My Q&A with Bob Cesca

Bob Cesca, one of the top bloggers at the Huffington Post graciously agreed to do an e-mail interview with me. He had some very interesting things to say about blogging. Here is the transcript:

ME: How did you get interested in and begin blogging?

BC: I've always been a student of politics, so during the 2004 election season I opened up a political discussion forum on my animation studio's website where I posted daily news blurbs and a ton of commentary. It was around that same time when I began reading a few of the earliest political blogs like DailyKos, Bill Scher's Liberal Oasis and, of course, Atrios.

ME: How did you end up working with the Huffington Post?

BC: Oddly enough, a colleague in animation mentioned me to Roy Sekoff, the founding editor at Huffington Post. During the first couple of months after Huffington launched, they were thinking about doing some animated political cartoons, so that's how the initial connection was made. But when I first spoke with Roy, I mentioned that I've done more political writing than animation, and while we developed the animation for Huffington Post, maybe I could write some columns. So he hooked me up with a password and I began blogging right away. August of 2005. The animated thing never happened, though, which is fine with me. This has been a dream gig.

ME: How did you get your blog noticed? How did the Huffington Post help with this?

BC: I started my personal blog in November 2004 under the title "Reality Based Nation" but I abandoned it when I started blogging for Huffington. However, by the autumn of 2007, I had gained a lot of readers at Huffington, so I thought I should perhaps re-brand my personal blog as a way to maybe earn some beer money from my Huffington traffic. That's really how the traffic flow began. I also built a readership through my blogging about the Obama campaign and the primary feud with the Clintons.

ME: How do your political beliefs affect your blogging?

BC: My blogging is all about my political beliefs. I think sometimes I shock some readers with some of my views though, since I'm not really a typical liberal blogger/activist. For instance, as I mentioned, I endorsed Barack Obama while other bloggers were still supporting John Edwards or Hillary Clinton for the nomination. When I suggested that Obama is more in line with the views of the wider liberal/progressive blogosphere and that some of the top-shelf bloggers should endorse, I caught a lot of flack from some bloggers who I really admired. That wasn't fun. And recently, I didn't particularly like the idea of a reporter hurling a shoe at the president. While the record shows that I'm no fan of George W. Bush, I don't think it's smart to support anyone who physically accosts the president -- no matter who he or she is.

ME: What are your favorite blogs to read? And why?

BC: My favorites:

Huffington Post (of course)

Chez Pazienza's Deus Ex Malcontent

The Political Carnival

Crooks & Liars (I also occasionally blog there)

Talking Points Memo

Hullabaloo

BooMan Tribune

TBogg
Think Progress

There are so many.

ME: What can you accomplish through new media that hadn't been possible beforehand?

BC: Everyone with a computer now has a shot at publicly voicing their opinion. It's very close to being the First Amendment in its purest form. If computers and internet connections affordable for everyone, it would be a flawless representation of First Amendment ideals.

ME: How has your outside work as a screenwriter, director, talk radio host, and reporter influenced the way that you blog?

BC: I think these other aspects of my career have helped me to be a little more entertaining and concise. At least, I hope that's the case.

ME: How do you get the information for your pieces?

BC: My personal blog is the first draft for my Huffington Post columns, so I collect information there. But I find it through other blogs, the various news sites and, of course, the Google.

ME: How do you construct your articles?

BC: I usually spend half of my Wednesdays thinking about a topic that'll work on the Huffington Post. My first duty is to bring traffic to Huffington, so it has to be a topic that will resonate with readers. Then I usually hammer out something in roughly three hours, then post at around 6PM eastern time. Usually, everything I write is a first draft -- just to keep the spontaneity. I usually never re-write anything from scratch, though I've had plenty of false starts.

ME: How do you decide what to blog about?

BC: Again, it has to be something which will resonate with readers, but also something I'm passionate about. My worst columns were topics that either I was asked to write about, or topics that I didn't really have a strong opinion (or a half-developed opinion) about.

