|link| Posted 9:03 PM by Brian Linse

BadDude Reviews: Bloggingheads.tv

As any OG blogger will likely tell you, Kausfiles, the blog of journalist Mickey Kaus which began as an independent website before migrating to Slate, was the template from which all political blogging was built. Instapundit and Josh Marshall both cite Kausfiles as a model, and even those of us who discovered blogs through other sites couldn't help stumbling over Mickey's place and picking up a few pointers. I still consider Kaus to be the best in the business with regard to understanding and exploiting the original blog form.

Given Mickey's importance to the world of blogs, I thought it wise to take some time to look over his latest venture, a new twist on video blogging called Bloggingheads.tv.

A New Format

Kaus teams up with Robert Wright, a previously non-blogging journalist and author, to present a variation on the talking heads punditry of cable television. In a split-screen presentation Kaus and Wright tackle a few pre-determined topics in each video post. Both cameras are set up so that it seems they are looking out at us, allowing us to watch the pundits react to each other as they speak. Apparently, they can't see each other while they record, so we are actually watching them have a phone conversation over the net. The visuals and interactions might be more lively if they could figure out a way to make it a full video conference. The technique would be similar to The Interrotron that Errol Morris developed to great effect for interviewing his subjects for documentary films.

They visual design of the site is a horror, though the practical layout is very simple and effective. They chose garish shades of magenta and green as backgrounds to divide the screen, giving the page the look of a cheap, online Christmas greeting card. The logo at the top is too small to make an impression, and appears to be a TV with feet - the intended meaning of which I've yet to figure out. Other sections are set in plain white boxes with no style at all.

Beyond the aesthetic failings of the page, however, the layout of the content is quite effective. A large center column contains the screen for the streaming video panel with all the necessary bandwidth and player selections. Directly below the video is a spot for hyperlinks to websites referenced in the discussion, and below that is a box for Kaus and Wright to post "Afterthoughts" - additional comments and links that occur to them after the original post has gone up.

A left side column lists the recent dialogues going back about two weeks. This appears to be the current extent of the archives, though I did test to see if older posts were still on the server and found that they were. Given that this is a blog-like site, I would hope that they intend to set up a proper archive that will allow for long-term linking to posts.

Below the recent dialogues section are boxes that allow you to subscribe to RSS feeds or to download podcast versions as either .wmv or .mp3 files. Both are essential for spreading the word, but they should also create some buttons that other bloggers could download and use for linkng, and they should also consider creating a blogroll of sorts - or perhaps one each for Kaus and Wright. They should not be afraid to embrace these trappings of regular blogs, and it would help viewers to know where they were coming from. Blogrolls can tell readers a lot about the blogger.

The right side column features the most interesting technical feature of the site. Each dialogue is subdivided into the different topics with direct links that allow you to jump, or perhaps more importantly, to link directly to sections within the post. This is an absolutely essential feature if they hope to get other bloggers linking to these posts. The only thing missing is an elapsed time clock in the video window which would allow a blogger to reference a specific comment within the section links by referring to the time at which the comment occurs.

Posts are also grouped by topic, so that you can easily find other comments on a given topic from all of the posts. This can be very helpful since Kaus and Wright will sometimes refer to previous discussions without going into detail on the comments they are referencing. It also makes up for the fact that you can't do a word search on a video post.

Taken together, these subdivisions and the provided links are the key to the technical viability of the form. I haven't had much exposure to Video Blogging, but this strikes me as a brilliant innovation. They should endeavor to push this idea as far as possible.

Who Are These Guys?

Though it would be easy to jump to the conclusion that this is a Point/Counterpoint setup, it is actually far from it. Wright is indeed a partisan Democrat, but whatever Kaus may be he is not a partisan Republican. They really should put up more extensive bio pages for the readers who don't know blogs and who don't know of Wright's background. Currently, it requires too much clicking and reading of outside links to get a sense of who they are.

They should also have an "About The Site" page that tells us who is behind the gig. Is it a Slate venture? Are they paying for their own bandwidth? Do they have support from some foundation?

Kaus has an established "brand" in the blogging community, and he does not abandon it for the new format. He is, on balance, a liberal of some unique sort, yet refuses to be sucked in to any ideological constraints. He is pro-choice but anti-Roe, for example, and seems to get more pleasure from attacking liberals than from going after conservatives. Annoying as it may be to us partisan liberals, however, this lack of partisanship is the core of his brand and it has been very successful for him. What sustains his credibility, in my opinion, is the underlying sense that he distrusts and largely despises all politicians - a position with which I find it hard to disagree.

