Retirement

From day one, the tagline of this blog was "resisting the pull of cynicism since 1969." Well, in case it isn't obvious from the few posts I have managed to eke out since early 2009 or so, I've stopped resisting.

Which means I seem to have nothing more to say here, unfortunately. Friends who know me in person have suggested that I rechristen myself "Cynical Pragmatist" and start bringing the snark, but while I'm certainly capable of writing that sort of thing, doing so has always made me feel terrible--and who blogs to feel bad? I guess part of me always thought the cynicism would disappear as quickly as it descended, and I would eventually come back to blogging (I actually still do believe what I once wrote about cynicism, after all), but it's still there. So, silence. I'll keep the blog up indefinitely for those who like to refer back to old posts, but there won't be any more.

I'm still around in other blogs' comments sections (I do still read about politics even though I choose not to write about it), and on facebook, for those who want to keep in touch. And those of you who are still the kinds of idealistic pragmatists who believe the world can be made a better place through nuanced, level-headed dialogue and a critical examination of facts and evidence, I both envy and respect you. Keep the faith.

Over and out,
Jennie/Jae/IP

A belated comment on Jason Cherniak's final goodbye

When über-Liberal blogger Jason Cherniak decided to hang up his blogging hat after the last election, there was no shortage of reaction from the blogosphere, left, right, and centre. But the one thing that struck me most about his swan song wasn't mentioned by anyone:

This is my last post on politics. After almost four years of blogging, I have decided that I have had enough. When I started, I was about to start articling at a major Toronto law firm and I was moving up in the Liberal Party. I've continued to move up in the party, but I also know that too many people see me as a blogger first.

"Move up in the Liberal Party." As if the Liberal Party existed not to be an organization of people with common political preferences who are dedicated to making Canada a better place, but as a vehicle for personal career advancement. In which success is defined not by how well the group manages to realize its goals for the country, but by how quickly you can claw your way into important, powerful partisan positions.

I'm really surprised no one's commented on this. Does that sort of thinking really make no one else wrinkle their nose and emit an involuntary: "Eew."?

(Are there New Democrats who think like this? There must be.)

Waterloo-Wellington blogstravaganza reminder!

Psst! If you're happen to be in the Waterloo, Ontario region this weekend, don't forget the annual Waterloo-Wellington blogstravaganza taking place this Saturday, June 14th, at at the Huether Hotel, starting at 5:30 and going until we feel like quitting. I'll be there, as will James Bow, most likely the Gregs (the Sinister one and the recently Apolitical one), and we may even get a visit from the Calgary Grit.

They've got a patio, but the weather says rain, so check indoors first. If you can't find us, just look for a thirtysomething curlyheaded woman sitting at a table with a bunch of guys. *grin* It's always multipartisan, and always friendly. Be there!

Ignorant IP, Waterloo blogstravaganza, and Fair Vote Canada

I'm back! Did you miss me? It'll probably take me at least a week to get back into regular blogging, but here are a few things I wanted to mention right away.

Living under a rock update: I've been almost completely away from the internet for about a month, so I'm afraid I'm going to have to rely on you people to catch me up. What's this about Maxime Bernier resigning? Is it really true that Ian Brodie is gone, too? And is the NDP really opposing a carbon tax now, or is that just the Liberal spin? Recommend some must-read blog posts and news articles to me, okay, because man, things really never are boring 'round these parts. Even with election speculation off the table.

2008 Waterloo Blogstravaganza: I'll be in Waterloo again for work for most of the month of June, and so it's time again for our yearly Waterloo-area Blogstravaganza, this time on Saturday, June 14th. It'll be held, as it was last year and the year before, at the Huether Hotel--although out of deference to some bloggingfolk who need to work during the day on a Saturday, we're doing drinks-and-dinner this year instead of an afternoon event. This means that we'll start at 5:30 and go until we feel like quitting, but don't worry, in addition to being a great little microbrewery in the heart of Waterloo's "uptown" (with truly fine beer), the Huether also offers perfectly decent pub food, so no one will starve. All are welcome to join us: bloggers and blog readers alike, of all political stripes. Oh, and feel free to advertise this on your own blog as well; the more, the merrier.

