MESSAGE OR A MASSAGE?

Craig Crawford is a fine reporter. I have almost always enjoyed his appearances on cable news. He is mostly liberal although it became clear that he is one of those Texas Dems who has been slighted too many times and therefore ends up as more of a moderate.  Too much of a moderate for my tastes. But, he presents a clarity sometimes. I will not waste my time on rush or sean or savage or others who are so vitriolic that I have thoughts of suicide after reviewing their work. I believe I need to hear 'other' views from time to time.

The reason for my recent  interest in his blog is that he is clearly upset with the comments he receives from readers at his Trail Mix blog associated with CQ. I would assume that if I had been published for over thirty years and was known by hundreds of powerful people over that time period, that I would be more immune to criticism.

Just last week he noted that his usually short blog is just a hobby of sorts, that he does not need it nor evidently make much money from it.  He does it out of sheer pleasure. The pleasure to write and to be read.

There was a fine post awhile ago at TPMC from a conservative blogger.  He wrote a simple essay about how to write a letter to a member of Congress. It really was well done.

But Crawford has come up with his own rules for writing a comment on a blog.  Or at least an important person's blog.  As I read through it, I see important points and less important points. Many of his points touch on problems we have at TPMC. Other points underline why I would rather be writing post-em notes to my refrigerator than wasting my commentary on Craig Crawford.

The ten points are too many to handle in one post, so I would like to handle them on a daily basis.

INTRODUCTION

Pardon the interruption in daily political posts for an important housekeeping message.

The pressures of rising participation -- and passions -- in our Comment sections necessitates our first-ever Commenting Guide. Please review carefully before posting comments.

TOP TEN WAYS TO BE A BETTER COMMENTER

   1.   Contribute new information to the discussion. At least scan the entire thread to see if what you are writing has already been said. Repeating yourself is also unhelpful. Relentlessly pressing the same argument with multiple posts, in a single thread or over a period of days, is another form of spam and subject to deletion. Persistent violators are subject to blocked access.

Now there is a lot here to digest.  And there are many problems with taking this point too literally. For instance, if a commenter (ever notice that MS wishes you to say commentator instead of commenter. But when I make a comment to a blog, I am not really a commentator. That seems too much of an esteemed position for an old man in his pajamas) writes:

I disagree with your post Mr. Crawford.

And another writes:

I agree with your post Mr. Crawford

I would appear to be stymied as to how to create a comment.  

I mean, if I were to say:

I disagree with your post most vehemently, is that being repetitive? I understand that to make a comment like:

F*&k you Craig Crawford-- and I repeat that comment fifteen times on the same post, I have violated his prime directive.

But, what if 14 other commenters have basically said:

F*&k you Craig Crawford --then it appears that I should refrain from writing that comment. Especially if it has been stated by so many other people.

But, taking that case from a different angle, what if I said:

F*&k you Craig Crawford and your mother.

Would this add more to the conversation?

And if commenters do not add a comment because it would amount to repetition, would the poster, in this case CC, get the wrong idea and not fully grasp the sentiments of his readers?

But what if I commented in increments like:

#235:   F*&k you Craig Crawford

#322:  And your mother

It seems to me that I have just expressed two different sentiments in two different comments.

But let us look at a more complicated example, one I take from Dr. Reich from our site:

All told, according to the new data, the nation's economy shrank at an annual rate of 6.2 percent. Last month, the government's preliminary estimate of the drop in fourth-quarter GDP was only 3.8 percent. Roughly half the Commerce Department's revision was due to a sharper drop in business spending than had been anticipated. As a result, business inventories -- the amount of stuff they they have on hand to sell -- have dropped. That's good news because eventually businesses will have to replace their inventories, in anticipation of at least some consumer buying, and such replacement spending will spur the economy. But here's the bad news: Inventories still aren't dropping as fast as sales are dropping, suggesting even less business spending and investing coming up.

And then I decide to comment as follows:

#121 But an additional 1.4 million people were receiving benefits under an extended unemployment compensation program that Congress approved last year. That tally was as of Feb. 14, the latest data available, and brings the total jobless benefit rolls to about 6.5 million. That was up from 2.8 million a year ago.The four-week average of new claims, which smoothes out fluctuations, increased 2,000 to 641,750, the highest since October 1982. (APNYT 3/6)

Is it all right for me to amend this comment as follows:

#317 Please disregard my comment posted as #121, because I meant to post it under a blog by Professor Krugman at an entirely different site.(embedded: Buy Insurance Here)

And

#647 I would ask you to reinstate #121 and disregard #317, because it appears that lower unemployment rates of decline might indeed have an effect upon the inventories, or at least the rate of decline of those inventories.(Embedded: Buy Viagra Here)

#932 I would amend #647 to reflect the fact that I meant to include EXPECTATIONS of declines in the drop of the unemployment rate from a standpoint of EXPECTATIONS of declines in total business inventories.  Thank you.(Embedded: Buy Real Estate Here)

You see the basic problem we have here.  I have kind of broken CC's first rule by commenting too many times in the same blog and repeating myself and, no doubt others who assert a direct relationship between falling rates and discussions by pundits on cable news.

In the end, I believe that Mr. Crawford's First Law of Blogging has an underlying message, a feel to it so to speak. The real message is:

THE PEASANTS ARE REVOLTING.

Thank you for your support. Only nine more rules to become the perfect commenter.

THE END