Jimmie laid the smackdown on Jonathan Strong’s candy ass after Strong attempted to smear the Rightosphere with the “payola” charge. Let’s review the heart of the carnage (emphasis in the original):
Did you see that “many” right there? Strong never does support that assertion. He doesn’t even cite “many” bloggers in his article — I roughly counted five or six that he mentioned or quoted and only one more he tried ineffectively to finger paint with the blogola charge. So where are these “many bloggers” who are sucking down the GOP-geld. Mr. Strong does not say. Heck, he doesn’t even try to say.
I will tell you folks this right now. Jonathan Strong’s anonymous sources are full of crapola. I have been blogging for over six years. I know several people who have worked, and still work, for Republican candidates, prominent members of both the House and Senate, and the Republican party itself. None of them have ever offered me so much as a penny for any coverage, whether pro-GOP or anti-Democrat. It has never happened. Now, I admit I don’t have traffic numbers that make people drool, but I’ve been around. I have a pretty healthy network. If there was some filthy, filthy partisan cash floating around, I would have been touched by at least a little bit of it. But no, it is not at all “standard operating procedure”.
But let’s look at the second anonymous catapult-load of slime that Strong passes off as good info. His source says that half the right-wing bloggers are getting paid under the table by unknown Republicans campaigns and operatives. Really? Half? Tens of thousands of right-leaning bloggers out there and Strong seriously thinks that half of them “at least” are on the take?
The closest I’ve been to being offered something of value by either a campaign or a party as a result of this almost-5-year volcano venture is getting media credentials to the last three Republican Party of Wisconsin state conventions, and I didn’t just slouch around during any of them.
I’ll let Tony Montana handle the remainder of my response:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BffVW-G6yGk[/youtube]
I heard that Steve Egg never accept money to write for a political campaign. He will accept drugs and women however.