FVC National Council election results: Just before I dropped off the face of the earth, I mentioned that I was running for Fair Vote Canada National Council. The competition was incredibly stiff, but I am pleased and honoured to announce that I was elected to a three-year term. I am sad that I won't be serving alongside my fellow blogger Mark Greenan, who has done far more to advance the cause in the online world than I have, but I will do my best to be the political blogosphere's voice at FVC. Thank you!

Blogging partisans and partisan blogs, take two

This morning, Jason Cherniak wrote a post indirectly admonishing some of the Liberal bloggers who have been critical of the party. "Is your blog helping the cause or hurting it?" he asks. In response, a couple of the Liberal bloggers who felt addressed by that admonishment fought back. Steve V from Far and Wide sees what Jason's doing as yielding all other considerations to appearances, and Scott Tribe from Scott's DiaTribes is crying self-censorship.

Personally, I think they're all kind of talking past each other.

For me, it all comes down to the difference between blogging partisans and partisan blogs. Jason Cherniak clearly has a partisan blog--he's said himself that the reason he blogs in the first place is for "partisan service." When you read his blog, you know that what you're going to get is the party line. Some of the Liberals who feel criticized, on the other hand, are bloggers who just happen to be partisan Liberals. They're blogging for any number of reasons: because they enjoy writing, because they want to put their opinions out there and toss them around with other political geeks, &etc.--but not for partisan service.

When Jason asks whether other Liberals' blogs are "helping the cause or hurting it," then, he's making the false assumption that all bloggers have the same "cause" he has. This clearly isn't the case. On the other hand, when Liberal bloggers who don't have "partisan blogs" decry Jason's actions as "elitist" and criticize him for not being willing to voice his own opinion, they're missing the point on what he is trying to do with his blog. Personally, I don't much care for "partisan blogs" (there's only one on my entire blogroll), but there's nothing wrong with having partisan service as the goal of one's blogging, right? Bloggers like Jason Cherniak aren't failing to properly inform others of their individual personal opinions, just as bloggers like Far and Wide aren't failing to adhere to the rules of "Communications 101." The two groups are actually trying to do entirely different things.

From where I sit, the real issue is that we all have to read at least a few different posts by any given blogger to figure out which side of the "blogging partisan vs. partisan blog" line they stand on. Both kinds of blogs are in the same communities and aggregators, after all. And because of that, we all tend to forget that not everybody is in this for the same reasons we are.

Six bits of IP trivia

I've been tagged for the "six unimportant/trivial things about me" meme by both Candace and Ben. I kind of already did this one once with personal stuff, though, and I'm reluctant to fill the world with still more irrelevant personal trivia about me. So rather than be a killjoy and just ignore their tags, I'm going to compromise by making this about IP-related trivia that's political or bloggy.

1. I get ridiculously annoyed when other bloggers refer to me or my blog as anything but "Idealistic Pragmatist" or "IP," even if it's an honest mistake (so now you know how to annoy me if you want to!). Thankfully, though, most people do in fact call me one or the other of those...and oddly enough, that even extends to face-to-face interaction. In fact, I attended a blogstravaganza in Ontario once where I introduced myself to everyone by my real first name, and they spent the rest of the evening calling me "IP." This still amuses me today.

2. Speaking of blogstravaganzas in Ontario: I spend a month out of every summer in Waterloo for work-related reasons, and every year when I'm there, I manage to get together with other bloggers. We always have a great time, and our colourful mixture of political stripes always produces some really interesting conversations. Strangely enough, though, the Edmonton bloggers have never done this, even though we seem to get along well enough online. I have no idea why that is, but it seems like a crazy oversight.