ME: Should there be a standard format for blogs? Why or Why not?

BC: I don't think so. It seems like formats are as unique as the blogger, and that's important. I wouldn't want to wear your clothes and vice versa.

ME:Where do you see the future of blogs going?

BC: It'll be a constant process of boiling. Some blogs will rise to the surface and remain there, while others will come and go. Other bloggers will become huge and then migrate to the establishment media (Ana Marie Cox, for instance, went from blogging to TIME magazine). And other blogs will become more news oriented, like Talking Points Memo. The sites that will remain on top are the sites that continue to evolve and grow.

ME: Do you think that blogs seem to be supplanting the old style of media? If so, do you think that this is a good thing?

BC: Maybe and probably not. Old media is important and I hope it doesn't become supplanted by the blogs. We need well-funded news agencies and journalists tracking down the stories and, at least, pretending to adhere to some sort of journalistic standards. Of course, there's always a chance that all of journalism will evolve into blogging, but I don't think that'll happen. However, blogs will become increasingly important in terms of shaping what gets covered. We've already seen evidence of this. The symbiotic relationship will tighten -- old media providing fodder for the blogs and the blogs, in turn, providing guidance for old media and on and on.

BCS: In Need of a Change

The current system in College Football needs a change. Currently, the system is that the BCS (Bowl Championship Series) rankings decide who goes to the top 5 bowl games at the end of the season. The rankings decide who plays for the championship and 4 other highly publicized games. However, it annually angers fans of the sport. The reason is because the system always leaves a team either out of the championship or out of the BCS bowl games that fans consider to be deserving of a spot.

This year was of course no exception. The BCS left out Texas from the finals by 0.0181 BCS ranking percentage points points. Now they are out of a shot to play for the title. They also left out Boise State, who had a perfect season from any BCS games. Boise St.'s spot was given to Ohio St. because Ohio St. is from a bigger conference, despite Ohio St. being down .06 BCS ranking percentage points to Boise St. Boise St. did went undefeated this year. What more could they have done? They deserve at least a shot at the title for their efforts. Whatever happened to the idea that anyone can win in sports, "on any given sunday" (or Saturday in college football)? Why was Texas left out of the title game despite being tied with in record (and beating head-to-head) Oklahoma. This system has angered fans for too long and needs to be changed. Here's what I suggest:

Why should the contenders for the National Championship be decided on by a computer average of polls? This is never true in any other sport. All other major sports have a tournament or a playoff of some kind, not just one game. There are rankings used in college basketball to decide who plays in the tournament, but not who plays in the finals. There should be a playoff system in college football.

Let us shorten the season to 10 games long. Eliminate some of the games that are non-conference and non-rivarly. After the 10 games, the top 24 ranked teams are chosen to play in the top tournament. The 9-24th ranked teams play eachother to decide the top 16. Then the top 16 play an elimination-style tournament to decide the winner. The next top 32 teams will be selected into an NIT type of tournament just as in college basketball to play an elimination-style tournament. This would garuntee undefeated teams a chance for the title and have the most deserving teams playing. It would also be quite croud pleasing. No longer would the BCS have nearly as much contreversy because the bottom teams would be much farther away from probable contention as Texas is today.

I was pleased to see a similar plan supported by our president-elect:

My feelings on a Chambliss win

Let me first say that I hate Saxby Chambliss. I found it disgusting what he did against Max Cleland and am sad that he will continue to have power. However, I am happy that the Democrats did not reach the 60-seat majority in the Senate.

A filibuster is Senate rules permit a senator, or a series of senators, to speak for as long as they want and on any topic they choose, unless a supermajority of three-fifths of the Senate (60 Senators) brings debate to a close. If the democrarts got 60 seats in the senate this would be stopped. This would be very bad. We need our system of checks and balances. With Obama in the White House and a majority in the Senate, Democrats will definetely have the most say in what goes on policy wise. There needs to be some debate still. Both sides still need to have a say. Without debate, it is an unfair majority and democrats can also be blamed for 100% of what goes wrong in the country in future elections. Though I am not fond of Chambliss having any power, I am happy about other republicans still having a say in the Senate and not being silenced by a filibuster-proof majority.

