Ben Smith, who really ran a solid blog (as well as Jonathon Martin) during the election, is usually better than this:
President-elect Barack Obama’s Transition today launched “Open for Questions,” a Digg-style feature allowing citizens to submit questions, and to vote on one another’s questions, bringing favored inquiries to the top of the list.
It was suggested when it launched that the tool would bring uncomfortable questions to the fore, but the results so far are the opposite: Obama’s supporters appear to be using — and abusing — a tool allowing them to “flag” questions as “inappropriate” to remove all questions mentioning Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich from the main pages of Obama’s website.
Gee, I wonder why Obama supporters may be doing that? Could it have anything to do with efforts like this:
Idea: This site is just begging for us to visit and ask about the extent of Obama’s relationship with Blagojevich.
… Oh yeah, you might also want to note that Obama should immediately disclose details of any and all contact between members of his team and Blago or his people — and ask whether or not Obama will fire or “promote up” Fitzgerald to keep him from putting more Obama friends in jail…
So, Ben- not only is this not censorship, but isn’t the REAL story here that when the Obama administration tried something new and innovative to gauge the will of the people, at the first opportunity partisan hacks from the GOP decided to sabotage the efforts? And isn’t this a supremely irresponsible suggestion:
So far, Obama’s team does not seem to have stepped in to allow uncomfortable questions to rise to the top, and instead is allowing his supporters to sanitize the site.
Isn’t that a particularly accusatory way of stating things? You are accusing them of not stepping in to ask the questions the majority of the users don’t want asked? Do you even understand what the point of voting on the questions was?
C’mon Ben- you are better than this. There is only room in this world for one Mark Halperin.
*** Update ***
I am trying to get work done, but I can’t because I keep obsessing on how truly hacktacular that Smith post was. I need to go into this in detail so I can move on with my life.
First, Ben Smith either does not know or does not care what censorship is- because this clearly is not censorship.
Second, Ben either does not know or does not care what the point of the website was. The point was for the people to suggest questions that are important to THEM, and then collectively rate the questions up or down. While the Blagojevich story is important, it is not important to the lives of most Americans right now. The war, the economy, health care, the energy issue, stem cell research, etc., are all far more meaningful for the average American.
Third, Ben suggest the Obama team is somehow at fault for not elevating certain questions that the users have decided are unimportant. Got it? The users vote on questions, the people have spoken, but that is not good enough for Ben. He wants team Obama to override the expressed purpose of the website. Maybe Smiths think the Bush era model of staging press conferences, in which the “reporters” are actually plants asking pre-approved questions. Is that the model Ben wants?
Fourth, if the Obama team DID step in and elevate questions people had voted down, violating the spirit of the entire endeavor, who do you think what be the first person to breathlessly report that team Obama was “tampering” with the questions?
Fifth, Obama supporters are not “censoring,” they are voting. Jesus, the stupid. He really doesn’t understand or care about the spirit of the effort here to get questions about issues that concern people.
Finally, rather than point the finger at the people elevating nonsensical, leading, and irrelevant questions (as a direct effort of sabotage, as I linked above), Smith faults the Obama campaign for, well, providing people a forum to ask questions they find important and then not intervening and tilting the scale one way or another. And keep in mind, that is what the Obama campaign is guilty of right now- providing a forum for people to ask questions. That is their sin- standing by and letting the system they set up work. For shame. At some point, we can be assured that Ben will be clutching his pearls and wondering why no one ever does anything different or innovative in Washington. The answer, of course, is because of folks like Ben Smith.
While I was charitable towards Ben in the first post, I am now inclined to just call him a jackass. This really was some first-rate Halperin/Howie Kurtz BS he spewed.
*** Update #2 ***
From the comments:
If Ben Smith really thinks there is something untoward going on at the Open Questions page, the solution is not for Obama’s people to force these loaded questions to the top (“why won’t you hit yourself? NOT FAIR!”).
The solution is for those who think these are important (and legitimate) questions, to vote for them.