3. I am a lot more partisan than I've been told I come across in this blog. There are three main reasons why this doesn't shine through here: one, I want this blog to always reflect my personal opinions rather than those of my party, so I don't let myself use it to score cheap political points (even when I desperately want to). Two, I think people are more likely to take what I say here seriously if I can distance myself from the blind partisanship of a lot of political blogging. Three, I think maintaining that slight distance makes for better persuasive writing.

4. Despite my own personal partisanship, I've never been able to bring myself to unequivocally tell random strangers that they should vote for my party. I believe strongly that people should vote for the party whose policies they like best, see, and that conviction is stronger than my partisanship. At times, in fact, I have been known to tell people: "well, if you think that, then you should vote for [x party that is not the NDP]"--a tendency that annoys a lot of my NDP friends in real life! I can't help it, though. I really do think having a diversity of choice is more important than everybody agreeing with me, and I'm glad when people who don't agree with me have choices they can support, too. Everybody should have that.

5. When I lived in the U.S., I used to wake up on election day with a sick sense of dread in my stomach. Part of it was the inevitable long lines at the polls and the overworked-rudeness of the people in charge, but most of it was the severe limitation on my choice that always made voting feel like some sort of bad medicine. In Canada, though, I've actually gotten tears in my eyes each of the three times I've voted (once federally, once municipally, once provincially) due to just how different the whole thing feels. I'm sure that someday it will seem completely banal to be able to go behind the screen and check an "x" in the box of a candidate I actually can believe in, but I'm not there yet.

6. If I could change only one thing about the Canadian political scene, it would be the near-complete inability of public servants to put the fortunes of their parties aside long enough to admit that there are areas where they agree enough to work together. I hate this so much, words can't even express it. In fact, when the Conservatives and the Liberals reached their agreement on Afghanistan, I found myself caught between profoundly disagreeing with what they came up with and wanting to applaud them for actually being able to admit that they had common ground. This country has such blinders on when it comes to political cooperation, it's appalling. It's a huge, huge cultural blind spot, and it's the most destructive thing about our politics.

Tag, you're it:
1. Mushroom
2. Gauntlet
3. skdadl from pogge
4. We Move to Canada
5. ALW
6. Blogging for Democracy

Canadian F-Word Blog Awards

Well, I'll be damned.

I didn't talk about being nominated for a Canadian F-Word Blog Award (in the Best Political Blog category) because although I appreciated being nominated, I didn't think there was really a chance I'd make it any further than that. You know, what with being so sporadic a poster over the past, oh, four or five months. But apparently I have made it to the finals anyway.

Thank you so much to everyone who voted for me, and special thanks to skdadl for nominating me. (Confidential to her: Yes, I do consider myself a feminist, despite the fact that I once said I'd never win any awards as one.)

Anyway, I only vote for myself in these things if I think I deserve them, so I'm still not sure how my vote's going to go in that category. But if you read feminist blogs and/or blogs written by women, get thee hence! The final round of voting begins on February 22nd and ends on February 23rd. And there are lots of other categories as well, some of which are far more interesting than Best Political Blog (I particularly like that there are categories for comments!).

Unofficial 2007 Blogging Dipper Awards

Apparently, I have been nominated for the "Best Feminist Dipper Blog" award in Uncorrected Proofs' Unofficial 2007 Blogging Dipper Awards. Gosh. I'm afraid my feminist content here is actually pretty meagre. I mean, I've always been partial to this ancient post, but it seems auspicious that its first sentence is "I'm never going to win any awards as a feminist." And it wasn't written in 2007, either.

Anyway, if you're interested in voting, feel free to drop an email to politicaldiscord@hotmail.com. My personal choice in that category is Politics 'n Poetry, though.

Rethinking Media, Democracy, and Citizenship

Sometime last year I was interviewed by Professor Megan Boler from the University of Toronto as part of her Rethinking Media, Democracy, and Citizenship: Dissent in the Online Mediums project. It's a large project that investigates "the motivations of those engaged in producing [...] digital dissent–tactical online expressions that seek to supplement and subvert corporate news and infotaintment." Bloggers are only a part of this process, in Professor Boler's view; we sit alongside "viral video," fake news shows like the "Daily Show" and the "Colbert Report" (and "22 Minutes," to nudge Prof. Boler in the direction of some sadly lacking Canadian content), and the Bush in 30 seconds project.

