Does DU out fundraise the National Review? I think so.

From James Wolcott's blog..LOL

As a staunch believer in the ongoing vitality of web opinion, I was following the fitful progress of National Review Online's fundraising drive with keen interest. I pointed out the peculiarity of a site featuring a banner ad from The Cato Institute soliciting donations from readers whose fondest dream is to have a picture taken of themselves with Victor Davis Hanson reenacting the flagraising at Iwo Jima. Surely some of the think tank money slushing around Washington could be siphoned its way to support the heroic mission of the National Review to wage war abroad and roll back the New Deal at home.

Over the weekend, I noticed that the fundraising thermometer on the site seemed stuck just above $20,000. Perhaps, I thought, there is a lag time before they update the graphic. But each time I checked in the red in thermometer had barely budged upward.

I wondered if perhaps the graphic needed to be updated to excite reader interest and participation. I was going to propose that instead of a corny thermometer the web designer might devise a Terry Schiavo Memorial Feeding Tube, in which each contribution would help keep National Review on life support for the foreseeable future.

Sometimes you have to think "outside the box."

But then when I logged on earlier today the thermometer was gone, and the front page of the site bore no mention of the fundraising drive. I checked The Corner, and there was a brief statement from publisher Ed Capano thanking readers for their donations, but admitting, "We fell a bit short of our goal..."

A bit short of our goal sounds like a bit of an understatement.

As I say, over the weekend the tally in the thermometer has nosed just above $20,000.

The top of the thermometer was $100,000. If they were hoping for $100,000 and only pulled in somewhere in the neighborhood of $25,000, that's a helluva shortfall. They may have to cut back on reimbursing David Frum for all the lipstick he purchases to add color and vibrancy to his submissive ass-kissing of President Bush. That'll save a couple thousand a year right there.

I fear that my earlier fear has been confirmed. That the introduction of a new primate--John Podhoretz--has upset the delicate ecosystem of the NRO's Corner that has metastasized into the site.

Before everyone knew his role. K'Lo was the drafty Bride of Christ. Andrew Stuttaford was the English correspondent who relayed news from Britain no one cared about. John Derbyshire was the Evelyn Waughish eccentric. Jonah Goldberg was the aging frat-boy fun guy, surfer cable TV with his Star Trek phaser remote control and hyping his upcoming college speaking engagements at Roy Cohn Community College.

But now there are two Jonahs, and although they formed a pact against me this weekend, it won't last. You can't put two alpha males like this in the same steel-cage sewing bee and not expect and body parts to eventually fly.

(I apologize for the split infinitive.)

Already the strains are showing at the Corner. One of its few certified grownups, the historian Richard Brookhiser, is beginning to betray a certain testy exasperation in his tone as he tries to explain to Jonah or John (it doesn't matter) that it was unfeasible for FDR to fire a rocket from his wheel chair and ice Stalin at Yalta, and that talk of a Rudy for President candidacy is hardly "all hype," as K'Lo had burbled. You can hear the grinding of gritted teeth when he writes, "Kathryn, so to wrap this up, in criticizing Rudy, you would be more effective to focus on his actual shortcomings: egotism, mania, does not play well with others, would marry gay fetuses then abort them, etc., etc.--all of it true. But to imply that he is 'all hype'--especially compared with GeorgeAllenBillOwensMittRomneyJohnMcCain and all the other bland voids he would be running against (McCain is a hero as to biography, a bland void as to career)--is simply false."

An unanswerable rebuke, which K'Lo conceded, realizing she was outmatched. Yet it only a matter of time before a writer of Brookhiser's substance announces he's got a new book to write, and quietly closes the door behind him as he exits the Corner.

Meanwhile, the gang is oddly reticent, nay, eerily silent, regarding the royal shellacking George Galloway gave Norm Coleman today. Instead, they're monkey chattering about the new Star Wars movie, which they're denouncing for being liberal propaganda, and comparing notes on some new online "timewaster" Jonah has discovered in his neverending quest for utter vacuity.

I do congratulate Jonah, however, for reversing his earlier stance favoring the outsourcing of torture through "extraordinary rendition." There is hope for him yet, which is probably more than can be said for the Other Jonah, who never changes a position once he's settled into the saddle but instead rides it into the dirt.

http://jameswolcott.com/archives/2005/05/kiddie_corner.php

be able to compare.

The left side of the blogery is blessed with some people who can turn a phrase.

Me thinks: the neo-cons have their own circulation-gate in the works. First we learn Fox News is no where near the "number 1" name in news-we knew already it wasn't the most trusted. The national review can't even muster support from their readership...well I'm shocked. :sarcasm:

They really know how to fake a constiuency don't they? What happened to all the passionate Bush voters?