Ben Smith is basically arguing not just for affirmative action for the tinfoil hat crowd… he’s demanding that Obama give them an assist.
Did he ever hold Bush to that ridiculous standard? Did Bush ever take even a single hostile question outside of the WH press room?
No.
Shorter Ben Smith- “By failing to tamper with the vote, the Obama team is censoring my stupid questions!”
It probably has not even occurred to Smith that if the Obama team did weigh in and tilt the scales in favor of the questions that are voted down, given the finite time of team Obama, since they can not answer every question, they would be “censoring” someone- all the people who voted for a question but had it ignored in order to address questions that interest Ben Smith.
Michael D.
Censorship ONLY occurs when the GOVERNMENT uses its police power to limit the speech of the citizenry. Censorship is NOT occurring when:
– A president-elect limits what’s said on his Web site
– FoxNews or CNN tell reporters what they can and cannot say
– A movie theater won’t run a film because it is political and they don’t like the message
– Saturday Night Live cans a skit of its own accord because it makes fun of certain politicians
– John deletes a comment because he doesn’t agree with it (which, obviously, John doesn’t do here.)
I always get a kick out of people who don’t understand the definition of censorship.
DJShay
Thank you for this! I was dumbstruck when I read it last night, and
Ted CasablancaJake Tapper was even more hateful. I rarely try to contact the authors of posts like this, but I fired off an email to Mr. Smith last night, for all the good it will do. He’s usually a lot more even handed than this.Napoleon
@DJShay:
What did Tapper do?
sarah
Are we reading the same Ben Smith that I’ve read since the primaries? He usually has a really shallow take on things and is prone to this type of ham-fisted approach to anything that appears ‘controversial.’
Besides we should be applauding the people who run the website for not stepping in. By really letting all users decide it’s the opposite of censorship. Duh, Ben.
TheFountainHead
Nothing more dangerous than a self-important blogger who’s seen his pageviews fall like Malkin’s pants at Hewitt’s Christmas party.
Krista
A lot of people use the term in a very self-serving manner. It’s very prevalent on blogs where people cry "censorship" anytime they have more than two people disagreeing with them.
And yeah…private enterprises or private individuals really do have every damn right to regulate what is being written or said within their domain. Our tax dollars are not paying for that domain, so it’s their house, their rules, bitches.
We may not always like it, we may think that in some cases it’s detrimental to free and open discourse and learning, but it’s not censorship. You can’t go into someone’s home, call them a motherfucker, and then protest when you’re kicked out.
4tehlulz
@sarah: He’s been infected by the stupid from his commenters. Jesus, even Freep and Red State are more intellectual than that.
DJShay
@Napolean – He reports the story the same way, but goes further in suggesting questions like this:
Are legitimate policy questions. At least Ben mentioned that some of them were clearly not appropriate questions.
Ash Can
Shorter Town Hall et al.: "We just know Obama’s evil but we can’t find any evidence to back it up. LIFE IS SO UNFAIR! sobsniffwhine"
And I’d be able to understand Ben Smith’s frustration at not getting difficult questions asked and answered if the arrest affidavit itself hadn’t shown that Obama and Blagojevich were essentially telling each other to fuck off.
Andrew
Hilarious.
Reading his comments are 50% "Look, there’s no reason to suspect Obama of anything and the investigation so far hasn’t even touched him in the slightest, so why does he have to be innundated with leading, accusatory questions?"
The other half are "OBAMA AND BLAGO ARE JOINED AT THE HIP BLAGO WILL SING LIKE A CANARY TO STAY OUT OF JAIL AND FINALLY REVEAL THE PERFIDY OF THE SAVIOUR’S LIFE BEFORE HE WROTE HIS BOOKS OF LIES THIS IS TYPICAL OBAMABOT BEHAVIOUR."
And yes, the all-caps are accurate. Ben Smith must be regretting writing what he did. Looking at his comments, it’s all to obvious why the questions are being flagged "Inappropriate" – because they’re being asked in bad faith in order to distract and smear
kommrade reproductive vigor
So if the people who ran Open for Questions didn’t allow users to vote on the questions (or only allowed votes on certain questions or … I’m not sure what the Hell he’s bitching about) then that’s hunky dory.
