An Evening at the Command Post

April 14, 2004 by
Filed under: Current Affairs, Weblogs 

Last night, I participated in the Command Post chat during the President’s press conference.

This posting will discuss the chat itself – not opinions related to President Bush’s statements or related issues. If I post those, I’ll do it separately.

I was surprised at the number of participants, and I think the Command Post folks (Michele and Alan) were surprised as well. Within 5 minutes of opening the room, there were 50 people participating. I think the total peaked at about 95 during the press conference and stayed there until the conference ended.

I was also surprised at the good manners displayed by ALL participants. There were NO personal attacks against chatters by other chatters. In fact, there were very few perjorative attacks against political figures by the chat participants. I’ve participated in other chatroom settings and it’s very rare to have such well-behaved folks.

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Most of the chat participants seemed to be very pro-Bush. This was displayed through opinions that the press was attacking Bush and generally positive interpretations of his responses. I did interject occasional comments that were less supportive of the President, and the responses I got ranged from “that’s a good point” to “what do you mean by that”. Very cordial, no personal attacks, but I clearly felt that my opinions (as middle-of-the-road as they are on these issues) put me in the minority. It’s not that I felt unwelcome – rather that I felt out of place.

It was also fun to joke about the side issues in the press conference. There was a strong consensus that somebody should have camera-tested the President’s tie – it caused rainbow moire effects on my high-end HDTV with DirecTV on CNN. Others likened it to the seizure-causing Japanese cartoon from a few years back. My favorite comment had to be that it was a “mind control tie”. Other “fun” subjects included the President’s hair, the wardrobe of the press corps, and which reporters are never gonna be called on again by this President.

To sum up – it was fun, but I felt sufficiently politically out of place that I’m not likely to do it again. I was encouraged by Michele to provide a counter-point to the “usual crowd”. I really think that the Command Post’s chats (and website in general) have a right-side political bias and deserve the right to feel at home in their web home.

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Comments

3 Comments on An Evening at the Command Post

  1. Alan on Wed, 14th Apr 2004 2:57 pm

    2. Mark, thanks for this post, and thanks for joining us last night. FYI, we’d hope you always come back … while it’s true that many of our commentors (and some of our contributors) wear their political colors on their sleeves (especially at their home blogs or on the Op Ed page), Michele and I very much want the Command Post to become a marketplace for ideas and discussion from all points. It’s one of the reasons we DO NOT permit editorilzing on the news pages, and why we work very hard to present news items from all points of the world and political spectrum.

    We clearly have some work to do vis-a-vis our comments policy in this repsect, but I think the tenor and respect you felt last night was indicative of what we can create together. Thanks for your comments, thanks for participating last night, thanks for voicing your opinion, and most of all, thanks for reading The Post.

  2. matt on Wed, 14th Apr 2004 3:41 pm

    3. Mark, it was good to chat with you, and as Alan said, its very refreshing for those of us who like to put our minds to work to find balance in our political discussions rather than a bunch of yes people!

  3. Bengoshi on Wed, 14th Apr 2004 10:27 pm

    4. Mark, Bengoshi was with you last night on the social-left and on the fiscal-right. I must say my comments were noted by a few as being out of the mainstream, although with polite respect from others there. As a so-called libertarian, I felt at home in the chat, although I disagreed with most of the participants there who appeared to want to give the pres a total pass.

    He makes mistakes, although I thought he was in pretty good form last night. He’s no Tony Blair when it comes to oration, but you have to like him alot better than the old-line “liberal” press asking the questions.

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