Chambliss Wins Georgia Runoff

Last night Georgia Senator Saxby Chambliss scored a key win for the Republicans in his senate race against democrat Jim Martin. The race ended a month late because of an odd Georgia law that says that on November 4th, a candidate must get at least 50% of the vote or else there is a runoff election. Chambliss received 49.8%, and therefore could not be declared the winner. There was a runoff election yesterday and Chambliss won by 15 points. Many strong opinions were formed of Chambliss after he ran very harsh attack ads such as this in his first campaign:



Of course the blogs had much to say about this. For all statistic related news I went to the best statistical blog I know of, Nate Silver at fivethirtyeight.com. Nate said in his blog that the reason that Chambliss won was due to the fact that turnout was significantly lower in african-americans and democrats as a whole. Chambliss had republican heavyweights such as Sarah Palin and John McCain out campaigning for him while Obama was too busy to help Martin. The get out the vote efforts which got Obama into office, similarly got Chambliss into the Senate as well, according to Nate. He says that Chambliss "showed other Republicans the way."

Matt Stower at Open Left felt that Chambliss discovered that it was easier to organize people than to raise money. He said that this was a major night for Republicans and that they needed, under the leadership on Palin and Huckabee, to become a populist party while democrats become the party of big business. He says that this is the way for the Republicans to win in 2010.

Daily Kos offered a different perspective on the Chambliss win. Kos said that the win was expected for Chambliss and that democrats do well with high turnout. Obviously, because this was not on election day, turnout was very low and the Republican base was fired up for Chambliss with McCain and Palin's campaigning.

Democratic Strategist stated lessons to be learned from this loss. They included that money and ground game help a lot, both of which Martin lacked in. They also said that Georgia was not yet a purple state. The get out the vote and higher money for Obama still did not win him Georgia. The blog told democrats not to worry about this loss, only to learn from it.

Real Clear Politics talked about how Chambliss won by not losing as many voters as Martin. Obviously turnout was decreased, but in key democratic counties, Martin failed to get out the vote. It also said that the democrats goal of a fillibuster-proof majority is now gone and this is huge for republicans still having a say.

Real Clear Politics was the only blog I read on the issue that did not cite Fivethirtyeight.com's article or quote at at some point. Chambliss officially was declared the victor and will continue to serve. What it means for the way future campaigns are run, we still don't know, but there are many opinions out there on what it will mean moving forward.

My thoughts on Lieberman

Joe Lieberman does not deserve to stay as the Chair of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security. It is not because he endorsed John McCain for President. Obama has said himself that he likes having people around him whose views differ from his. However, the divisive rhetoric that Lieberman spat on the campaign trail for months is simply not acceptable. He said that it is a good question to ask whether or not Obama is a Marxist and a socialist. He also spoke at the Republican National Convention where he said Obama would be "dangerous" if elected. It is these statements that show a spirit of uncooperation and he should not hold that high of a position if he cannot cooperate with Obama.

Lieberman does tend to vote with the democrats and therefore should be offered to caucus with them. There he will not have to work as much with Obama, just vote with him. He has said many times that if he is booted from his position as Chair that he will leave the democratic caucus. If he makes this decision, so be it. If he does, his time in the Senate is limited. He will surely lost his home state in his next election because Connecticut leans heavily democratic. The democrats also shouldn't need his vote. It is very unlikely that the Democrats will win Georgia and get the 59 (+Lieberman) majority in the Senate. Even if they somehow do, Lieberman will vote against the democrats on many key issues including Iraq.

