The Age of Trolling

…Democrats did not expect to spend Wednesday arguing about the capital of Israel and the appearance of the word “God” in their platform. There were, reportedly, 15,000 members of the media in Charlotte, of whom maybe 14,980 could have given a damn about the party platform. On Tuesday night, when the Obama campaign and the DNC released its platform, none of the bigfoot media outlets in town spent time on the text.

No, it took until Wednesday morning for Jeff Dunetz, at the YidWithALid blog, to comment that “Democrats have removed this pro-Israel section from their platform.” (They had removed references to Hamas and references to Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.) At 11:26 a.m., Weekly Standard reporter Daniel Halper published a story on the platform, making the same point. (He credited YidWithALid.)

It could have ended there. But within a few hours, CNN and Fox News were browbeating Democrats to ask why they’d changed the platform—why, too, had they removed an old reference to “God-given talents,” and thus deleted YHWH from the text? Democrats gave up. They forced a vote on new platform language, restoring the 2008 lines. Convention chairman Antonio Villaraigosa affirmed the change even though nobody—seriously, nobody—thought that the sleepy midday convention hall had given it a two-thirds “aye” vote.

Maybe the word “historic” is out of place for the modern convention. To say that they’re clichéd and staged is, in itself, a staged cliché. But who thought, just 11 months after the launch of the Occupy movement, that 99 percenters would have less influence on the platform than conservative media?…

Read the entire article at Slate.com

Update: : Kudos to CNN for Fact Checking the Democrats

Update 2:  The Password is ‘Trolling’

…Dave Wiegel considers the news a “distraction” from the pre-scripted Democratic Messaging Operation…

@DaveWeigel Nearly Discovers Capitalism, Shrugs It Off As ‘Trolling’