Earlier I linked to Callimachus’s post, Serendipity. In this post Callimachus observes:
The “right” seems to have been stung particularly by the “stingy” sneer from the U.N. Perhaps that helps ratchet up their focus on the relief work, to play smackdown with the U.N. fool. That could be a partial explanation. But how does that explain the relative lack of interest on the left? Unless you want to factor in its desire to prove that America is, in fact, the evil, niggardly, self-righteous place many of their leading lights tirelessly tell us it is?
More likely the overall difference I notice (if it is genuine, and I am sure there are some left blogs hard at work on raising relief money) reflects the right-left perspective shift that left me often on the “right” side of things.
I’ve taken a look at the first eight days of coverage of the Sumatran tsunami and its aftermath from December 26 to January 2 in the top four blogs in the left and right hemispheres of the blogosphere (based on the TTLB Ecosystem) and have summarized the findings in the following tables. I’ve tried to include every post.
| Blog | 12/26 | 12/27 | 12/28 | 12/29 | 12/30 | 12/31 | 1/1 | 1/2 |
| Left | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Daily Kos | I | C | ICI | BBCB | B | |||
| Talking Points Memo | IB | I | C | |||||
| Eschaton | I | B | C | I | ||||
| Kevin Drum | C | |||||||
| Right | ||||||||
| Instapundit | II | CCCII | PIPICI | FICPC | IC | ICIC | CIIUII | ICIIU |
| Powerline | I | PP | CI | C | I | |||
| LGF | I | IIC | I | UC | IU | |||
| Wizbang | I | C | IIIIII | UII | IIIC | I | UI | I |
Key to table
| Code | Interpretation |
| I | the post is really actual information |
| C | the post is about private contributions in whole or in part |
| B | the post is an opportunity to bash Bush (in whole or in part) |
| U | the post is an opportunity to bash the UN (in whole or in part) |
| F | the post is an opportunity to bash the French (in whole or in part) |
| P | the post is an opportunity to bash the Press (in whole or in part) |
12/28 from Daily Kos: “Any formal donation drive must wait for Markos.” [ed. we’re still waiting]
These tables only include the actual appeals and references in posts to contributions. Blog ads were not included although, to their credit, most of the blogs did include tsunami relief ads in their sidebars.
I don’t interpret this relative lack of interest in private contributions (other than as a stick to bash the president with) as any lack of sympathy, compassion, or even lack of interest in the relief efforts on the part of the left half of the blogosphere. My interpretation is that the right half of the blogosphere has a fairly traditional de Tocquevillian American reaction: if you believe in something, do it. The left half of the blogosphere has more of a European-style social democrat reaction: if it’s worth doing, it should be done by the government. This explains both the lack of column space devoted to contributions and the inclination to bash Bush for not doing more.
And, by the way, don’t make the mistake of thinking that left-leaning bloggers aren’t pitching contributions. Lots and lots of them are. But it’s interesting to see what the big dogs are doing.
As a final note the table above also gives us a hint as to why Glenn has the most traffic in the blogosphere. He posts more than anybody else and he posts stuff that people want to read.
UPDATE: Submitted to the Beltway Traffic Jam.
