Maybe the president is a lousy blogger but I don’t think writing good-quality polemics is really in his job description. In any case, I try to remember the converse. I might be a good blogger, but I don’t think I’d be able to do much with Congress, either. I’d probably stop trying to negotiate and just start comparing them all to a case of the clap.
So, you know, maybe someone a little more level-headed than most bloggers should be in charge.
Things I don’t care about: whether Barack Obama knows how to make appropriate references to ceiling cat in his communications (I will assume that is what the author met by not tossing in good links, etc).
Things I do care about: we got our health care renewal pricing info at work today, and our benefits slightly increased and our premiums, on average, went down slightly.
Obamacare will destroy us!
More likely is that Chait is just being stupid, which seems to come naturally to him.
Yes, who wants a President who doesn’t even know how to embed HTML?
Nobody can do much with Congress, including Obama.
It seemed to me rather that Chait was taking him to task for weak arguments rather than weak blogging. And I agree with Chait that oftentimes, Obama can mistake the written form with the TV-ready spoken form. He published a stump speech when he should have written a more coherent argument.
Does anyone think Obama really wrote that? It was probably written by one of Carney’s crew and given a cursory once-over.
Where Obama went wrong is in not having a cool blogging name. That would have made all the difference. I suggest SolidLikeBarack.
Almost all elected officials are poor bloggers. Because they are messaging not conversing. That is, they rarely are seeking to engage commenters; they are seeking to promote their agenda.
The smartest political use of blogging that I saw was that of Teddy Kennedy, who had a named staffer engage folks on dKos in actual conversations in the comments.
One of the worst was Barack Obama’s staff’s first efforts after he became Senator. The put out a statement like it was a press release. No responses. Drew some critical comments.
And it is a matter of political ecology that PR staffs of candidates don’t like those who pick apart and deconstruct their messaging.
One of the worst was Barack Obama’s staff’s first efforts after he became Senator. The put out a statement like it was a press release. No responses. Drew some critical comments.
Are you talking about Obama’s one infamous diary at TGOS?