This of course could suggest a pretty robust defense tactic for him. I’m planning to tackle X, but I think it is too risky breech the subject just now. I’m carefully preparing the battleground so as to maximize my chance of success. I intend to attack at the most opportune moment!…

I’m not talking about the technology. That’s even older. We’ve had the guns for a long time, just not known how to use them.

I’m talking about the ability of individuals to trust the interface (from I don’t want to date online to SHE SAID WHAT? ON MYSPACE). Thank the clickity-click trigger happy chatterbugs for validating the platform as average people compatible. It ain’t virtual no more.

That hurdle has been dealt with easily by most people who give a damn about TEH SITUATION. Passing that hurdle makes the new opportunities as legitimate (or as false as the case maybe) as the traditional modes and they traditional modes are finding new life as virtuality loses its novelty and Internet means meet people fast.

I’m generally skeptical (voted Baldwin) but let’s give credit where it’s due: WE DID IT before he SAID WE CAN.

1) If they feel they have responded to a question adequately, they need not address it again, no matter how many people ask.

2) They don’t have to answer the questions, just respond. Biden’s response was clearly not an answer, but they are pushing it as sufficient.

I think they may be more to your general argument that this example suggests. But I think “MyBarackObama” will remain “HisBarackObama” in reality. I think more important is furthering the reach of the liberal blogosphere, which seems to have plateaued. The mainstream media, especially papers, seems headed for hard times and there could be an opening here. I’m more skeptical of anything actually controlled by the administration.

But I also wrote to my representatives in Congress because Congress can initiate investigations.

Now, whenever someone makes a claim like (my emphasis) “where [minor partisan press] genuinely forced people like [politician] to …”, this warrants skepticism, not gospel gullibility.

So yeah, TPM in many cases forced Republicans to go on record regarding their positions, though not because of the force of their writing but because readers were willing to bug their reps about it. Changes to Social Security were unpopular and weasels were trying to walk the line between ideological conformity and doing what their constituents believed was good.

(1) The argument by analogy. Claim x looks (if you squint at it in the right light) rather like the claims being made by people who I think are silicon snake oil merchants. Therefore (without having to look at the specifics of the argument or the case) I can dismiss it as being ipso facto worthless.

(2) The zero sum argument. When somebody wins, someone somewhere else must be losing, and vice versa. It’s a mathematical certainty (proof available from author on request).

(3) The ‘more than my job’s worth’ argument. A corollary to (1) to the effect that if I told you what was really going on, They’d get me and They’d get me good.

Rinse and repeat as often as necessary.

The problem isn’t that you are necessarily wrong – in plenty of situations I am sure you are right. Lots of people are snake oil merchants of one sort or another, and Internet/e-commerce appear to be inflicted with an unusual concentration of them. Lots of situations are indeed zero sum games. But not all. And there are real issues with applying a one-size-fits-all explanation to everything that seems vaguely to resemble a set of situations that you have had reason to become embittered over. Most obviously, this ‘explanation’ becomes less an argument or framework than a means of constructing a bulwark against having to engage with possible confounding evidence or change your mind about things. I honestly find this a bit of a tragedy, because you’re clearly smart and articulate. But your output on this seems to me to be less a set of arguments than a set of semi-autonomous reflexes.

And then 2000 happened, and the left-wing 3rd party challenger garned 2.5 million more votes than he was ever able to get before or since, and tossed the election to GWB.

You ignore your base at your own peril. You don’t need most, or even many, of them to defect to cause a loss. You really only need some. That’s why they are called your ‘base’, if you lose even a little bit everything else comes toppling down.

Then of course come the strawmen – “Given the rather extraordinary lengths to which political and other organizations actually go in order to control agendas and prevent people who they don’t want to speak from raising awkward questions, I rather think that the onus is on you to demonstrate why all these efforts and counterefforts are misguided”
Did I ever say anything like that, ALL THESE EFFORTS? You’re doing a familiar two-step, of making claims that can be read very broadly, “But the creation of an open architecture, where others can bring inconvenient issues up – and very likely keep on bringing them up – makes it substantially more difficult for them to maintain control of the conversation.” – and then retreating to a reading where any trivial meaning is taken as proving the statement.

Which bring us to “but the manifest evasion invites another, reformulated question for next time around …”
Remember one of my laments: No reasonable evidence will ever be accepted as refutation.