Shrillblog

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Shrillblog is a weblog maintained primarily by J. Bradford DeLong, with input from Tyler Cowen, Andrew Northrup, and others. It collects stories and articles about critics of what the authors perceive as fundamental dishonesty on the part of advocates of "conservative" policies in the Republican Party and the Bush administration. Many of the critics regard themselves as conservative, and disagree with characterization of the policies they assail as conservative.

According to DeLong's personal report, the blog originated in a conversation among DeLong, Cowen, and Northrup regarding the use of the term "shrill" as a criticism of New York Times columnist and fellow academic economist Paul Krugman. The three believed at the time that the criticism originated in a National Review guest column by Peter Ferrara. It subsequently spread in the work of prominent bloggers such as Andrew Sullivan, to the point that it was mentioned in Nicholas Confessore's extensive Washington Monthly profile.

Figures on the left believe that, as humorist Stephen Colbert put it, "reality has a liberal bias." That is, the media presents the public with the idea that reality is somewhere between two opposing viewpoints, liberal and conservative; but, according to liberals, the conservative viewpoint is a tissue of lies. This is not, in the liberal characterization, a difference of opinion, but a matter of observable fact. Thus, the mere act of pointing out the facts leads to criticism from media figures as rude, partisan, or shrill, because it challenges the honesty and fair dealing of those same media figures.