Oh, That’s Why They Call it “Hot Air”
Ian at the appropriately-named Hot Air is hot and bothered over Maryland Democrat Martin O’Malley having failed to advertise the fact that he was charged and acquitted of driving drunk in 1987. In the heading, Ian categorizes this non-advertisement as “lying about [a] DUI,” and even less explicably, failing to “disclose” this non-offense on the “bar exam.” As an active member of three bars who has sat for two bar exams, I cannot say I recall being asked a single question relating to my own criminal history, so I presume that when Ian wrote “bar exam” he meant “stuff you have to fill out to join the bar, or whatever.” ABC News similarly speculates over whether O’Malley mentioned his non-offense on the bar exam application, which makes a hell of a lot more sense than Ian’s Hot Air, but is still based on zero evidence that O’Malley concealed his arrest – assuming, of course, that he was obligated to disclose it at all.
This is why we have a “new media?!” Yeesh.
UPDATE: Several commenters, including Patterico, think I’m being too hard on Ian in particular or on Hot Air in general. To them, I propose the following thought experiment. Suppose the tables were turned, and a similar non-event occured with respect to a statewide Republican candidate in California. You then perused your “favorite” left wing group blog, and encountered this:
Poochigian lies about DUI, did not disclose on bar exam?
This could cost him the election:
“Chuck Poochigian was arrested on a charge of driving under the influence of alcohol in August 1973 but was later found not guilty of the offense, aides to Fresno legislator said last night, responding to media inquiries.
Poochigian, the Republican nominee for attorney general in California, was a 24-year-old law student at the University of Santa Clara at the time. The arrest occurred in the early morning as Poochigian was returning to his parents’ home in Fresno County, aides said.”
Poochigian could be disbarred if he did not disclose the charge of driving under the influence, of which he was found not guilty, to the California State Bar.
Guess who was blamed for Poochigian’s arrest and possible disbarment:
Aides to Poochigian blamed the media interest on Oakland Mayor Edmund G. ‘Jerry’ Brown’s campaign. Poochigian is challenging the Democratic front-runner in the Nov. 7 election, who has been leading in polls.’
Yes, it’s all Brown’s fault that Poochigian was pulled over under suspicion of driving drunk and then lied about it for over 30 years.
***
The Orange County Register endorses Jerry Brown.
UPDATE: I changed the post to remove references to DUI because it may confuse the reader that I was implying Poochigian was found guilty of a DUI, even though it is noted that he was not guilty.
Can you honestly say that upon reading such (hypothetical) tripe about one of your guys, you’d be any nicer to either my hypothetical moonbat or his group blog than I was to Ian or his Hot Air? More importantly, perhaps, should you be? [In case you're trying to be clever and argue that then-Gov. Moonbeam really was to blame for the hypothetical arrest of an obscure law student he had probably never heard of, bear in mind that Brown was only a candidate in 1974; his actual tenure as governor began in 1975.]
October 25th, 2006 at 9:50 pm
Well … given that you’re right and Ian’s wrong, are you gonna throw the whole of Hot Air under the bus because Ian got ahead of himself? Given who posts 99% of the articles there? Or have you always considered the whole thing just an extension of MM’s big pen anyway?
October 25th, 2006 at 10:18 pm
Well, although Ian has been doing the new media for awhile (and doing it well), he is young. I read the post and wasn’t in an uproar myself, because to me, being thought to have been driving under the influence and then being exonerated with a not guilty finding doesn’t exactly mean you got a DUI … does it? But then, I don’t always agree with MM or Allah either. Doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate HotAir and all the hard work that goes into the site. I’m daily and eternally grateful for the blogsphere. Good Lord, what did we do without it?
October 26th, 2006 at 9:42 am
This is unfair, X. Hot Air is the first site I check every day, almost entirely because of Allahpundit’s excellent and funny writing and his Drudge-like ability to know everything the second it happens.
So there’s one post by the junior guy there you don’t like. So you deem the whole site worthless? Come on.
October 26th, 2006 at 10:57 am
P, see my update.