It does send a good message that Obama wanted Lieberman to stay, but it will not pay off for him in the end. Lieberman should have been removed by the Democrats because he will do much more harm than help by continuing to lead the Committee on Homeland Security.

Lieberman Stays With the Democrats

In 2000, Joe Lieberman was the democratic nominee for vice president. He was a prominent democratic senator from Connecticut and he even ran for the democratic nomination in 2004. However, in 2006, Lieberman lost his democratic primary in Connecticut to Ned Lemont due to the fact that Lieberman supported the war in Iraq. Unwilling to give up his Senate seat, Lieberman left the democratic party. He became an independent, still vowing to vote with the democrats. With the support of independents and some republicans, Lieberman managed to remain in the Senate. However, he next endorsed Sen. John McCain over Barack Obama for president. Not only did he endorse McCain, but he campaigned constantly with him. He said very negative things about Obama, including that it was "reasonable" for it to be questioned whether or not Obama was a socialist. Lieberman was considered a possible vice-presidential candidate for McCain even. He did not get it, but was given a keynote speaking role at the Republican National Convention:



After all of this, Lieberman still wants to caucus with the Democrats and keep his position as Chair of the Senate Homeland Security Committee. Today he was allowed to keep the position as the Chair and he was allowed to caucus with the Democrats moving forward. One reason behind this is that the democrats still want a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate. Without Lieberman, this would not be possible. The biggest reason, however, was probably that President-elect Obama said he wanted Lieberman to remain with the democrats. Now Lieberman is staying with the dems, not up for re-election until 2012. However, some of the blogs aren't taking this quietly.

Nate Silver at one of my new favorite blogs to read, FiveThirtyEight.com, wrote that it was Obama who kept Lieberman in the Senate. He says that a vote that ended up being a 30 point spread was previously expected to be a very close vote before Obama's announcement. He says that if one disagrees with Lieberman, they are now disagreeing with Obama.

Steve Benan at The Washington Monthly blogs that now Lieberman owes Obama now. He says that with this, Lieberman is now in Obama's debt, but that he could betray Obama sometime in the future again after he repays Obama by voting with him.

Over at Huffington Post, Bob Cesca said that Obama punished Lieberman more than he knows by not punishing him. He says Obama showed that he was a better man than Lieberman to the entire world by not holding grudges or getting involved in something petty.

The Daily Kos blog said that it will be much harder to get the change we need, as Obama campaigned for, with Lieberman still in the Senate. The blog says that with Lieberman still head of the Homeland Security Committee, it will be harder to get things done with his pro-Iraq views and many dissagreements with Obama.

Moving father left, the blog "Open Left" was very angry and said this would hurt withdrawl in Iraq and that Obama was wrong to keep him in.

Some of the farthest left blogs were the most angry by this decision. Many said that this was horrible for the American people and that Obama was acting on politics not on what was right. My Left Nutmeg said that "Lieberman wins, we lose."

Some blogs commended Obama for his decision, saying it showed true leadership. Other more liberal blogs criticized the decision. It is a very interesting topic and we will see how Obama's decision plays out come 2009.

Earlier tonight I began my volunteer work at the Special Olympics in Spring Valley. It had taken months for me to be able to join this organization. I had talked with Charlie, the head of the Olympics many times and was under the impression that it was a kids' league. However, when I walked in I was surprised to find only a few kids there and about 60 adults.

I got to meet Charlie finally and he handed me my work. I was to keep score for the the teams and record all of the statistics. About 3 times I was asked, "Hey, what team are you on," by an organizer who didn't know I was a volunteer. One even walked up to me and said, "Hey, you're Jake, right?" I said I was and then he brought me a jersey for a team. After most of the directors had either met me, or asked me about playing, I began my work. The sport was field hockey and there were 4 matches throughout the night.

