Perry versus the blogs...again

Call me crazy, but I have to wonder why one of Rick Perry's spokespeople is responding to a blog post about some silly award he won. I mean, doesn't he have other things to worry about, like, you know, school finance (which is on the floor of the House today) and tax reform. That sort of thing. And now, thanks to Robert Black's petulance, way more people know about this than ever would have otherwise. Way to go, dude!

You may note my somewhat colorful quote in the article. I have less than no desire to rehash the whole blogging legitimacy wankfest, but I will say this: We're all grownups here, and we're all capable of reading a newspaper or magazine or weblog and determining for ourselves if their producers have credibility or not. It's not hard. Even Robert Black could do it if he tried.

Anyway. Other takes on this:

In the Pink Texas

Greg Wythe

Byron LaMasters

Grits for Breakfast

PerryVsWorld, who asks "Could Mr. Selby really not locate a rightward-leaning blogger in Texas? He chooses to only highlight left-leaning blogs." I can tell you this: The email I got from Selby about this made me think he was going to do a feature article on the proliferation of bloggers who are focusing on goings-on in the Legislature/Capitol. After I spoke to him, I sent him a list of such blogs, one of which was PerryVsWorld. That wasn't the article he had in mind, apparently, and I can't speak to why he highlighted the blogs he did at the bottom. For what it's worth, though, PVsW is about the only truly right-leaning blog I can think of that fits this bill. Feel free to correct me on this if you think I'm wrong.

UPDATE: And from Southpaw.

UPDAYE: Still more from PinkDome and The Red State (thanks, Byron).

UPDATE: By request, here's the email I got:

Howdy...

I'm writing on Capitol blogs. Cud you call me at xxxxxxx area code 512 or e me here?

g.

To be fair, Selby never specifically said what he was writing about when I spoke to him. We talked a little about how there were a lot of Capitol/Lege blogs now - he asked what I thought of that, I said basically "it's great!", he asked if there was too much information to process as a result, I said given the number of bills that came out of the 78th Lege without anyone really knowing much about them (I mentioned the Trans Texas Corridor and HB2292 as examples), I'd much rather have the info out now even if I can't or don't do anything about it. He asked if I'd seen the ItPT post, I said yes. He read me the Robert Black quote, I gave my response and said more or less what I said here, that we can all decide for ourselves who is credible and who isn't. We discussed the Perry-is-gay rumors from last year. He asked why I didn't write about it, I said I wasn't comfortable with it and that everyone has their own standards - in a followup email, I noted that not all newspapers run the same stories. He asked if I thought it was wrong for the Burnt Orange guys to have written about it, I said no, they do their thing and I do mine and we're all responsible for what we do - I pointed out that Governor Perry responded to them at the time. He asked if I'd send him a list of blogs that he ought to check out and I did.

That's about it. I would not say I was deceived in any way - I drew my own conclusions, and they were inaccurate. Had I thought about it, I might have figured it out, since why else would he refer to one specific post and read me a quote like that? The subscription-only Texas Weekly did a Texas bloggers profile a little while back, and I just assumed that's what the Statesman was doing. No harm, no foul.

Posted by Charles Kuffner on March 08, 2005 to Show Business for Ugly People | TrackBack