Dude, drink this nice foamy mug of StFu.
Doug H. (Comrade Fausto no more)
@Andrew:
Web page hits are web page hits. Not to mention that the Jeff Gerth Honorary Pulitzer For Pulling Presidential Scandals Out Of Your Ass won’t win itself.
nitpicker
Remember during the election when Obama supporters merely calling a radio station to complain about the b.s. in David Freddoso’s book was fascist thuggery?
jenniebee
Well I’ve signed up on the Open for Questions site, and have been going through, voting my little fingers to the bone. One of the questions lambasted Obama for smoking, one was asking what he would do to "further criminalize" marijuana (and that from Northern California – note to NorCal, sarcasm vy hard to convey over the intertubes). Fave question so far:
seriously.
Update: the weirdness really explodes when you find a bonkers question and click on the name to see all that person’s questions. I clicked on "Akira" and… oh dear lord.
Rick Taylor
And this is all after we had a President who avoided press conferences whenever he could, and who made sure that only those who adored him would appear at any public events where he’d be questioned.
cleek
he’s damned when he doesn’t, but would be damned if he did.
fuck you, sensationalist media hacks. fuck you all.
Dusty
Not to be all rational about winger nonsense, but the point of the site is for the public to ask questions that aren’t going to be asked otherwise by, you know, the media. The media’s going to ask lots of Blagojevich questions. Lots and lots of Blagojevich questions. Just as they asked lots of Rezko questions, which Obama answered back when that was relevant. So what difference does it make?
Andrea
Ben Smith is basically garbage. Avoid his stupid blog like the palgue. Politico hates too. Boy, I wish Politico would go out of business.
Andrea
We need to boycott the Politico web site and stop giving them traffic — plain and simple. As of today — I am done with Politico — until they learn a lesson. If we let them suffer — hopefully they will go out of business.
Zifnab
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship
So… not quite. That said, the features on this website are community features, not Obama-controlled features. It’s almost as though the folks who regularly frequent Obama’s question list are not interested in rehashing bullshit memes.
Ben Smith is right. This is a form of censorship. That said, he’s under the impression that Obama’s job is to babysit his question mining website and force unpopular questions to the top. That COMPLETELY DEFEATS THE PURPOSE OF HAVING SUCH A SITE. What the hell is the point of a Digg-style site if you’re not going to obey the primary Digg feature? In that sense, he’s completely out of touch with how internet denizens operates, and he’ll garner no love from the internet community at large.
Comrade Stuck
I think word has got out that Fox News could be dethroned as the RNC mouthpiece and Politico is making it’s bid.
MH
When the GOP is popular, you go with what the GOP wants, because it’s the will of the people.
When the GOP is not popular, you go with what the GOP wants, because it’s challenging the status quo and holding the powerful accountable.
Thus is beltway village culture preserved.
—————
Alternate take:
"The American people committed censorship against John McCain by not voting for him!"
Seitz
Next week from Ben Smith:
Obama’s team never stepped in to allow McCain to become President, instead allowing his supporters, or "voters" to elect Obama instead. Obama’s supporters censored McCain!!!
Birdzilla
Censorship used by sinister liberals trying to silence conservative especialy at our schools and universities
DougJ
Bear in mind, he came from the New York City press which is nothing if not ham-fisted. I thought he did a terrific job during the general election campaign.
This is really dumb, though.
onceler
I don’t get how he and Jonathan Martin keep their jobs. I guess they have lots of connections and all that. Neither of them seems particularly bright or insightful, they just occasionally happen across decent information. Both of these clowns have been in the business of writing specious headlines and putting a right-leaning slant on everything. Everything, as in … everything, for quite a long time now.
Comrade Stuck
Anyways, our hacktacular media will have their own forum to ask any question they want, in person, with Obama, in about 50 minutes. You now Ben, a news conference. Since you want Obama to chose what questions are important, maybe he’ll elevate the question I want answered. "Why is Ben Smith an idiot today" If he doesn’t ask that then I will be disappointed, though not surprised.
