I'll admit: I'm a little bit jealous. Or at least, jealous for Lambert. He's a WASP, and therefore is "worthy" of making the NYT's political pages, right? Oh well. Bowers has become the new, eminently misquotable whipping boy for the "angry Left," and thus not to be contacted directly, lest some terrible germ infect the sacred flesh of reporters. He's calling from Inside the House!!!

I just noticed this article in the New York Times now. Emphasis mine:

Markos Moulitsas, founder of the influential Daily Kos site on the Internet, said it was way too early to begin judging Mr. Obama. "Some people may be nit-picky about his choices but at the end of the day, he's going to make better choices than John McCain would have made," Mr. Moulitsas said by telephone. "There will be a time to push him, but as far as I'm concerned, I'm going to wait to see what it means on a policy basis, not on personalities."

Some bloggers have been less patient. "Why isn't there a single member of Obama's cabinet who will be advising him from the left?" asked Chris Bowers on his site, OpenLeft.com.

The reason I emphasized those two lines is because I was never contacted by the author of the piece, Peter Baker, about an interview for the article. So, if you are a blogger perceived as supportive of Obama, you get a phone call. However, if you are perceived as critical of Obama, you are just selectively quoted in order to fit into the existing narrative.

Come to think of it, I wasn't I contacted by The Politco for their piece that quoted me. Nor was I contacted by the New York Times for the piece where they quoted me last month. Nor by USA Today last month. Nor by UPI. Nor by Salon. Nor by Time (even though Beinart actually works with someone who is dating one of my cousins, and it wouldn't have been hard to fine me). Nor by The Washington Post. I was actually contacted by Fox News, which has quoted me a few times recently, but I declined to appear on their network. MSNBC also contacted me, and I had a great time on Hardball.

That so many news organizations would quote me and identify me as representative of a certain viewpoint without even bothering to contact me doesn't make it difficult to see that I am being stereotyped and used. If you are a "reporter," and you are quoting me--in a forum where I can't possibly respond--but not actually bothering to contact me, then you don't actually care about my thoughts on Obama's personnel decisions so far. Even though those view happen to be quite detailed and mixed, they don't care. Instead, two quotes I wrote, out of about 60,000 words I have published since the election, have been constantly recycled used to fit their established narrative. What I actually think, be damned.

Well, Chris, at least you get to play in the teevee sandbox. You're white and male and pretty and they've decided you don't have cooties. You know they'd never let a nigger UChicago grad dyke like me in the Green Room. Enjoy your infamy, friend. And way to go, NYT! "Some bloggers..." Wow, that's some hard hitting, informative reporting ya got there.