Robert Wright has not, as far as I know, had a previous blog presence. He does have another website called MeaningofLife.tv, the format and technology of which is obviously the source for the Bloggingheads site. I had already watched about half of the dialogues before my curiosity led me to click on the bio links where I discovered that he was the same Robert Wright who had written one of my favorite non-fiction books of recent years, The Moral Animal, an entertaining and accessible book on the subject of evolutionary psychology. Like Kaus, Wright has an extensive journalism background.

Wright is an egg-head, but a feisty one. He also has a strange sense of humor that makes him a good match for Kaus. The fact that two really smart guys with lots of serious things to say don't take themselves too seriously is one of the more endearing things about the dialogues. It's kind of like Wayne's World featuring think tank geeks.

I'm guessing that this new format will be as influential to the future of blogging as Kausfiles was four years ago, and I wouldn't be surprised to find that it is noted and copied in some form by a cable news outlet.

They are still tweaking the place, but it is already well worth the time to watch these blogging heads.

Disclosure: Mickey Kaus is a personal friend, though I often disagree with him on major issues, and he frequently annoys me as much as he annoys all the other partisan liberals out there. I have never met Wright, but am a huge fan of his work on evolutionary psychology. His MeaningofLife.tv site is well worth some of your time.

|link| Posted 4:19 PM by Brian Linse

Seven Score and Two

After a week in which words have been so very important in American politics, it is perhaps "fitting and proper" that we remember what Abraham Lincoln did 142 years ago with 272 words:

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate - we cannot consecrate - we cannot hallow - this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us - that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion - that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain - that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom - and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

November 19, 1863

If you have never read Garry Wills' book, Lincoln at Gettysburg:The Words That Remade America, I urge you to get a copy and do so. Wills looks at the address from many angles, including the rhetorical style, the historical context of funeral oratory, the rural cemetery movement, and the psychological changes in the nation's identity in the months that followed. It is a fascinating read.

Listen to James Earl Jones read the address.

|link| Posted 5:07 PM by Brian Linse

Hastert's Kool-Aid

My pal, conservo blogger John Cole, seems to be one of the few to have tasted Speaker Hastert's Kool-Aid. While every sentient being, even Bill Schneider on CNN, seems to regard the "Murtha Vote" as a meaningless stunt, Cole seems to think that it truly exposes the hypocrisy of the House Dems.

John doesn't seem concerned that not one Repblican voted for the resolution that they put up, nor that the "Murtha" resolution was re-worded so as to change the meaning of what the decorated war hero was proposing. Rep. Murtha, to no one's surprise, voted "no" on the resolution.

Next time the Speaker passes the Dixie Cup of fluorescent liquid around, John, just say "no".

I believe that this move by the Republicans in the House will quickly be seen as a huge tactical mistake. Rep. Jean Schmidt's bat-shit-crazy speech, which was so appalling that her own fellow Republicans made her request that it be stricken from the record, was just the most obvious error of the session. Nobody in the media is buying it as anything but a stunt, and the Dems are now energized and united in the House the way that Harry "21" Reid's moment spurred the Senate Dems.

Watching this now almost complete Republican melt-down is becoming very entertaining.

UPDATE: Andrew Sullivan on the "Murtha Vote" says:

"It's a straw-man: as cheap and tawdry as the current GOP leadership. Let me add something more. How pathetic is the credibility of a commander-in-chief that while he is abroad, all hell breaks loose on the war he is allegedly waging? Bush has lost the country on this. It's not the media's fault, not the Democrats', not the military's. It's Bush's, and his sad excuse for a defense secretary. "

And on Rep. Jean Schmidt Sulli says:

"Every time you think these Republicans can sink no lower, even after their vile smears against Kerry's service last year, they keep going. They make me sick to my stomach."

Joe Gandelman:

"The irony: most Democratic lawmakers do NOT go as far as Murtha in calling for an immediate pullout. They are defending him in the face of GOP/White House rhetorical overkill."

Sgt. Stryker on Republican support for the military:

"All the talk about Republicans being big supporters of the military is bullshit. If there’s someone insulting a vet and calling him a coward, chances are it’s a Republican who’s never served. If there’s a choice between money for shit people really need or a sexy new weapon system built by a company that donates heavily to the Party, the company will profit."