Give a frontiersman coffee and tobacco, and he will endure any privation, suffer any hardship, but let him be without these two necessaries of the woods, and he becomes irresolute and murmuring. ~ U.S. Army Lt. William Whiting, 1849

Happy 1st Blogiversary to
Right Truth

TMH’s Bacon Bits (The Mary Hunter) A Pox on GOP Stupidity, Revisited — “At least, “beating up backsliding Republicans” has an infinitely higher probability for success than berating Liberal Democrat Wackjobs who, drunk on their new-found power, would utterly undermine the fragile progress this great but imperfect nation has made since the Clinton era and since 9/11 — thanks to Republicans.”

ScrappleFace (Scott Ott) Bush: GOP Will Stand Down as Democrats Stand Up — “President George Bush, at a White House news conference yesterday, assured Americans that “Republicans will pull out of Congress as soon as Democrats are ready to govern and protect our nation, and not one day sooner.” ”

Blogs for Bush (Matt Margolis) NYT Admits They Were Wrong To Disclose Terror Finance Tracking Program — “Now that the New York Times has admitted it was wrong, will Democrats admit they were wrong?” [Not holding my breath. Jim]

Captain’s Quarters (Ed Morrissey) South Koreans Start Enforcing Sanctions — “The South Koreans have begun to block entry to North Korean officials whose travel has been restricted by the UN sanctions, the first concrete steps of implementation seen by Seoul since the UNSC passed the resolution. They also committed to some efforts to implement the economic sanctions in coming days:”

Blue Crab Boulevard Bush To Sign Border Fence Bill — “The Associated Press reports that President Bush will be signing the border fence bill. Of course the AP also disapproves and does its level best to Pooh-Pooh it. But it is finally going to get signed.”

Last comes the beverage of the Orient shore, Mocha, far off, the fragrant berries bore. Taste the dark fluid with a dainty lip, Digestion waits on pleasure as you sip. ~ Pope Leo XII

Right Wing News (John Hawkins) Prosecute The Leakers, Not The New York Times — “Start things out by asking the reporters to reveal their sources. If they don’t give them up, throw them in jail for contempt until they give up the source. Once the government learns the identity of the source who knowingly broke the law by giving out classified info, we should throw everything in the book at them and make sure they end up breaking big rocks into smaller rocks for a couple of decades.”

Blogs for Bush (Mark Noonan) Murtha Speaks Again — “Well, this puts Murtha square in the Sheehan/Kos/Man From Mars sector of the Democratic Party…really, Democrats, is this what you want your main spokesman on the war to be saying? That the United States of American – the greatest and best nation in human history and the bulwark of freedom and decency in the world – is a greater threat to peace than Iran or North Korea? Is this what you believe?”

Captain’s Quarters (Ed Morrissey) Delusions Of Grandeur Die Hard In Baghdad — “Saddam Hussein has had a difficult time adjusting to life out of power and in the hands of the people he brutalized for four decades. That kind of life change can cause cognitive difficulties for someone in that position; the mind plays tricks on megalomaniacs, allowing them to believe that they still occupy the center of the universe.”

Wizbang (Lorie Byrd) Time To Plant The Goalposts — “One thing to look for over the coming week or so is for announcements of troop reductions to be met with the claim that those reductions are a result of John Kerry/John Murtha’s calls to cut-and-run. The very idea is ridiculous and dishonest, which means it is likely that someone will pick it up and run with it. (It has already been floated in several comments here over the past week.) Not only is it wrong that future troop reductions in Iraq are due to any pressure from Democrats, I believe many of the Democrats’ calls for troop withdrawal were made in anticipation of the reductions President Bush spoke of a year or so ago.”

Confederate Yankee Crash — “That crashing sound you hear is shatering of the liberal myth that Saddam Hussein’s Iraq didn’t have ties to the Taliban and al Qaeda. Of course it did, and the documented ties are getting stronger:”

There is a story by Michael Barbaro in the NYT today with the headline Wal-Mart Enlists Bloggers in Its Public Relations Campaign. I clicked over there because my blog buddy Brian of Iowa Voice is heavily quoted in the story. I’ve read the piece — three times — trying to get an idea of where Mr. Barbaro was trying to go with the article. What I took away was probably not the same thing that he was trying to convey.

Let me give you a quick overview, not of the article, but of the larger story as I see it.

Wal-Mart wants people to have a positive image of their company. They sent positive stories about their company to some bloggers. Those bloggers used that information and wrote some blog posts. The bloggers did not always say where the information originated.

I’ve sat for several minutes now looking at the previous paragraph wondering if there is anything else I need to add. No, that’s pretty much it.

I’m hardly surprised by the posts Brian has written painting Wal-Mart in a positive light. They are in line with his beliefs as I read them. One of his co-bloggers, Daniel M. Harrison, put it this way.

OF COURSE right wing blogs have written the odd piece trumpeting Wal Mart – the company stands at the very centre of modern capitalist ideology. You wouldn’t have to pay a Republican to trumpet what Wal Mart stands for: that’s as ludicrous as suggesting left wingers have been paid to write kind pieces about Hilary Clinton.

You can read Brian’s reaction to the article here.

DISCLOSURE: Neither Brian (who can’t afford it) or Wal-Mart (Who surely can) paid me anything to write this post. In fact, if Wal-Mart paid me a hundred dollars per word we still wouldn’t be even.

UPDATE: Looking back at the post I noticed that I totally left off a key point I wanted to make. One of the impressions I took from the NYT article was that Barbaro wasn’t happy that Wal-Mart was using bloggers to get their message out — the job of TOM. I may be wrong, but that’s what I read.

Linked with the daily picnic at basil’s blog.