October 26th, 2006 at 9:43 pm
I did. I don’t see why it’s grounds to indict an entire site. In your hypothetical, do I believe that the left-wing site in question is consistently one of the best (and perhaps the best) site in existence? If so, I wouldn’t toss the whole site over because one author wrote a bad post. I’d criticize the author who wrote the bad post, and if it was bad enough, I’d suggest the site get rid of him.
October 26th, 2006 at 9:53 pm
X – your hypothetical situation happens all the time in the MSM, by senior journalists. Unfortunately, those distorted pieces are not challenged, and are not hypothetical.
October 26th, 2006 at 11:04 pm
Patterico:
No, but to keep things fair let’s assume a significant number of left-wingers do.
Lori, to a certain extent you are correct. For example, one of the MSM sources Ian links to goes a bit overboard itself. Nevertheless, while the MSM source goes a little overboard, Ian takes that “a little overboard” bit and runs with it. Meanwhile, the comment section is 99% echo chamber, as One Of The Best (And Perhaps The Best) Site In Existence doesn’t even allow comments from anyone other than a few sycophants who registered early on.
October 26th, 2006 at 11:42 pm
1. I registered early on and don’t consider myself a sycophant.
2. Registration was also briefly opened again recently.
3. Regardless, I don’t like the comment section there either.
4. The example doesn’t work for me if I don’t think it’s a great site otherwise. It’s the very fact that I think it is, that (to me) makes your broad-brush post unfair. Why would I care that a bunch of leftists think it’s great?
October 27th, 2006 at 7:24 am
Considering oneself a sycophant is a bit like expecting the Spanish Inquisition. No one does it. You certainly are a big fan, and guess what? So is almost everyone else who registers to comment on a site, let alone a site where comment registration is usually closed.
Besides, my point wasn’t about you or any other individual in particular; it was about thew
The same reason a bunch of leftists – or, for that matter, anyone else – should care that you think Hot Air is great, or that My Crooks And Martini Dog Lake isn’t. Which is another way of saying, “you shouldn’t.” That you do think Hot Air is the best thing since centralized heating seems to be coloring your judgment here. Setting aside the general alleged quality of the site as a whole, do you agree that this particular entry is as bad as I say it is? Or do you think I’m being too hard on this particular individual with respect to this particular post?
October 28th, 2006 at 1:54 am
Xrlq, the site is a business. It exists to bring in readers as well as to inform. Blog readers like to comment. Scarce commenting privileges can work as a draw. I’m not a sycophant just because I was reading Malkin every day back then, saw “new site, comments will only be open temporarily,” decided I might someday want to comment on an entry, and registered, even though I barely read there, much less commented, for a good many weeks after it started.
I think you’re a little hot and bothered yourself, and I really don’t understand why. Without even reading every last detail, I’m perfectly ready to concede you showed Ian the door on that post. Why isn’t that enough? And isn’t one of the very good things about the blogs supposed to be the way they keep each other on the straighter and narrower? You did that. Why throw out baby with bathwater?
October 29th, 2006 at 10:37 am
Anwyn, I never said that 100% of the registered commenters at Hot Air are sycophants (Hot Airheads?). What I said was that their Byzantine system heavily skews their comment section in that direction. It’s nice that you had the foresight to register early and often, but most of us don’t even bother trying until we have something to say – and then the gate is closed to make room for those who don’t.
Not sure I follow your baby/bathwater analogy at all. Who is the baby, who is the bathwater, and how does my criticism of either amount to throwing it out?
October 29th, 2006 at 1:44 pm
All right, you have two issues with Hot Air: you don’t trust what you read there as much as others of us do, and you don’t like the closed commenting system.
About the latter: You meant that the comment section at Hot Air is heavily skewed toward sycophants, and I realize that’s not the same as “you’re all sycophants,” but it hits a little too close to the latter even so, as I think Patterico also felt. I also think the comment section as a whole can get a little piled up with “liberals never address the issue, you’re a troll” but I’ve also found good discussion there. As for “most of us don’t even bother trying until we have something to say – and then the gate is closed to make room for those who don’t,” If you’re wanting to comment, I think Allah has been known to open registration to people who email him and ask. But even though I can see the merit in your opinion that it should be open commenting, I don’t think it’s such a horrible idea to have it closed that it scuttles the merit of the site.
