I’ve never had much tolerance for complaints from our elites about how the mean bloggers undermine public confidence in our institutions. I still think that that is a total cop-out for the failings of our elite institutions. But, I gotta say, the lack of trust in our elite institutions has now become epidemic. It’s still not the bloggers’ fault. But that critique is truer today than in any time in the past. Bloggers did a worse job in this crisis of telling the truth than the press, the party leaders, or even the administration. You could oppose this bill on the merits. But few people argued the merits. They argued strawmen. They used phony numbers. They ignored parts of the bill, or simply said that they didn’t exist. They quoted economists out of context. They grabbed the most alarmist language they could find without regard for the source.
Even if it was a good thing to defeat this bill, this episode was a low moment for standards in the blogosphere.