The World According to Oatney

The Hobbs debate

No small controversy seems to have arisen about whether Tennessee Republican Party Communications Director Bill Hobbs can or should continue to operate one of the oldest blogs in Tennessee while serving the State Party. The controversy was begun by John Rogers of The City Paper in Nashville and fanned by A.C. Kleinheider, who was himself silenced by his employer in a disgraceful act of censorship.

I wondered how long it would take the mainstream press types to shut A.C. up. They want to use his blogging talents to try and control the blogging medium in Tennessee (which they can't do), but they don't want him to exercise his considerable writing abilities to express well-written and thoughtful opinion pieces that draw people to his blog and ultimately to the WKRN web site. When A.C. was censored, the blogging community in Tennessee cried foul, and rightly so. Tennessee political guru Adam Groves wonders if A.C. harping on Bill Hobbs keeping his blog was a bit of jealousy, since Bill's employer isn't censoring him.

I doubt there is jealousy, but there is certainly irony in all of this.

Most of the complaints about Hobbs having his personal blog while working for the Republican Party seem to be coming from Democrats in the blogosphere-and seemingly whiny ones at that. I wouldn't expect any less coming from the political formation that claims to be the paragon of diversity-unless you happen to be a pro-life Christian (if the late Governor Casey were with us, I am sure he could share his experiences). When I look and listen to our Republican candidates for President, I see a diversity of views that represents America. Indeed, the gambit runs from Rudy Giuliani to Ron Paul and everything in between, and some of these men have radically different visions.

When I hear the Democratic candidates speak, they all sound like a broken record. They may not look alike, but they all sound so much the same that one would think their debates are run on a soundtrack and the CD is dirty, so it is skipping.

Somehow, I am not surprised that these people would advocate censorship.

Labels: Tennessee politics

posted by Deacon David Oatney @ 12:25 AM