Orin Kerr pages the right half of the blogosphere

Astute readers may have observed that I have refrained from posting about Swift Boats, Kitty Kelley, typewriter fonts et al. While I certainly understand why the rest of the blogosphere is exercised about this stuff, Orin Kerr says what I’ve been thinking:

[L]et me see if I understand things correctly. A presidential election is less than two months away, and there is a war going on right now in Iraq. The war in Iraq raises profound questions about United States policy with regard to the Muslim world for decades to come. But instead of debating the war that is going on right now, we’re debating the war records of the two candidates from more than three decades ago. Wait, no, that’s too direct: we’re debating one network’s story about one candidate’s war record from three decades ago. Wait, maybe that’s too direct, too: we’re debating the fonts on different typewriters that may or may not have been used to write a memo that led to a story about one candidate’s war record from three decades ago. Yeah, that’s pretty much it. C’mon, folks: don’t we have more important things to blog about?

Now, I take Ramesh Ponnuru’s point that bloggers don’t have an obligation to do anything — though that is one reason why some journalists don’t like them. And readers should feel free to post comments here on why they disagree or agree with Orin or why these matters are vitally important questions before the republic compared to Iraq or Russia. Really, post away. But this is the first and last post you will read at danieldrezner.com about this subject. Because substantively,* I just don’t care about any of it — which is why I feel no desire to write about it. My one and only political response to all of this stuff is very simple, and echoies Lawrence Lessig: does anyone seriously believe that this election should be decided by what either candidate did more than thirty years ago? *For the blog paper Henry Farrell and I are writing, I’ll confess to some interest in the role blogs have played in framing these stories. UPDATE: TMH reminds me why I like my comments section, as he makes a decent point:

[O]ther issues, such as Iraq, are clearly more important, but (a) bloggers have less ability to influence them and less incentive to “cover” every development there, (b) most people have already long since made up their minds about the big issues and (c) most undecided Presidential voters don’t seem to care much about them. For better or worse, the thinking seems to be that “undecideds” can more easily be swayed about candidates’ biographies than about the issues. Hence, the re-fighting of the Vietnam War this campaign season.

I don’t buy (c) for a minute, but (a) and (b) have some traction. Check out Baseball Crank, who makes similar points. On the other hand… those who take the blogosphere as able to influence the media should read Telis Demos’ TNR Online piece and ask whether blogs have been consistent in their media critique (though see David Adesnik’s critique as well). [UPDATE: Hey, whaddaya know, bloggers have at this — except that it turns out Demos’ story was the one with factual errors. See Stuart Buck and Brian Carnell on this point (hat tip to Crow Blog for the links)] Oh, and one final point: this post certainly shouldn’t be interpreted as a defense of CBS. This Josh Marshall post — which offers an interpretation that’s most favorable to their reporting — sums it up. “GotterDannerung” indeed. ANOTHER UPDATE: Orin Kerr responds to his critics. The key part:

My sense is that bloggers are embracing Memogate to the exclusion of other things, as if it were an enormous relief to be able to lose ourselves in the story. The story lets the right half of the blogosphere feast on some of its favorite themes: damn that liberal media, blogosphere to the rescue, etc. Don’t get me wrong, those are good themes. But at some point the hearty appetite begins to look like escapism. And I think we’ve reached that point, if not passed it long ago.

Jonah Goldberg is worth reading on this as well. As is Jeff Jarvis.