Tell them the lefties are outraged –a very good sign. ~Hugh Hewitt

Are they really?  There’s no mention of the pledge at The Plank.  Searches for related material at Huffington Post have come up with nothing.  One Kossack took brief note of it, but didn’t seem terribly concerned.  Gleen Greenwald seems to have written the most about it.  He rightly disparages it, but talks about it as an example of the servile habit of yielding to the decisions of the executive and military commanders as if they possessed sole authority.  It is that terrible habit that he is disparaging.  The pledge itself is just an embarrassing confirmation of this servility.  If “the lefties are outraged,” they are doing an unusually good job of keeping it under wraps. 

If I were a lefty blogger, I would have little to say about this spectacle of Republican blogging insanity.  I would just sit back and watch with a smile as my opponents imploded in a paroxysm of irrational, self-destructive rage.  Oh, wait, that’s exactly what one blogger at MyDD is doing:

But it’s hilarious in terms of the worldview of these clowns.  The progressive blogosphere has grown up around rewarding good behavior, by running our own candidates against those who the Beltway denotes the presumed victor.  The conservative blogosphere can only think in terms of punishing bad behavior.  They’re not going to find their own “rightroots” candidates (that concept failed so miserably because they simply found a bunch of people the NRCC and the NRSC picked for them anyway).  They’re going to hurt the party and try to make it bleed (though, as I said, it’ll probably be a pinprick).  

With the exception of these couple of notices on the big progressive blogs, that’s about it.  They’re not outraged.  They’re laughing at you, Hewitt, as am I.  Dave Weigel at Hit & Run is having a few laughs at your expense as well.  There is nothing that the Democrats would love to see more at this point than to watch Republicans start cannibalising each other to defend a war that should never have been started in the first place.  Hewitt has started putting in overtime to help them realise this dream. 

This blogger has given us this startling reminder: if you undermine Norm Coleman, you will get…Al Franken.  He also reminds us that it was Hewitt who called for party solidarity in support of the re-election of Arlen Specter.  Some things are worth fighting for, and others are expendable.  So, to recap: for Hewitt, stopping a non-binding resolution is worth sabotaging GOP chances of retaining their current Senate seats, but ousting a pro-abortion Senator in a primary contest isn’t worth the risk.  Glad to know he has his priorities in order. 

Outside of their own echo chamber, who, besides a few small-time bloggers including myself, has even noticed this little snit fit?  Andrew Sullivan has noticed.  He doesn’t agree with the pledge, but he doesn’t really care, either.  The professional political pundit blog, Hotline’s Blogometer, did take note of the pledge drive.  They mention it in the context of the blog right’s decreasing influence and weakness over the past couple years.  That’s an interesting point.  I have been pointing out the political stupidity of this drive on the assumption that Hewitt and friends actually wield real influence among GOP voters and could seriously damage the electoral prospects of vulnerable Senators up for re-election next year.  (It strikes me as fairly stupid, since it is Hewitt who is the near-mindless defender of the GOP and all its crimes, so he should be the last one to sabotage their electoral chances.)  These Senators are probably more focused on their weaknesses with voters beyond the Republican base, and may prove to be indifferent to the threats and blandishments of Hewitt’s thousands. 

They’ve racked up over 19,000 20,000 people in a couple of days, which is somewhat impressive.  Then again, when you consider the number of people all these hundreds of blogs are reaching on a daily basis, it should actually be surprising that such a relatively small number have pledged to not give money to any of these Senators (especially on such a profound issue as stopping a non-binding resolution!).  A pledge to not give away your own money to Republicans for any reason should be getting hundreds of thousands of signatures at this point.  As Clark Stooksbury has shown, almost anyone can sign the pledge in good conscience, knowing that there is no danger that he would be contributing to the NRSC or any of these candidates.  It’s a pledge a lot of us could very easily keep.