The Communication Revolution - Redux.

Hugh Hewitt has another good article in the Weekly Standard on the revolution that is occurring in the dissemination of information and opinion, thanks to the internet and bloggers.

Same flight, but now the Atlantic. Jonathan Rauch:

"On balance it is probably healthier if religious conservatives are inside the political system than if they operate as insurgents and provocateurs on the outside. Better they should write anti-abortion planks into the Republican platform than bomb abortion clinics. The same is true of the left. The clashes over civil rights and Vietnam turned into street warfare partly because activists were locked out of their own party establishments and had to fight, literally, to be heard. When Michael Moore receives a hero's welcome at the Democratic National Convention, we moderates grumble; but if the parties engage fierce activists while marginalizing tame centrists, that is probably better for the social peace than the other way around."

The comparison of "the religious right" to Michael Moore is jarring enough, but the idea that the "religious right," however broadly or narrowly Rauch defines it is a lost platform fight away from becoming killers is quite simply astounding. And it might have gone unnoticed by that "religious right," except that I posted it at my blog, and reference it in this column, and now the new information network takes over.
Will some portion of that new network absorb the contempt and ignorance Rauch managed to get by his editors at one of the most respected journals in America? And will that change their political behavior? I think so.

On Tuesday I had Rauch on my program. He pleads hasty writing and objects that the focus I put on these sentences is unfair to the intent of his piece. I offered to post the entire article and any response he wants to make. He agreed that I was at least allowing him the chance to reply. I did not note to him that this is a courtesy the Atlantic did not extend to a religious conservative in its package of essays on the divide in America.
Five years ago--or even two--if a religious conservative had read the piece, and if he had written a letter, and if the Atlantic's editors had read it, perhaps they might have printed it three months later. In the new information age, Rauch is defending himself on a national show as scores of bloggers munch on his words.

THAT is the difference the internet has made possible.

It was less than five year ago that media communication was a one way street: from the MSM to the captive reader. O yes, there was the “letters” page, but letters were printed – and edited – at the whim and the fancy of the same people.

Today, when a Rauch equates Christians and bombers, the complaints are not limited to letters to his editor that fail to see the light of day. It is likely that more people will read his scurrilous slur and comment on his bigotry than will have read his original article in the Atlantic. That’s a remarkable change in the power equation.