I was placed next to these loud Brooklyn women and a man who was a player in the Special Olympics. The women complained about their husbands for most of the time. The man, meanwhile repeated three sentences maybe 40 times. "I'm waiting for J.P." He said. "Ah," I responded. "When do I play?" "You play third." "There is a luncheon on Saturday, right?" "I don't know, I just started here." "Hey do you know J.P.?" "No, I don't, I just started here." "Ok, because I'm waiting for J.P." We had this conversation throughout the night.

Though it was not as satisfying socially, the work aspect was very fun. The players were very enthusiastic about their teams and it was great watching them celebrate when they'd score. Some players had trouble playing. One kept walking off the floor. Some players, however, were great players despite whatever disability they had. I was hard at work for most of the night, but ended up getting along well with most of the players.

Though it began kind of badly, I ended up enjoying myself and am excited to return next week.

Update in Alaska

Mark Begich has just moved into the lead over Ted Stevens with only a week left to count the votes. His lead...... a grand 3 votes!

Stiking with Senator Stevens?

With the election now over for a week, the fate of the Senate is still unknown. The democrats have a clear majority of 57 seats to 40 seats. However, three races are still undecided. If the democrats win all three, they become filibuster-proof. There are currently recounts going on in Minnesota and Alaska, along with a runoff election in Georgia. The most strange election of the group seems to be that of Alaska where convicted felon Ted Stevens holds a narrow lead over Anchorage mayor Mark Begich. I became inspired to see what the blogosphere had to say about this after seeing this video.







Almost every blog agreed that something seemed wrong with this Senate race in Alaska.
The voter turnout was much higher in Alaska's primaries in 2008 than in 2004. The early voting was also in record numbers. Yet somehow when the votes were counted for the general election, record lows were recorded despite Alaska having the third greatest amount of voters registered in their history. Also, with Governor Palin on the ticket in an election with such high stakes, and a divisive recently convicted felon on the ballot, record lows seemed very suspiscious. The whole situation in Alaska has generated a lot of suspicion from the blogs that I read.


At Huffington Post, Alaskan blogger Shannyn Moore said that the election in Alaska must have been stolen. Her article began, "Something stinks." She then talked about all of the facts above and also talked about how all polling had Mark Begich ahead by around 8 percent and that all of this could not just be a coincidence. She also noted that in a Congressional race, democrat Ethan Berkowitz was also ahead by 8 points in polling and now trails by 8 points in the results. She said that this appeared to be a horrible violation of democracy.

Over at Talking Points Memo, John Marshall said that he felt that Sarah Palin had rigged the election in favor of Stevens so that Palin could run for senate if Stevens is sent to prison. He clearly had a liberal bias, however he did bring up an interesting conspiracy theory.

A new site I've looked at called fivethirtyeight.com had 2 interesting entries from Nate Silver. Smith is a famous baseball probability blogger turned political probability blogger. In his first article Silver wrote that the odds were still with Begich because of all of the uncounted ballots (30,000) to win the election. In his second post, entitled "What in the Hell Happened in Alaska?" Silver said that he thought fraud was probably occurring. The polling from his site was 12-14 points off for the disputed Senate, Congressional, and even Presidential races in Alaska. Many votes are being deemed "questionable ballots," and Silver believes that these may very well be mostly democratic ballots.

Mary Pemberton at Real Clear Politics blogged about how Stevens would not even get in to the Senate if elected. She also talked about how many Alaskans may just genuinely have liked what Stevens has done in the Senate for 40 years, even if he is a convicted felon.

At Caffinated Politics, dekerivers said that the reason voting is so low is because no absentee ballots were counted until this week out of fear that people might vote twice as occurred in the primaries in Alaska. This is a counter idea to the many fraud allegations swirling.

Whether or not fraud has occurred is still unknown. The results of the election in Alaska are just as unclear. There are reasonable arguments from both sides of the fraud allegations. We will have to see in the coming weeks what unfolds here in Alaska.

McCain's final speech

Last night as the election concluded, Barack Obama won very convincingly. Almost immediately after Obama was declared the winner of the election, McCain had to speak to his supporters.



