http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0506230185jun23,1,1916601.story?coll=chi-newsnationworld-hedANATOMY OF A POLITICAL FIRESTORM
Talk radio, blogs fanned the flames on Durbin for remarks on detainees
By Jill Zuckman
Washington Bureau
Published June 23, 2005
WASHINGTON -- It was the last speech of the day to a virtually empty Senate chamber.
At 7:19 p.m. on Tuesday, June 14, Sen. Dick Durbin left the floor after delivering an impassioned talk expressing deep misgivings about the way prisoners at the Guantanamo Bay detention center in Cuba were being treated.
Over at the National Republican Senatorial Committee and the Republican National Committee, the operatives paid to keep an eye on Democrats missed Durbin's now infamous line about Nazis, Soviets and Pol Pot. That's because most Republican officials in town were at the President's Dinner, a major fundraising event for the GOP with a speech by President Bush.
"You've got to hand it to him. If you're going to say something controversial, that was a good time. The cooks were away from the kitchen," said Brian Nick, a spokesman for the NRSC.
Nevertheless, Durbin's words that night managed to take on a life of their own because of talk radio and bloggers on the Internet. Over the course of a week, a speech that nobody heard had turned into Topic A on Capitol Hill and across the airwaves. Durbin, the No. 2 Democrat in the Senate, was forced to explain himself to Republican senators on the floor, in a statement released to the public and finally, voice trembling, in an emotional apology.this is front page, and covers much of what has been said here, in a fairly even-handed way, though it characterizes Laura Ingraham as a "hard hitting conservative", rather than lying, homophobic, gun-wielding psychpath.
but, I digress
one more snip:
"Peter Daou, who compiles blogs from both the right and the left and summarizes what they're talking about for Salon.com, said the effect of so much chatter eventually can become overpowering, seeping into the mainstream media.
'What Durbin faced was the bubbling up from the blogs and the pounding of the drums,' said Daou, who first began monitoring the bloggers and feeding them information when he worked for Sen. John Kerry's presidential campaign. 'This is a political tool, and it's manufactured outrage, it's feigned outrage, and it's extremely effective.'"