
Ok, so it wasn’t THAT dramatic, but the headline caught ya right?
Anyways, I was watching the “new media” panel Saturday afternoon with several bloggers up there speaking about blogging, Twitter, Facebook, and the role of new media in the political arena. One of the bloggers on the panel was Ed Morrissey of Hotair.com
It started out great with some excellent sound bites from Ed, Andrew Brietbart, Jim Hoft, Ed Driscoll, Stephen Kruiser and Mathew Cunningham all speaking on the role of new media. Stephen Kruiser had just lit the room up with a combination of comedic energy and and a brief lesson about twitter to those who “don’t get it”.
Then it all got weird…
Chris Carmouche took his moment to criticize Ed Morrissey (who happened to be sitting right next to him) for a blog post Ed wrote earlier that morning taking Floyd Brown to task for promoting and pursuing the “Impeach Obama” rhetoric during a speech earlier that morning. Ed wrote that he felt it was unhelpful and pointless for the conservative movement to promote the “impeach Obama” rhetoric.
When the grassroots come together for events like Western CPAC, it usually brings together a great deal of energy as well as a wide idea of ideas, some better than others. One of the worst — and worst defended — ideas at WCPAC comes from Floyd Brown, whose ImpeachObamaCampaign.com is one of the sponsors for this event. In his speech this morning, Brown misstates history, draws ridiculous parallels to the Nazi era, and takes the wrong lessons from the Clinton impeachment, which at least had the virtue of coming from an actual impeachable offense.
Pictured from Left to right: Ed Morrissey, Chris Carmouche, Andrew Brietbart, Jim Hoft
It wasn’t just that Chris Carmouche took his moment of glory on stage to rip his fellow panelist for “disagreeing” calling it the “height of rudeness to criticize your host” (referring to Floyd Brown), it was the fact that Chris Carmouche was not qualified to be on that panel (he doesn’t blog or twitter), not to mention he killed the energy of the room and overall message of the panel after the momentum had built up from those who were fully qualified to speak on panel.
Also, there are allegations that Chris Carmouche paid his way onto the panel.
He PAID his way onto the panel?…yea that was my reaction too.
I was told by sources working at the event that Chris Carmouche was allowed on the panel because of his financial contribution to the Western CPAC event. I don’t have any proof of this, but sources at the event confirmed my suspicions.
It seems the “pay for play” philosophy of David Keene has had a trickle down effect on those at the ACU.
The fact is that whether or not you agree with Ed, he has EVERY RIGHT to post his opinions on his blog. And to criticize Ed for criticizing a fellow conservative while saying we shouldn’t “criticize the host” seems rather ironic and hypocritical not to mention highly inappropriate considering that’s not why he was up there. In addition, allowing an unqualified individual onto a “new media” panel is ridiculous. Whoever made the the decision to allow a paid sponsor of the event to speak on a panel in which he totally unqualified is also ridiculous and KILLS the credibility of the panel. It also soured the mood and message from what was about to be the most powerful panel of the weekend.
Related posts:
- Drama at Western CPAC 2009 Part 1 – John Ziegler vs David Keene (head of ACU)
- My Experience at Western CPAC 2009
- Blog Row at Western CPAC 2009
- Western CPAC reaction link roundup
- Twitter Updates for 2009-04-14
- Video: Surprise Dick Cheney speech at CPAC 2010
- Ed Morrissey appearing on C-span
- Video: Rush Limbaugh Speech at CPAC 2009 (Full video)
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