Power Line

Power Line
Type of site
 Blog
Created by John H. Hinderaker, Scott W. Johnson, and Paul Mirengoff
Website www.powerlineblog.com
Alexa rank 5,986 (June 2014)
Launched 2002

Power Line is an American political blog, founded in May 2002. Its posts were originally written by three lawyers who attended Dartmouth College together: John H. Hinderaker, Scott W. Johnson, and Paul Mirengoff. The site is published by Publir, founded by Joseph Malchow, also a Dartmouth graduate.

The site gained recognition among the American right for its role in covering the Killian documents story that aired during the 2004 Presidential campaign about forged documents relating to President George W. Bush's term of service in the Texas Air National Guard, which kept him out of the Vietnam war.

In 2004, Power Line was named Time magazine's first-ever "Blog of the Year."[1] When AOL added blogs to their news website in 2007, Power Line was one of the five blogs included.[2] A 2007 memo from the National Republican Senatorial Committee described Power Line as one of the five best-read national conservative blogs.[3]

Contributors

The contributors to Power Line are Steven F. Hayward, John H. Hinderaker, Scott W. Johnson, and Paul Mirengoff.

Steven F. Hayward

Steven F. Hayward is an American author, political commentator, and policy scholar. He argues for libertarian and conservative viewpoints in his writings. He writes frequently on the topics of environmentalism, law, economics, and public policy. Hayward earned a Bachelor of Science in business and administrative studies from Lewis and Clark College. He then earned a Ph.D. in American History and a Masters of Arts in government from the Claremont Graduate School. He worked as the Director of Journalism of the group Public Research Syndicated at the Claremont Institute from 1984 to 1987. He was the Richard M. Weaver Fellow at the Intercollegiate Studies Institute from 1985 to 1986. He was the director of the Golden State Center for Policy Studies from 1987 to 1991. He also worked as the Executive Director for Inland Business Magazine from 1985 to 1990.[4] In 1987, he received the Felix Morley Memorial Prize for distinguished commentary on business and economic affairs.[5]

From 1990 to 2001, Hayward was a contributing editor at Reason. He served on the Departmental Transportation Advisory Committee of the government of the State of California from 1996 to 2001. He served as well as a Public Interest Member in the California Citizens Compensation Commission from 1990 to 1995. He has worked as a Senior Fellow of the Pacific Research Institute for Public Policy since 1992. He has also held various fellowships with the American Enterprise Institute (AEI). As of April 2009, he serves as the F. K. Weyerhaeuser Fellow at AEI.[4] He is also a former President of the Philadelphia Society.[6]

John H. Hinderaker

John H. Hinderaker (born September 1950) is a conservative American lawyer, as well as a fellow at the Claremont Institute. He is a 1971 graduate of Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire, and received a Juris Doctor degree from Harvard Law School in 1974.

Scott W. Johnson

Scott W. Johnson (born 1951) is an American lawyer and executive.

Johnson was born in Fargo, North Dakota. He received a bachelor's degree from Dartmouth College in 1973 and subsequently undertook a degree at the University of Minnesota Law School. At one stage, he was a partner of John Hinderaker at Faegre and Benson.

Johnson started working with Hinderaker on opinion pieces on tax, welfare reform, and other public policy issues. The articles were run in conservative publications such as National Review and a wide range of newspapers. Both Johnson and Hinderaker became involved with the Claremont Institute along with Paul Mirengoff, who was Hinderaker's roommate at Dartmouth.

Paul Mirengoff

Paul Mirengoff (born April 17, 1949) is a retired attorney.

Mirengoff graduated from Dartmouth College in 1971, and from Stanford Law School in 1974. He formerly practiced law in Washington D.C. as a partner at Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld. For several years, he worked for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. He started writing articles for publications including the Washington Post, the Weekly Standard and Front Page.