This must have been an incredibly hard moment for the Arizona senator, but his speech became one of the most talked about stories of the night. I looked to various blogs to see what they had to say about the speech.
At Huffington Post, well known liberal Alec Baldwin blogged that he felt that McCain’s speech was “the most moving moment of the night for him.” He stated that McCain was in the hardest spot of the night, but pulled through. He also said that he “believed” McCain and that the “real” McCain that many democrats used to like of the past came back that night.
Beth Fouhy at Yahoo News talked more about the content than the nature of McCain’s speech. She seized on the fact that he said that he would work with President Obama and about moving forward. It also talked about McCain’s call for unity in the country and him fully putting his support behind Barack Obama.
Steven Hayes at Real Clear Politics felt that McCain’s speech brought back the “old John McCain,” just as Baldwin did. He called the speech magnificent and heartfelt. Many liberals such as Hayes had a similar opinion, some even saying that if all of McCain’s speeches were like his final one that McCain would be our president. In fact, of the 20 search pages I went through, I could not find one negative statement about McCain’s acceptance speech. All of the conservative blogs said they loved the speech, even if they still hated Obama. It was deemed to be one of the best moments of the night by many blogs and “healing” many of the struggles. His final speech was the most popular within the blogosphere of any all of his campaign.

A day in Allentown

Sadly at age 15 I am not allowed to vote. However, with this election being so important I wanted to contribute somehow to the political process. My mom and I decided to go to swing state Pennsylvania to volunteer as part of an Obama Get Out the Vote effort on election day. We found a group in Tarrytown who went down to Allentown, Pennsylvania every 4 years to campaign. The group of 10 consisted of my mom and I, our town's mayor, my neighbor, and a bunch of passionately liberal older women. I left for Allentown at 7 am and was quite tired. I slept the whole ride, waking up occasionally to the liberal rants of the older ladies mostly about Sarah Palin. Then we arrived at the Allentown. It was a very run down working class area. It was clearly hurt by the economy. However, Obama headquarters in Allentown was thriving.
The headquarters was outside and everywhere I looked I saw people making phone calls for Obama and wearing “Obama ’08” pins. My group was divided up. My mom and I were put with the mayor, his daughter, and one of the passionate old ladies. We were given an assignment to ring doorbells of registered democrats on a list and ask four questions: Have you voted? If they had not, then: Do you plan on voting? If someone did then: Do you know where to vote? And finally: Do you need a ride to the polls? Our first 2 hours were very boring. Everyone was either not home or had already voted. Then, as we were going to lunch, things got interesting.
A man walked up to us saying he was a former felon put wanted to turn his life around and wanted to vote. He was registered and we gave him all of the voting information that he needed. Next, a man walked up asking us if we spoke Spanish. The mayor’s daughter and I attempted to communicate with him. It ended up that he was a homeless man who had been denied being allowed to vote because he didn’t fill out an address on his registration. We drove him to the city hall and the mayor’s daughter waited in line with him to see what would happen.
Then, as we went to lunch, we saw Ralph Nader campaigners. The older lady began to yell at the Nader supporters. They yelled back about how she should open her mind. Then I tried to talk to them more calmly. They started yelling at me because I had an Obama pin on. So I got into an argument with them as well. I said that this election was too important and that Nader is just running as a spoiler. They said that he should have won the election but wasn’t in the debates and that Obama and McCain were not really different. I was very angry at the fact that people felt this with the huge differences between Obama and McCain but I walked away, figuring that there was no convincing them of how I felt.
After that lovely encounter, I campaigned a lot more. After 6 hours of campaigning, I successfully got out 6 people to vote. One person did not even know that the election was for the country, they thought it was just for Pennsylvania. We did not need to give any rides, but informed a bunch of people on where to vote. I had contributed more than I could have even if I was able to vote and felt very good about it. Last night, Allentown went for Obama by 15%, I was very happy with my contribution and of course overjoyed by the Obama victory in the election.