I was in some pretty interesting company as far as interview subjects go, and the publications that have resulted from the project so far look pretty interesting, too. Just in case anyone feels like checking them out.

Desperately seeking C/conservative

I wasn't a frequent commenter at Olaf's blog, but I was always a reader, and with his departure, the right flank of my reading list is decidedly smaller. Oh, sure, I've still got Political Staples and Waking Up On Planet X, and I'm not giving them up, but Greg's is more of a "daily news"-style blog, and Candace doesn't post nearly enough.

Any suggestions for additions? Specifically, I'm looking for a capital-or-small-C conservative who writes well, who thinks with his or her head instead of with his or her fingers, who makes me think, who's respectful of opinions other than his or her own, whose raison d'être for blogging isn't blind partisanship, and who's never used the word 'moonbat' except in a quote from someone else. Surely there must be at least one more of those?

Waterloo blogstravaganza, take two

I'm currently on my yearly work-related trip to Waterloo, Ontario, and have therefore decreed that there must be a reprise of last year's Waterloo-area blogger herding event at the Huether Hotel. Sinister Greg, James Bow, and Greg Staples have been herded--so perhaps the Canadian Cynic and his co-blogger the Pretty Shaved Ape could have their arms twisted as well? Here's hoping!

They call it a hotel, but the Huether is actually a great little microbrewery in the heart of Waterloo's "uptown" with excellent brews (though there's plenty to offer the non-beer-drinkers as well). There's even a patio if the weather plays along. All are welcome to join us at 2PM on Saturday, June 23: bloggers and blog readers alike, of all political stripes. Last year's event was great, laid-back fun--and none of us bite. I promise!

[Update: Could there be a better forecast for tomorrow? I think not! It's patio time!]

Caught in the web of Cherniak logic

When Jason Cherniak posted the letter from NDP President Anne McGrath that announced that the NDP intended to start their own official party blogroll, I thought for a bit about whether or not I would join it. In the end I decided that if such a blogroll came to fruition, I would wish them well, but stay where I am. My NDP credentials are impeccable, but I still see a distinction between blogging partisans and partisan blogs, and I have no desire to turn Idealistic Pragmatist into the latter. I feel strongly about reserving the right to criticize the NDP if they do something I disagree with, or praise another party if they do something I think is positive. If I were part of an official party blogroll, the NDP would be more or less forced to police my blog to make sure I stayed on message, and I'd rather spare them the trouble.

Apparently, though, the Cherniak-owned Liblogs doesn't even have to be officially affiliated with the party in order to be subject to that sort of policing. Cherniak has expelled a blogger from Liblogs because a co-blogger posted the NDP's new ads. It makes a girl wonder how far he'd go if the blogroll actually were under the party's thumb: official reprimands for using a shade of red that was a bit too orange?

There's some amusement value in the whole thing, though: over at Accidental Deliberations, the Jurist points out that by his very own standards, Cherniak is being "Stalinistic." Now, that's performance art if I ever saw it!

Cherniak logic

You know, I thought I was too busy to comment on the whole Robert McClelland fiasco. But when Jason Cherniak willfully murders logic, I have a tough time standing idly by:

[N]one of the NDP bloggers have a readership equivalent to me or Kinsella. I know this because a link from Robert gives me about 60 hits. When I link to something, it is more like 1000. [...] Consider why NDP blogs have such low readership. [...] I suspect that I have helped the NDP much more than I have helped the Liberal Party today.

Let's have a look at the string of leaps, here:

Observation 1: Cherniak got linked by a Blogging Dipper once, and got 60 hits.

Observation 2: Cherniak linked to one of his other own blogs once, and got 1000 hits.

