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The Web as Political Weapon
cultrhetor writes "John Harris of the Washington Post has noticed that the three largest recent political controversies have stemmed from work done by digital inhabitants. In the article, New Media a Weapon in the New World of Politics, he notes the connections between the recent scandals involving Mark Foley, George Allen, and Bill Clinton were representative of the new, web-driven age of American politics." From the article: "Each originally percolated in the world of new media — Web sites and news outlets that did not exist a generation ago — before charging into the traditional world of newspapers and television networks. In each case, the accusations quickly pivoted into a debate about the motivations and alleged biases of the accusers. Cumulatively, the stories highlight a new brand of politics in which nearly any revelation in the news becomes a weapon or shield in the daily partisan wars, and the aim of candidates and their operatives is not so much to win an argument as to brand opponents as fundamentally unfit."
Of course it was a political play. It's the "October Surprise". It turns out that Hastart had heard that Foley was a little over friendly with the pages a few years ago. Everyone is saying that he should have done something about that then, but think about it. What should he have done? Launched an investigation against one of the few homosexuals in the Republican party based on something as subjective as "a little over friendly"? That would have been taken and ran with by the Democrats! A year ago Hastert saw the e-mails but they weren't bad enough (no where near as bad as the IM messages) to do anything about. Even 2 large Florida newspapers that knew about it didn't run the story because they didn't feel they warranted it. Now the IMs surface just before the election that were misreported as happening with a minor (Jorden Edmund was 18) and were quite possibly a prank and setup. This has definitely been blown out of proportion by those who want to take advantage of the situation.
www.joshferguson.org