John Cole
He did a first rate job- I agree completely.
But this crap is Grade A Halperin. There is no other way to describe it.
TheHatOnMyCat
Michael’s observations are good.
And if the Obama team manipulated the question list, overriding the selections of the public, that would be mentionable. But to suggest that NOT doing so is somehow suspect is just nutty.
And a Birdzilla sighting! Even if it’s Birdzilla 2.0, which is a less than electrifying imitation of Birdzilla 1.0, it’s still cool. I preferred the old all-caps haiku version.
r€nato
If Ben Smith really thinks there is something untoward going on at the Open Questions page, the solution is not for Obama’s people to force these loaded questions to the top ("why won’t you hit yourself? NOT FAIR!").
The solution is for those who think these are important (and legitimate) questions, to vote for them.
Ben Smith is basically arguing not just for affirmative action for the tinfoil hat crowd… he’s demanding that Obama give them an assist.
Did he ever hold Bush to that ridiculous standard? Did Bush ever take even a single hostile question outside of the WH press room?
SteveIL
I see. When conservatives put forth their concerns, they are "partisan hacks from the GOP". So, does that make liberals "partisan whores from Democratic Party"? It’s interesting to see how Democratic corruption is completely ignored by liberals. And don’t tell me there isn’t any; there’s plenty of it that has come out, and is continuing to come out.
John Cole
@SteveIL: SteveIL, there is a difference between honest questions and partisan hackery. Considering I LINKED THE DAMNED HACKERY plot in the post and you failed to see it, I am not surprised you can not tell the difference.
Napoleon
@SteveIL:
Really? Funny, I could have swore that w/i 24 hours dozens of Dems called for him to resign and every single Dem Senator has signed a letter witch basically says they will not seat a Senator he picks. You have a funny definition of ignore.
Mean while when Delay was nailed the Republicans changes the rules of their caucus so they wouldn’t need to kick him out.
DougJ
Speak of the devil, Halperin is all over this shit today after ignoring it yesterday, linking to the Politico SEVEN QUESTIONS FOR OBAMA story. It’s almost like he was waiting for Politico to hit it so that he could pimp the story without looking like he was the one driving it.
John Cole
@DougJ: I thought you swore him off? Did you relapse?
I have been monitoring him for you.
Comrade Stuck
@SteveIL:
You obviously haven’t been reading the recent posts here on Blago’s corruption, or for the Jefferson one. There is nothing but unadulterated condemnation from Balloon Juice for both of these characters. Please don’t breeze by with canned GOP talking points. And if your saying that dems have corruption too, then I agree, but at this point in time it will have go some to catch up with the wingnut corruption of the past 8 to 16 years. Apples versus an Apple Grove.
Comrade Stuck
@John Cole:
Halperin is like the insane gopher from Caddyshack. He stays underground till the time is right, then pops his head up for a little strut, then goes back down for some more dirt.
DougJ
I couldn’t help myself the past two days. But I’d been gone so long that Firefox didn’t autocomplete the URL so I had a good run.
Napoleon
@Comrade Stuck:
if so I wish someone would go all Carl the Groundskeeper on him.
Comrade Stuck
@Napoleon:
Paging Bill Murray.
r€nato
…come to think of it, I am not sure Bush ever took a single hostile question INSIDE the WH press room. It simply was. not. done.
his press mouthpieces, sure, occasionally they were asked hard kweschins.