Assumption 1: The discrepancy in hits couldn't possibly have anything to do with the particular posts in question, their individual authors, or the timing of said posts, but must necessarily reflect the regular readership of the blogs in question.

Assumption 2: All other blogs written by New Democrats must have exactly the same low readership as the blogger mentioned in Observation 1.

Assumption 3: The reason for this widespread low readership of blogs written by New Democrats is because the blogger mentioned in Observation 1 is an odious twit, and couldn't possibly have anything to do with the topics New Democrats choose to write about, their posting frequency, or the fact that their party gets a lower percentage of the vote than Cherniak's party.

Conclusion 1: By getting the NDP to condemn the blogger mentioned in Observation 1, Cherniak took a step toward ridding the Blogging Dippers of an odious twit.

Conclusion 2: Therefore, Cherniak has helped the entire New Democratic Party, despite the fact that said party has no link at all to the Blogging Dippers, and the fact that the odious twit in question was never even a member of the party.

All I can say is that it's a very good thing Cherniak became a lawyer and not a doctor.

Question for Sinister Greg

Since Greg's blog has comments turned off, I tried to leave this as a comment over at Accidental Deliberations, but was foiled by the "too many links" prohibition. So I'm making this its own post. Greg, I have to say that I've gotten whiplash trying to figure out your positions on various things lately, and I'd appreciate some clarifications.

Exhibit A: First you rail on Layton for "associating himself with Harper" (by the way...can you name one time in which he's actually done that? without parroting Liberal talking points, I mean?), but now you seem to be implying that the NDP should support the Conservatives' budget. Not because Harper's likely to come up with decent environmental legislation, mind, but because his government "shouldn't fall until it has more of a record."

Exhibit B: You left the NDP yourself a while back, but this week started saying that the progressive wing of the Liberals should "join with the NDP to build a progressive majority in this country." And as if that weren't already inconsistent enough, you also support proportional representation, which would render any push for a merged party--in either direction--pointless.

If I wanted to be a smart-ass, I'd parrot the opposition's climate change questions to Harper by demanding "were you wrong then, or are you wrong now?" But I don't, so I'll just ask: what gives?

The political casualties of blogging

Remember Amanda Marcotte, the blogger for U.S. presidential candidate John Edwards' campaign who was maybe-fired and maybe-not-fired after their right-wing noise machine used some of the words in her personal blog against her? Well, she's now resigned. (There's also more from the horse's mouth here and here once her blog comes back up.) And in doing so, one of my favourite U.S. bloggers joins the ignoble ranks of Canadians Mike Klander, Dave Burghardt, and Gordon Stamp as participants in the new online culture who got dinged for what they'd written.

Of course, there are differences between these cases. Marcotte was being paid for her services as a blogger, while the three Canadians were mere volunteers in capacities that had nothing to do with blogging. Klander's, Stamp's, and Marcotte's offending comments were recent, while Burghardt was held responsible for a blog he'd written before his conversion to Liberalism. Marcotte's and Stamp's comments were political, while Klander's and Burghardt's were slurs against particular social groups. What Klander said was verifiably false, what Marcotte said was (mostly) verifiably true, and what Stamp and Burghardt said was opinion. Klander and Stamp held high-placed, influential positions within either the party or the campaign, and Marcotte and Burghardt did not. But despite all these differences, the end results were the same: all were campaign workers who were either let go from their positions or stepped down voluntarily so that the words they had once written as individuals would not harm the candidates they were now working for.

I have hugely mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, I believe that people need to be held responsible for what they say, and at least some of the aforementioned individuals deserved public scorn for the things they said or did. I am far less certain, though, that they deserved to be let go from their respective campaigns over those things, and I am pretty sure that they shouldn't be barred from political life forever because of them. And putting aside whether or not these bloggers themselves deserved their fates, is it really reasonable to hold candidates responsible not just for their own statements, but also for everything everyone who works for them has ever said, right down to the lowliest volunteer? For that matter, in the Internet age when more and more young people have been spouting off their opinions in online fora for much of their lives, is this situation even tenable?