My trip to the National Youth Leadership began with me sitting on a train with no clue about the experience I was about to go through. I was not even really thinking about the conference until about midway through the ride when it hit me that I was going by myself for six days into a totally new situation. So many questions went through my mind: What if I hate my roommates? Will I actually make friends there? Will I just be a small fish in a huge pond and not be noticed? What if I hate the food?

I kept telling myself that this would all be okay and reminded myself of all of the great things that would be happening and all of the memorable experiences I would have. Then, I was there. I got in a cab and rode to the conference. There I was very disoriented. I saw other people my age walking about nervously, not looking to talk to anyone. I suppose I was the same way. It was the first time I was with no one I knew in my entire life. It was so daunting. Finally I met a girl from new york city at the vending machines. She was a heavy Obama supporter and had very liberal political views. At RCDS these were views I had heard quite well and I felt good talking about them. Then I went to my room. I briefly said hello to my roomates and left. I quickly was rushed off into the orientation meeting.
In my meeting I was introduced to my group of 20 unknown faces and quickly made friends with a teenager from Atlanta. His accent was just like George Bush, but he was the most elegant speaker I had ever seen. He was also a hardcore liberal and he wanted to run for president someday. He quickly won president of my group. I felt so much more confortable after having 2 liberal friends. However, when I went to my room I was in for a political shock.

I walked in and my roomates were all discussing about the election. I heard one say, "Yeah, I could never trust Barack Obama." They then turned to me and asked, "Do you support McCain or are you a liberal?" He said the word liberal in a manor that I had only seen before on Fox News. I had never met a conservative my own age I realized. It ended up my roommates were my first 3. I had always had an extremely negative vision of conservates. I was expecially distressed when my roommates passed up watching the Daily Show for Family Guy. I knew I was in for a new experience at that very moment.

Over the coming days I met tons of conservatives. I realized that as sooon as we stopped talking about politics, I got along with them fine. I realized that conservatives could be perfectly fine people as well. The conference was then going great for me, I gained many friends and learned all about washington. However, it became time to divide into our parties for the Model Congress on the final two days and my conservative acceptance was in jeporady.
It became time for each group to begin executing their ideas on an immigration bill. My group believed in amnesty to illegal immigrants. I was chosen as a debate speaker to debate our amendment with the republican comitttee. I was very nervous about speaking, so I looked to the best speaker I knew: my friend from Georgia. I talked with him and studied what he did in his speaking that made him such a powerful speaker. He told me to be as natural and polite as possible but to yell when necessary and be as passionate as possible. When I went to debate, I tried to be like him, I even said "y'all" a few times. My opponent, however, was one of the republican leaders. I looked at her. She had bright red hair, and cold, dark eyes. She looked kind of like a snake or a villian on some kids T.V. show. She was viscious and mean and republican and I had to try to debate her.

During our debate I tried to be very polite. However, my opponent was so viscious. When I'd try to talk, she'd interrupt me. I grew angrier and angrier at her and at the cheering conservatives who yelled as she talked. I began to use the passionate yelling idea. I argued as strongly as possible, criticizing my opponent for constantly interrupting and lying about my ideas in my closing argument. I yelled most of the time. Somehow, I pulled off a win by 1 vote on the committee. I had improved my speaking but had lowered my acceptance of conservatives after dealing with my opponent.

