The Power of Blogs

It is 5:30AM and I really need to get some sleep, but I really cannot resist making two comments - both gleaned from dailykos diaries, but providing proof and personification of the Dean/Trippi insight that the Internet has changed everything: (1) Cheney suggests half-way through the debate to visit factcheck.com (instead of, presumably, factcheck.org) Some Democratic genius instantly checks this, finds it open for sale, buys the rights to it, and links it to a George Soros site entitled "Why we must not re-elect George W. Bush". Fast and absolutely Brilliant. (2) Cheney also brutally slags Edwards' record in the Senate, claiming never to have met him until the debate that night. Again, almost instantly, the Kerry campaign puts up a photo of the two VP candidates sitting beside each other at some National Prayer Breakfast a few years ago. I find that most hilarious because it stuck out as one of Dick's best lines, proved utterly false almost immediately by the power of the Internet. As if the Republicans could have posted a picture after Benson's attack that proved Quayle actually was Jack Kennedy to rebut that powerful attack line... Maybe the Veep debates mean nothing, maybe not. Bottom line. The political landscape has changed this cycle, irrevocably. And it is so much FASTER.