Many more than one Sound Politics reader this blogger knows has asked why the web site has a uniquely strong readership base. One possible answer: the gaping void of conservative voices in Seattle's print media.
And no, the Seattle Times running David Brooks's column after it has already run in a previous edition of the New York Times does not fill that market void.
More importantly, there is a paucity of local conservative voices in the Times and the P-I. The latter is utterly void of such content, the former has only one right-of-center member to its editorial board: Bruce Ramsey. Now, I like Bruce, he's a good fellow and an interesting writer. Yet, as he has often discussed, he's a libertarian. In case one missed the memo, that is not reliably compatible with the mainstream of Republican and/or conservative thought (see Paul, Ron).
Latest example: Ramsey applauding Richard Sanders's boorish behavior at the recent Federalist Society confab at which AG Richard Mukasey spoke and eventually fainted. Makasey was articulating what at this time amounts to a majority view in conservative legal thought. For this Sanders was appalled - though his own publicly expressed reasoning on the topics at hand, where he admittedly lacks expertise, is depressing in its intellectual laziness. And of course, Ramsey agrees (with the sentiment, not the intellectual laziness). That's fine. But it's another example of the fact there is no reliable conservative voice in the Seattle print media.
Indeed, Lance Dickie at the Times - who will not soon be accused in joining Ramsey somewhere in the right-of-center - teed off on the same issue with typical disdain toward all things related to Bush 43. Of course, it should be noted Dickie is the same editorial board member who gave serious credence to a column in The Economist on the state of the GOP that was so choke-full of hyperbolic stereotypes that it might as well have been written for the Onion.
Regrettably, this is what is supposed to count for thoughtful discourse on conservative issues in Seattle's dead-tree journalism. Which is probably why you the loyal reader are perusing this website in the first place.
Posted by Eric Earling at November 30, 2008 09:50 PM | Email ThisI have a strong feeling that once Obama starts using the powers congress and Bush have given the presidency, many conservatives will reverse course and start crying foul over the powers of the federal government.
Sanders/Ramsey will still be calling a tyrant a tyrant but then you will be calling Sanders a hero and the left will be calling him a baffoon.
Posted by: Lysander on November 30, 2008 11:03 PMIf you view that as "heroic," then you've got a screw loose.
But then, as a Paul supporter...
Sanders' actions post-moronic, childish, playground outburst have been dishonorable. He's done nothing remotely "heroic."
And he should resign. Now.
Posted by: Hinton on December 1, 2008 12:00 AMBut there has to be a way for the print media to recover other than the bailout the NY Times is asking for. Providing a divierse numbers of commenters would work wonders.
Posted by: swatter on December 1, 2008 08:02 AMFWIW, Sanders' drunken outburst wasn't courage, it was merely the behavior of a bar patron after one too many.
Posted by: Rick D. on December 1, 2008 08:54 AMWhen I said conservative, I should have said- local conservative.
Posted by: swatter on December 1, 2008 09:08 AMThat would be the blowhole she hiked in with.
Posted by: read it in the pee eye on December 1, 2008 02:38 PMAny further questions?
Posted by: Bill Cruchon on December 1, 2008 05:09 PMDo any of you Conservatives ride the bus or walk the streets? This state is full of people who wouldn't know how to tie their shoes if it weren't for a Government agency.
Unless you start to address that audience instead of making fun of them, or chastising them, or telling them to find a "point of light", you ain't gonna get no Conservative readership in Tukwila, Tonto!