Then on the final day of the Model Congress, many of my ideas came crashing down. In Model Congress each party got to debate in front of everyone and vote on a bill. I was named a general debate speaker as was my Georgia friend and two other people. Opposing us, however, were the liberal girl I met on the first day who had been assigned to be a republican and the evil red-haired girl, along with two others. The opening democratic speeches before debate were very boring and many of the republican speeches were too. However, many were layered with lies which made me very angry. Then, the concluding debate speeches came. By then I was quite angry with the republicans for their lies and hatred to immigrants. I then had to watch the liberal girl give the most racist speech of the day. She said that immigrants were all "unskilled," illegal immigrants should go to jail for 20 years. I could not believe I was hearing this, especially from her. Then I saw the red-headed girl shockingly give a evil and racist speech. I was very angry. For my speech I skipped straight to the passionate yelling. I yelled for as long as the time limit would let me. I got a standing ovation from the democrats and boo-ing from the republicans. To end it off, my friend from Georgia went up. I assumed that we had it in the bag with him up there. And yet, he gave a terrible speech. I was shocked. He looked so nervous and kept stuttering. I couldn't believe that my friend, the best speaker I had seen had sounded the way I imagined myself sounding in my worst nightmare of my speech. It was very bittersweet for me because I had succeeded using his ideas and he had become like me at the beginning of the trip. It was such a shock. He seemed in good spirits anyway, saying it was a learning experience for him.

During the Congress I rethought my opinions of many of my friends. I felt just as strongly against republicans as I had when I arrived. However at the closing dance that night, I found myself dancing with many of my republican friends. I even danced with the girl I believed to be an evil witch. I came to realize that it was not conservative people I was against, just conservative ideas. People were raised with different ideas, and even if I disagreed with those ideas strongly, it was not the person's fault how they were raised. I ended the conference with this view of acceptance for conservatives and remain friends today with many of the conservatives I met there.

Bachman calls for investigation into "Anti-Americanism" in Congress, Blogs React

The two biggest newsmakers over the past weekend were the endorsement of Barack Obama by Senator Colin Powell and a surprising story over a comment on "Hardball with Chris Matthews" on MSNBC. The comment came from Minnesota's 6th district's representative Michele Bachman while she was being interviewed by Chris Matthews.

My father and I happened to be watching MSNBC at the time of the comment and were thoroughly shocked with what Bachman said. Bachman stated that the media should investigate Congress for "anti-americanism." She then went on to state that Barack Obama and Michelle Obama have anti-american views based on Rev. Wright, Bill Ayers, and Michelle Obama's comment about being proud of her country. Rep. Bachman shocked many watching with this statement and was called out for practicing "McCarthyism" by the next guest on the show. The blogosphere was majorly abuzz with this story. Many agreed with the statement on McCarthyism though a few had other outlooks or even sided with Rep. Bachman.

The first blogs I checked were those on Huffington Post. The article by Sam Stein talked about how Bachman called essentially for a "witch-hunt" into pro or anti Americanism. It did not offer very much opinion but did agree that the interview "channeled McCarthyism." It also talked about how the move may have helped her opponent, who had raised over 300,000 dollars since the interview.

I next checked Politico, which offered a different perspective. Blogger Daniel Libbit said that Rep. Bachman was doing everything for attention. He said that Bachman for months had been doing everything she could to get into the national spotlight, appearing on Larry King multiple times, and many other talk shows. He says that this is just a stunt for media attention by making such a rediculous claim. Of the blogs I checked, this was a unique opinion.
I checked multiple blogs from news stations, however they offered very little opinion and only quotes and responses from the various parties.

The final blogs that I checked were those outside of my usual viewing group. I checked various internet blogs on the matter that are not as regulated. Many offered strong opinions about how crazy they believed representative Bachman is. A blog here at blogspot entitled Dump Michelle Bachman calls Rep. Bachman an "extremist, McCarthyist, and lier." Many of the conservative blogs blame Matthews and the "got cha media." This is to be expected as media bashing is usually the easiest excuse for actions. I also found a few calling Rep. Bachman a "patriot" and "true american" for her comments. Freerepublic.com's blogs have posts that say things such as, " She’s GOT to be GREAT, cause those commie libs REALLY hate her," and "I am truly inspired by her courage."

The majority of blogs that I read were shocked and called the incident "McCarthyism," though in blogging there are always many opinions out there. I personally found the most persuasive to be the Politico article which had many facts and offered a unique and interesting perspective on the matter.