Thursday November 20, 2003

LYING LETTERS AND THE LIARS WHO WRITE/RECEIVE THEM. Eugene Volokh is politically astute, yet here pretends not to have heard of Astroturf.

Astroturf describes the mass-mailing of one letter to several editorial outlets in hopes of creating the fake appearance of a groundswell of opinion. This appears to be the case with an item simultaneously printed and portrayed as a personal correspondence by Volokh and K.Lo., den mother of NRO's The Corner.

"I realize that in print media, it's considered a serious faux pas when an author prints the same op-ed in two different outlets at once," sniffs Volokh. "But that may have something to do with the fact that readers generally pay money for print media, and print media generally pay money for op-eds."

The item in question appeared at Volokh's site blockquoted, under the title LONDON CALLING, and with the introduction, "A friend of mine, whose judgment and accuracy I very much trust, writes this from London." Not since the days of Addison and Steele would this be considered by any reasonable reader anything other than a letter from a friend, rather than a propaganda pass-along to be published wherever they'd have it.

Even the normally thick Instapundit seemed to have the same impression, prefacing his reprint with "Eugene Volokh posts an email from the scene."

This is a small thing, but instructive. These guys love a good soundbyte, particularly a "counter-intuitive" one (well, I live in London and everyone I know loves Bush!), and cannot stop to pick and choose. They are, after all, fighting what they believe to be the Big Lie of the Liberal Media, and their whole blogs, if not their lives, are devoted to fashioning a believable counter-narrative -- and I use the word "believable" rather than "true" advisedly: every available thread gets woven into the tapestry, and who cares whether it's the right color or even strong enough to hold? The Great Work must continue! In the blogosphere, it's all, as the saying goes, too good to check.