I don't have any answers, but we should definitely be asking these questions, and so should members of our media and our political establishment. As Greg Staples said, I really fear for the future of blogging if this is where things inevitably lead.

Oh, and just to come clean: I am currently working on Linda Duncan's federal campaign in Edmonton-Strathcona. I am not being paid; I am a mere peon volunteer. Duncan has a thirty-year record working in environmental law, including as Chief of Enforcement for Environment Canada, as Assistant Deputy Minister for Renewable Resources for the Yukon Government, and as a senior legal advisor to Indonesia, Bangladesh and Jamaica in their efforts to enforce environmental standards. She is one of the most outstanding individuals I have ever met, and electing her to Parliament would be an enormous asset not just to the NDP, but to the entire country. And she is definitely in no way, shape, or form responsible for anything stupid I might ever have said on this blog.

Bloggers and the Democratic presidential race

Most of you could probably have guessed that I'm not crazy about any of the people who are likely to become the next Democratic candidate for U.S. President. John Edwards has good plans for revamping flagging social programs, but he's too socially conservative. Barack Obama is wonderfully charismatic and would probably be a force to reckon with in the White House, but for me personally he's too fiscally conservative and too interested in making a pitch to win over so-called "faith voters." And Hillary Clinton? Well, you know what I think about her.

But I'm going to have to hold my nose and vote for someone next year, so I've been keeping my eyes open. And a couple of things suggested to me that Edwards might just be positioning himself as a genuine left-wing candidate. Certainly his health care plan, while far from optimal, is a terribly gutsy move for anyone in my country of birth. And just as exciting was his appointment of one of my favourite U.S. bloggers, Amanda Marcotte of Pandagon, as his official campaign blogger. I was impressed with the fact that Edwards' people knew the U.S. political blogosphere both to hire a campaign blogger in the first place, and to realize what a gem Marcotte is, and I was also impressed with his daring in hiring someone like Marcotte--a true lefty--to represent him to the blogosphere. I'm not a Democrat, not really, but if Edwards was going to be that cool, then maybe I could look the other way whenever he talked about identity politics.

Well, my tentative steps in his direction were stopped cold yesterday when, after being hounded for a week by the right-wing blogosphere and the hard-right Catholic League, Salon magazine reported that Marcotte and her co-blogger were fired for having voiced some left-wing ideas in their own personal blogs, months ago, with a sense of humour. This was, of course, after Marcotte had already uprooted her life and moved across the country to take the position. But their firing says more about Edwards than just that he's a crappy boss--it also says that his people weren't quite bright enough to have done their homework before choosing Marcotte. And most importantly, it also lets us know that when the U.S. right says jump, he will. And this is despite the fact that the guy from the Catholic League who's been making such a fuss has been shown to be far kookier than Marcotte could be even if you took everything she writes completely seriously. What will this supposed friend of the left do when the right brings out the big guns and aims them straight at his health care plan? Because if he doesn't think they will, he's not just naive, he's crazy.

After impassioned pleas to keep Marcotte and her co-blogger broke out across the blogosphere, though, this morning, three new posts appeared on the Edwards campaign blog. One was from Marcotte, and was, in essence, a fauxpology (which is, I suppose, the best you can do when you have to apologize but you have nothing to apologize for). The second was from Marcotte's co-blogger, and had similar content. And the third was from John Edwards himself, and went like this:

The tone and the sentiment of some of Amanda Marcotte's and Melissa McEwan's posts personally offended me. It's not how I talk to people, and it's not how I expect the people who work for me to talk to people. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but that kind of intolerant language will not be permitted from anyone on my campaign, whether it's intended as satire, humor, or anything else. But I also believe in giving everyone a fair shake. I've talked to Amanda and Melissa; they have both assured me that it was never their intention to malign anyone's faith, and I take them at their word. We're beginning a great debate about the future of our country, and we can't let it be hijacked. It will take discipline, focus, and courage to build the America we believe in.

