Judge Roberts, if and when he is confirmed as a Justice of the Supreme Court, may owe his confirmation to Hillary Clinton.
According to the Washington Times, Roberts will end up the most-scrutinized Supreme Court selection in history, due in large part to the Internet. Concerning the Robert's nomination, political blogs and online forums bounced from issue to issue, beginning with whether Judge Roberts was a member of the Federalist Society, a group of conservative lawyers, to more recent debate over his views on gender pay equity.
Pete Snyder, founder of New Media Strategies, a company that tracks online forums and blogs, told the Washington Times that conservative-leaning sites were most active right after the Roberts nomination was announced, with liberal sites soon catching up. But he said the steam went out of the liberal blogs after Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton made positive comments about Judge Roberts:
"The sheer volume of negative discussion about Roberts just fizzled by 70 percent," Mr. Snyder said. "If there's ever an 800-pound gorilla, its name is Hillary Rodham Clinton."
Another example of how the blogosphere makes the Robert's nomination different than all other Supreme Court nominations is the "adopt a box of docs" initiative organized by Hugh Hewitt and Radioblogger. The initiative is enlisting bloggers to examine, analyze and post on docs from John Roberts' years in the White House Counsel's Office. The blogosphere can then be advised what is interesting therein and likely to be manipulated and used against Judge Roberts.
The main stream media has definitely lost control of the information citizens use to become informed.
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