I gotta tell ya, Tom, it gets old having to start every post to you by correcting your distortions of what I said. Where did you hallucinate this?:

[Tom] If the bloggers are the clueless and easily brainwashed idiots you claim they are (not like the vast and cool minds on this board),

Let's review what I actually said:

[Robert] It's like I've said all along: Bloggers are amateurs, individuals doing it as a hobby, and they're more vulnerable to being suborned by the RNC than a professional news organization. I'm sure that the RightWing bloggers were flattered as hell to be hearing from the RNC, and to have bloggers validated as a political power...and I'm equally sure they were putty in the hands of these two professional manipulators.

Thanks to one of the links you provided to a participant in the conference call, my judgment of the psychological dynamic turns out to be spot-on. Here's what the call means personally to the blogger AnkleBiger:

Today I had the wonderful opportunity to participate in a blogger conference call with National GOP Chairman Ken Mehlman concerning the Alito nomination. First I want to thank Chairman Mehlman and Patrick Ruffini, who set up the call, for doing such a great job of blogger outreach.

...

All in all a very good experience and I thank Pat and Chairman Mehlman for the outreach effort, which both said would continue with a conference call on spending cuts in the near future.

Ankle-Biting Pundis

Now there's a man whose head has been turned by an invitation to sit at the table of power. He makes the conference call it sound like an audience with the Pope, and he sounds ever so grateful that the great Party hack would take the time to tell him what to write in his blog. Oh joy!

Here's the bottom line you're trying to ignore: Want to try and tell me with a straight face that bloggers are the "new journalists"? That bloggers are inherently more objective because they're not members of what you call the "MSM"? Is the RNC spending the money and effort in its "blogger outreach" campaign because they expect bloggers to be independent and fair-minded? Doesn't AnkeBiter's account of the meeting sound very much like he and his fellow bloggers receiving direction from the RNC about how to push the Party line?

RightWing bloggers are activists. It's nothing but partisan spin to try and portray them as journalists, and insane to assert that they're somehow doing a better job than traditional journalists.