About the former: that’s the baby and the bathwater. If you have a laundry list of other issues where you’ve found Hot Air wrong, misleading, untrustworthy, etc., that’s one thing, but you pop up with this thing of Ian’s and suddenly you’re on the warpath to discredit the whole of Hot Air. It was somewhat shocking to me to see you go off like that; if you’ve had a longstanding problem with Hot Air, okay, but since I never knew about it this post seemed rather over the top and like throwing out baby with bathwater.
Just because some people apparently can’t tell the difference between fact and Allah’s or Ian’s or Bryan’s opinion doesn’t mean those opinions aren’t important. I hate to break out a cliche, but do you really expect anybody to be right 100% of the time? It sounds like–again, all taking place on the toneless interwebs–you’re hopping mad because Hot Air isn’t run by omniscient pundits.
Okay, I think that’s all I’ve got. Basically, your ire at HA just seemed to come out of nowhere for me, and it sounded like you were calling us (me and Pat along with the rest of the bathwater) sycophants. Which, dammit, my huge interwebs crush on Allah is my own private business
…er, I disagree with him all the time and only joined comments so I could stick it to him. Yeah.
October 29th, 2006 at 11:17 pm
Anwyn, as you know from the comment thread on Patterico’s, my distrust of Hot Air is not limited to this particular blogger or this particular entry. What I see is a general culture, from the top down, that seemed bent on shooting first and asking questions later. Patterico effectively admitted as much, even while attempting to make nearly the opposite point, by praising Allah for his “Drudge-like ability to know everything the second it happens.” Drudge himself can be every bit as bad in this regard. One man’s “know everything the second it happens” is another’s “repeat every rumor that sounds good the second you hear it.”
My next post will provide a bit more detail as to what I think is wrong with that site, and what I think ought to be done about it.
October 30th, 2006 at 12:05 am
Well, yes, by the time I posted the above comment I’d seen your stuff at Patterico’s but the original post still came out of the blue. And at Patterico’s you only cited one other Hot Air post. Ah well … reading on.
October 31st, 2006 at 1:16 am
[...] But he’s hot and bothered now about Hot Air, one of my favorite sites. He finds Allahpundit & Co. to be too quick in jumping the gun, downright wrong about some things (comments #33 and #39), and unwilling to listen to corrections because the comment section is limited to registered commenters culled during short, limited registration periods. His disdain came as a surprise to me, because while I’ve known Michelle Malkin, who runs Hot Air, isn’t his favorite person in the world, I had no idea he harbored a similar opinion of Hot Air, which, almost needless to say, I don’t share. Hot Air is a great political site, which helps to concentrate many of the issues I care about in one place and brings me relevant video clips that I don’t watch when they’re on TV because I’m too busy watching, um, serial dramas, and if the comment section is not the easiest at which to find good discussion, it is not quite the Sycophants’ Hall of Fame that Xrlq finds it to be. [...]
October 31st, 2006 at 1:57 am
I just now read your comments on my site, X. You appear to have totally bollixed up your interpretation. See my comment there. [Link added by X.]
Can I trust your site any more? After all, you seem to have made a mistake!!
October 31st, 2006 at 10:00 am
As I noted in the response, I don’t think so, and if his follow-up questions were any indication, neither did Chris Matthews. Nor, it seems, did anyone else who watched the interview himself and formed his own conclusions independently of Allah’s commentary.
November 1st, 2006 at 1:54 am
I believe that you did indeed bollix up the response, by making the mistake of relying on a secondary source (a transcript) instead of the original source (the video), which, ironically, you could have viewed by accessing the Hot Air post.
But the discussion is going full tilt here, so at the risk of being accused of driving traffic to my site, I think it should stay in one thread for simplicity’s sake.
November 1st, 2006 at 2:15 am
Agreed. For the benefits of those following in this thread (yes, both of you), Patterico was right about the dowdification, which in fact appears to be an error in MSNBC’s own transcript. He’s incorrect in assuming that I hadn’t heard the video, but admittedly, I heard it through the lens of having read the transcript first. With that, I’m closing this comment thread so the discussion can continue in one place.