President Pissypants, not so much. The last time I recall any journalist asking hard kweschins of him, it was an Irish journalist who obviously had not been informed of the rules of American polite journalistic society, and she was quickly smeared by the GOP noise machine.
timb
Jake Tapper and Laura Ingraham doubled down the stupid on Ingraham’s radio show today. They spoke breathlessly of Obama supporters who can’t stand dissent and how the campaign eggs them on. I expect nothing better from Tapper, who has such an underwhelming mind I often confuse him with Halperin, and I always expect Laura to be dishonest and snarky, AND…
[an aside]how did she ever convince several million morons that she is one of them? She is Dartmouth educated and clerked for the freakin’ Supreme Court. How does someone that nasty end up clerking for the Supreme Court anyway? People would kill for that job (even it was Thomas) and it went to insane, self-flagellating, guilt ridden, hate filled woman?[aside over]…what surprises me is that, even though I always thought the media and right wing would band together to de-legitimize Obama, I guess I knew that only intellectually. I secretly hoped that Jake Tapper and Ben Smith would continue to be journalists and not shills and retards.
secret hope = path to disappointment every time
The Cons and Dana Millbanks of the world are going to try to turn this in to Whitewater. Good thing, Newt’s busy hiring office staff to audition for wife #4 to run for Congress.
mapaghimagsik
Good lord. Thank you John, for delivering me the internet stupid of the day.
Not only didn’t Bush not have to take a hostile question (until he left our syncophatic shores) his team loaded press conferences with toadies.
I guess they’re trying to make up for pissing themselves over the bush years by "speaking truth to power" now. I guess that’s how you keep a job.
So my obligatory comic whoring is here.
Zifnab
Hurray! Wingnuts continue to tilt at windmills.
I’m not really sure what Jules hopes to accomplish by screaming into the back end of the blog’o’sphere that Obama must be guilty of SOMETHING since he’s from the same state and all. But by god, I encourage him to keep trying.
After the lead prosecutor on the case publicly announces a list of people who are in no way suspect or in line for prosecution, you’d almost question how the screeching and hand flailing can go UP.
DougJ
Damn Skippy.
JasonF
I agree with Sarah in post # 4. Ben Smith is a sensationalist hack and he has been a sensationalist hack since at least a year ago, which is when I first read him.
Rick Taylor
This is what really pisses me off. Bush decided he could avoid having to answer hard questions by avoiding press conferences and staging his public appearances, and the press just let him get away with it. It was absolutely contemptible. They should have been screaming bloody murder. When McCain just refused to allow the press any access to Palin, he did it because the press had already proven they had no spine, so the price he’d pay would be far less than having her makes some gaffe. We basically have no press in this country. So after such a contemptible spineless performance, well, I was already seething.
Trollhattan
I had the same response as #13, recalling when, during the campaign the Obamabots overran rightwing radio, now of course occupying it and making George Will’s concern over resurrection of the fairness doctrine so very ironic.
I salute my new commie overlords. Now get to work on the pissant WSJ.
bago
If the wonketeers can’t get truck nutz up in that site, then freepers don’t have a chance.
sugarbiscuit
I heard that Ben Smith is currently working on an expose on how the judges from American Idol are censoring those poor participants.
There’s also rumours that the Oscar voters might be involved too….
Breaking fast!
TenguPhule
What is seen, can’t be unseen.
neil
Shorter Ben Smith: "The problem with this website that allows citizens to choose questions to ask the President-elect is that it lets citizens choose questions."
neil
But seriously, since Obama supporters have the ability to remove questions from this site, I think it’s very troubling that they’re going to phase out the White House press briefing in favor of this new system… what’s that? They’re not? Then what the hell is the fuss about?
Vincent
Zifnab, Wikipedia is not always the best source for definitions. I mean, I found another wiki source that says censorship is:
The use of state or group power to control freedom of expression, such as passing laws to prevent media from being published or propagated.
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/censorship
If you start to say something then I go ‘Ssh!’ then I guess I’ve ‘censored’ you. Yeah, you’re right in a broad sense that censorship can occur in the absence of state power, but it’s kinda weird to use the word that way.
And in this case, it’s not like the posts on Obama’s site are disappearing, they’re just being moved off the main page. At least that’s my understanding. That’s like saying the NY Times censored one of their columnists by moving the front page story to the sixth page.
JudiNV
Thank you for the intelligent article. I agree that Ben and Jake had a truly bottom-feeding moment. I fired on them both: