Behold The Power Of...

Blogs!

This is pretty cool...

President Bush has invited bloggers to join him today as he signs into law a bill creating a database of federal spending -- a recognition of their role in forcing the bill through Congress over the objections of senior senators and an indication of how much bloggers are changing the political process.
A coalition of bloggers from the left and the right last month did what the Senate's Republican leadership could not: smoke out obstructing senators, bring public pressure to break their hold and move the bill to the Senate floor, where it passed by a voice vote.
"The bloggers mobilized Congress; Congress did not mobilize bloggers," said John Hart, spokesman for Sen. Tom Coburn, the Oklahoma Republican who teamed with Sen. Barack Obama, Illinois Democrat, to support the bill.
"It really does represent a revival of basic democratic values: that active citizens using tools of technology really can steer the political process," Mr. Hart said. "And what happened was profoundly subversive to the established political order."

This. This is the fundamental power the internet brings to the table, it is especially gratifying to me that it was a bi-partisan effort.

This, not so cool...

Today, President Bush finally signed the Coburn-Obama database bill into law. A handful of large blogs from across the political spectrum, aided by hundreds of readers, banded together to push for the bill's passage, which will create a searchable website of federal grants, loans and contracts.

But when the bill arrived on the President's desk, he saw fit to invite bloggers who are reliably conservative.

I don't know who, if anybody was snubbed, but if they were, this conservative says...I'm sorry, it was wrong.

Anywho, interestingly enough as were driving to attend a protest Sunday in the boondocks of Illinois one of the topics of conversation was how the internet was finally beginning to do some of the things that people were pontificating about a decade ago, long before the technical realities were in place.

Now, the only boundary is getting more people online and weaned off the Dead Dog Media. Streaming video and audio, email, blogs, websites are serious tools that break down and scale the walls that used to be manned by prohibitive costs and high technical specs.

Now any fool with a video camera can report the news. And yes, some will stink, but if you've been paying attention to what's going on in the blogosphere, there is a serious case of 'the cream rising to the top' going on as we speak. In true Darwinian fashion, which only redounds to the good of the people.

Portals like Youtube make me wonder about the future of elections, if candidates were able to utilize it effectively it go a long way toward lowering the financial bar of candidacy, like this. Okay, sorry, that was a silly example, how about this?

Actually, amidst the silliness, there is something interesting going on here. I predict we'll see candidates utilizing these tools in new and vital ways in the not too distant future. What will happen then? That's beyond the ken of this broken down old chef but I guarantee you this...

It'll be interesting!

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