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Every so often it's fun to take a stroll around Colorado right-wing blogs and see what our friends over there are talking about. It's kind of fun, and much like the feeling the Baptist preacher had leaving the strip bar, it doesn't leave you as dirty as you might think. It's actually an encouraging thing to do.

I noted with interest a year or so ago how many brand-new rightie blogs were springing up in Colorado, coinciding with the return of native son Dick Wadhams, who developed the art of blog echo-chambers as campaign attack vehicles in GOP campaigns around the country. True, the last one in Virginia didn't go so well (Macaca), but that's an aberration in an otherwise formidable background. Guy's pretty good at what he does, his record precedes him.

But I'm sorry to say that some of those new blogs didn't last very long. Some are gone completely, others are simply moribund as their authors tire of shilling for the Republican Party day after day with no apparent readership. Which helps sum up their problem.

The biggest issue I've seen on these blogs is their generally unquestioning devotion to their party, and more to the point, GOP Senate candidate Bob Schaffer-which makes sense given Wadhams' time-honored strategy of paying blogger sockpuppets. I do see where they're coming from with this, being barely able to think and speak in grammatical sentences makes it tough for them to get that lefty blogs don't offer the same airtight propaganda in defense of their side. Criticism of Mark Udall, Ken Salazar, and other prominent Democrats is easy to find on just about any lefty blog, including this one, where Republican sites like Face the State are singlemindedly devoted to the cause of making the GOP look good. This has the effect of leaving the reader feeling as though he is reading an paid advertisement, not a candid opinion, and it shouldn't be a surprise that readers vote with their feet after awhile.

The other issue I see, and this isn't really a big deal though it is amusing, is the tendency of rightie bloggers to lash out personally at their lefty blog opponents. They don't seem to realize that by making these debates about us, mere bloggers, instead of about the candidates and issues, they are deflecting what would otherwise (maybe) be effective points. The right-wing blog To The Right has made it their foulmouthed mission to "discredit" middle-road behemoth Colorado Pols without success. The Independence Institute's bloggers are very keen to attack us at ProgressNow, sometimes me personally-if I'm very, very lucky that day.

Everybody's out there hunting for that "Gotcha!" moment, some are fortunate enough to think they've found one. For a moment. Sadly, most of these right-wing bloggers wig out half-cocked at the barest sign of potential dirt, and are frequently burned when they discover how wrong and silly they are. I have a long history of having to inform rightie bloggers that their nonsensical fantasies are just that. Back in '05, I had to let the author of American Kestrel know that his "breaking news" that we had "altered" content on our website after criticism from him was laughably BS (to his credit, he apologized fairly quickly).

Then there's the guy who insists we "plagiarized" our own blast email, because apparently somebody who received it put it up on Wikipedia after we sent it. The author of that particular j'accuse, now a writer for the rent-a-shill prefab blog Schaffer v. Udall, still clings to this one like religion. Although I was mildly perturbed about this idiotic claim for awhile (mostly because he refused to stop making it even after it was effortlessly debunked), now I think it's a sign of success. If this is all these guys can come up with, there's just not a lot to worry about, the background credibility of these shill sites being what it is (see above).

Occasionally, you run into a conservative blogger who is actually not stupid but nevertheless is employed by the black hats in Colorado politics. Independence Institute employee Ben DeGrow fits that description pretty well. I think you could fit all the things we agree on in a small thimble, but he's not just a vapid monosyllabic prick like so many of his peers.

It seems Ben DeGrow is upset about a post I wrote a week ago regarding Bob Schaffer's vote on the state Board of Education in 2007, forcing DPS to reconsider its decision to close a failing charter school. DeGrow "forgets" to explain, of course, that the failing charter school in question is run by a major donor to Schaffer's US Senate campaign. He cites testimony by a Democrat in favor of the school this year (continued failing results put it back on the chopping block), and basically spends the next few paragraphs excoriating me personally for daring to question the school and, by rather stilted extension, the needy kids in it.

Artfully presented, DeGrow's premise remains crap. The fact is that Denver Public Schools voted to close a failing charter school in early 2007. It's a fact that Schaffer cast the deciding vote forcing DPS to reconsider, and that the school in question is run by a major donor to the Schaffer campaign. And it's a fact that a year later, the school was underperforming badly enough to merit another closure vote.

My understanding about charter schools is that they justify their existence by being better at educating kids than their public school counterparts. After all, why would you siphon money away from public schools to give to a private school that does no better, or does worse? How does that help needy students? How many at-risk students dropped out or underperformed at this failing charter school in the last year? It's absurd-actually, it's only absurd if you're not an avowed enemy of public education. Then it all works out, which brings us back to Mr. DeGrow and his friends at the Independence Institute.

The Independence Institute's position on education part of a larger fringe-right backlash against public education, driven by a diverse coalition of "intelligent design" religious extremists, David Horowitz-type McCarthyite witch hunters, and hate-speech apologists like II staffers Jessica and Robert Corry. The Independence Institute works both sides of the pincer strategy against public education, attacking its funding from one side and its credibility from the other. Idiot pseudo-academics like Ward Churchill have made this combined strategy somewhat easier, and here in Colorado (48th in the nation for higher-education funding) you can make the argument that they've largely succeeded.

I should add that I have personal experience dealing with the Independence Institute's education operatives. They're not nice people. Having seen them in action on Colorado college campuses, and knowing a few of the uglier tales associated with the Corrys in particular, I am truly concerned about the well-being of students who get mixed up with these people-even to the point of fearing for their physical safety. Ben DeGrow knows exactly what I'm talking about, so I do find it a little odd that his attention is fixated on us instead of the camels he swallows every time he reports to the office.

But like all of these rightie bloggers charging ahead factlessly, and in the end unpersuasively (at best), that hypocrisy is a matter for his own conscience.