So he's hardly flipping the far right the big ol' bird, but it looks like they've been rehired--for now, at least. The whole ordeal still leaves a bad taste in my mouth, though. After all, the jury is still out on whether, when Time magazine dubbed Edwards "the new Howard Dean," they meant "Presidential candidate who can ignite the fire of the youth through a creative use of community-building technology," or "Presidential candidate who makes a colossal misstep early on and goes down in flames." I also can't help but be reminded of how grim the political spectrum down there looks. When you have no genuine left-wing party, the so-called middle-of-the-road folks get pulled so far right that the real lefties don't fit in anywhere. Except Canada, I suppose. Because for all our system's flaws, we've got something the Americans don't have--a political spectrum that encompasses a full range of viewpoints.

It's something the centre-left might want to keep in mind the next time people start droning on about the supposed attractiveness of a Liberal-NDP merger.

[Update: Majikthise comes to the same conclusions, but is significantly more optimistic than I am about what this means for the future of "standing up to the right." Ah well, I suppose that's why she's living there and I'm not!]

Blogging partisans and partisan blogs

Last November, James Bow wrote a post about who he thought should win the various Canadian Blog Awards, and among other things, he said that I ran "the best NDP blog." Now, don't get me wrong, it was delightful to get an endorsement from someone I respect as much as I do James. But I had never thought of myself as writing an "NDP blog," and the characterization brought me up short.

I tried to tell myself that I was just splitting hairs--that I'm a New Democrat and I blog, so of course I have an NDP blog. Heck, I even belong to the "Blogging Dippers" blog aggregator. But something just didn't sit right about the label, and the more I steeped in it, the more it felt like a description that just didn't fit what I was trying to do with my blog. It reminded me of why I hadn't taken Greg Staples up on his offer to appear on his Bloggers' Hotstove podcast after the first time: I told him that if I could be sure it'd just be about shooting the breeze with a bunch of bloggers of different political stripes, that would be one thing, but if the extreme partisanship of a couple of his panelists was going to box me into the corner of Speaking For The NDP, I didn't want to play.

But still, I couldn't quite put my finger on why the idea bothered me so much until two posts came along: one that discussed the difference between blogging partisans and partisan blogs, and one that exemplified it. The first post, written by James Bow about the Wajid Khan floor-crossing, talked about how Conservative blogger Stephen Taylor had broken the story because sources inside the party had leaked it to him. The post then went on to muse about the pros and cons of partisanship in blogging, likening Taylor to Liberal blogger Jason Cherniak:

Just as Jason Cherniak has been co-chair of Stephane Dion’s blog campaign, and a reliable partisan blogger for both the Ontario and federal Liberals, Stephen Taylor’s work in organizing the Blogging Tories and his apparent relationship with insiders within the Conservative Party make him as much of a mouthpiece for the Conservatives as Jason is for the Liberals. And, indeed, I envy Stephen. He has himself a considerable plum to put on his resume, not to mention a possible future as an official within the Conservative Party — up to and including political candidacy. Like Jason, you’re looking at one of the future movers and shakers in this country.

Which should be fine, so long as, from this point forward, Stephen knows that he will be seen progressively more as a mouthpiece of the Conservative Party, and less his own man.

The second post, written by the aforementioned Jason Cherniak on his blogging anniversary, talked about the way Jason saw the direction of his blog in the upcoming year, and laid right out on the table the fact that he viewed his blog as a force to do good things for his party:

In the coming year, I look forward to a provincial election in Ontario. There may also be a federal election, but I'm not holding my breath. It will really depend on whether Harper wants to force one by putting forward a budget that no other party can support. Whatever happens, I will continue to do my best to help the Liberal Party because I believe that we Liberals offer the best option for Canadians.

