Dickert is working for Senate candidate Peter Deutsch, while ex-Graham campaign staffer Joe Jones is working for frontrunner Betty Castor, who has a Deanesque site complete with blog, MeetUp page, and Get Local function. 2:45:15 PM    comment []

Muller comes out punching on motive and method, before beginning a substantive review of content. "I can't imagine how Michelle--or, indeed, anyone--could have done the primary research necessary to understand the record, let alone 'correct' it in the manner the book attempts to do, in five or six years, let alone in one." Instapundit seems to be backing away just a bit from his earlier support of Malkin, reiterating his opinion that internment was wrong and saying again that he really wants to focus on current immigration policy. Maybe if Muller shows the book Glenn calls "audacious" in his first post to be scurrilous instead, Instapundit will admit that there are better ways to "get the discussion going." 12:00:53 PM    comment []

Sam Hieb has moved his Guilford County blog to a new address. As a reader, I found his old Blog Studio software to be fairly unwelcoming, this is an improvement. 11:46:42 AM    comment []

Eric Muller vs. Michelle Malkin in a big summer smackdown, kicking off at Volokh. I got my money on Muller. Bonus: Photoshop spin begins. 9:10:12 AM    comment []

Jeff Thigpen: "Let's talk! This Blog is my PERSONAL INTERACTIVE PLATFORM for Thigpenfordeeds.com!" Hoggard mentioned a tutorial of some kind for political bloggers -- a great idea, I'd be happy to participate. 8:50:21 AM    comment []

A new Greensboro blogger, Jay Ovittore, on the latest terror warnings: "Thank you Howard Dean for finally saying what has needed to be said." 8:42:40 AM    comment []

Onion: CIA asks Bush to discontinue blog. 8:39:44 AM    comment []