Now, James talks about how he envies people like Stephen Taylor and Jason Cherniak their positions as bloggy conduits for their respective parties, but here's the thing: I don't, not at all. If the NDP were to come to me and offer me a similar deal, I wouldn't even have to think about it before turning them down. I find the very idea a little distasteful, in fact--for me, political blogging is about an individual or, in the case of a group blog, a group of individuals, writing up opinion pieces about whatever occurs to them. If I disagree with the NDP about something, I will do so respectfully, but I'm still going to write about it--reams and reams, if it's something I care about. If somebody from one of the other parties does something that makes the NDP look good, I'm not going to strain to find something to say about it just to spread the word. And most of the time, I'm going to be writing about things that aren't partisan ideas at all--things like electoral reform and election speculation and campaign strategy--because those are the kinds of things I actually have something unique to say about.

Don't get me wrong: I really am a partisan New Democrat. Like Jason and Stephen, I, too, want to help my party, and in fact I spend a lot of my free time doing just that. I'm just not interested in doing that with my blog. So if what you're here for are well-argued treatises on NDP policy or debunkings of all the ridiculous things that get said about the NDP by bloggers and the mainstream media alike, you're definitely in the wrong place. (For that, you actually want Accidental Deliberations, who writes the real "best NDP blog.")

I'll end by illustrating my point with a list of some of my favourite contrarian posts from partisan bloggers whose blogs are nonetheless not partisan. These are people who admit their biases upfront, but still aren't ashamed to call their parties out when they deserve it:

Tories
Political Staples
Bound By Gravity

Liberals
Calgary Grit
Gauntlet

New Democrats
Thought, Interrupted by Typos
Rational Reasons

Postscript to the echo chamber post

If I had an "IP's greatest hits" sidebar, one post I'd put there is "Blogging, feminism, and critical thinking." I wrote it way back in November of 2005, in response to the last uproar over Canadian women bloggers.

If you've joined me since then (likely), and you're inclined to go back and read bloggers' old posts when they've been dubbed particularly good (somewhat less likely), it might interest you.

That echo chamber challenge again

I quit reading him back when his blog became All Gomery Bitterness All the Time, but apparently Warren Kinsella made a list of "the top ten bloggers", adding as part of the intro that "WE NEED MORE SMART FEMALE BLOGGERS NOW!" In response, then, complaints promptly rang out across the Liberalsphere that he just wasn't looking hard enough.

Big ol' smooches to all the Liberals who crossed party lines to mention me. But speaking of that, while I agree wholeheartedly with the objection--especially since Mr. Kinsella seems to have implied that the existing female bloggers aren't really all that smart--I'd be even more inclined to take note of the fact that almost all of the "top ten bloggers" according to Mr. Kinsella are Liberals. We really haven't even made a dent in that echo chamber, have we? How disappointing.

So assuming that we're not all actually interested in hearing our own opinions repeated back to us tenfold, here's the new, revamped challenge: If your blogroll contains only fellow partisans of your own personal stripe, find someone with different opinions and see if you can't at least find something in their writing to respect. If your blogroll contains only fellow Canadians, try picking up a British or Australian or American blog and look at the world from another direction. If your blogroll contains only (or even mostly) men, have a look at the above posts, or page through BlogHer, and see if you can't find a woman or two to add to it.

Come on, it'd be good for you. (And not just in that lima bean sort of way, either.)

Canadian blog awards

Round One Voting in the 2006 Canadian Blog Awards is open. You're allowed to vote once per day until November 21st (since most of the involved blogs are political blogs, this always amuses me--what does this say about bloggers' preferred electoral system?). I was nominated this year for Best Blog, Best Progressive Blog, and Best Blog Post, and will be voting for myself in some of those categories but not in others.

The real reason why I'm making this post, though, is to encourage you to check out my friend the Arrogant Polyglot before deciding to abstain in the Best Culture Blog category. He's smart and funny, he makes linguistics accessible, and he's definitely worth a look. And while I won't be so presumptuous as to encourage you to vote for me over equally and often more-deserving others, I will certainly encourage you to vote for AP over not voting in that category at all!