He became a fellow of the Claremont Institute, a conservative institute. Mirengoff formed Power Line, in May 2002 with John Hinderaker and Scott W. Johnson, also fellows of the Claremont Institute. He originally used his nickname Deacon in posting to the blog. The blog gradually built a strong following amongst conservative Americans, winning praise from such notable conservatives as Rich Lowry, the editor of National Review, Mark Steyn and Michelle Malkin.

Political positions

Power Line's authors typically support the presidency of George W. Bush, especially the Iraq War and the War on Terror. But they criticized Bush for being insufficiently conservative on issues including immigration and affirmative action. The blog advocated the nomination and confirmation of judicially conservative judges during the Bush administration and regularly features analysis of court decisions. Power Line often vigorously criticizes Democrats and liberals for dishonesty, immorality, bad judgment, and disloyalty to the United States. They occasionally attack Republicans for similar shortcomings, such as Senator John McCain for his position advocating the US should not "torture" suspected terrorists or "enemy combatants".[7][8]

The Power Line authors believe the media suffer from systemic liberal bias because too many reporters and editors are partisan liberals. They frequently question the integrity of organizations such as Associated Press, the BBC, Reuters, The New York Times, and The Washington Post. Power Line authors have repeatedly advocated criminal prosecution of CIA leakers and media outlets that publish national security information. They also frequently criticize the Star Tribune of Minneapolis, home to two of the Power Line authors.

Rathergate

Power Line gained widespread recognition for its 2004 reporting on the Killian documents controversy relating to a CBS report on George W. Bush's service in the Texas Air National Guard, starting with a post entitled "The Sixty-First Minute".[9] Conservatives (including Power Line, National Review Online and Little Green Footballs) referred to the controversy as "Rathergate". The blogs and their readers contributed research in assessing the authenticity of the documents, presenting evidence of forgery. After it was noted that the alleged documents used a proportional font, Power Line helped advance the story, triggering coverage by mainstream media outlets. Dan Rather apologized and resigned from the CBS anchor chair. Power Line became identified with the Pajamahadeen when criticized by a former CBS News executive.

Schiavo memo

Power Line speculated that the Schiavo memo was most likely forged by Democrats as a political dirty trick. When the memo turned out to be written by a Republican aide, Brian Darling, Power Line acknowledged the revelation, but continued to criticize the mainstream media for depicting the memo as "a product of the party's leadership or had an official status."[10]

President Carter

Power Line frequently criticizes former US President Jimmy Carter. They have called him a "nut"[11] and said in a post about his actions regarding the Iraqi election in January 2005 that he is "on the other side".[12]

Hinderaker later wrote that Carter "started aligning himself with America's enemies", alleging that Carter asked the Soviet Union to expand Jewish emigration to help him in the 1980 presidential election, and added

In more recent years, Carter has never met an anti-American dictator he didn't like.... [H]e used the occasion of being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize to attack the current American government.... Jimmy Carter is a disgrace. We've said so before, and we'll continue saying so as long as he merits the criticism. If you want to learn more, read Steven Hayward's book The Real Jimmy Carter.[13]

Judicial nominations

The bloggers often comment on nominations of federal judges, especially to the Supreme Court. Mirengoff has suggested that "Republican Senators should feel free to vote against Sotomayor. Half of the Senate Democrats voted against Roberts and a strong majority voted against Alito...for no other reason than their desire not to have another 'conservative' on the Supreme Court...Thus, non-liberal Senators have every right to vote against her for that reason."[14]

Other coverage

Coverage and commentary by Hinderaker, Johnson, and Mirengoff, all alumni of Dartmouth College, was instrumental in the 2005 election of "insurgent" candidates Peter Robinson and Todd Zywicki to the Board of Trustees.

The blog also covers some lighter material. Johnson regularly posts historical articles about jazz and other musicians, Mirengoff reported on European soccer teams and Hinderaker covers beauty pageants.[15] Hinderaker also hosts a weekly radio show as part of the Northern Alliance Radio Network in Minnesota (Johnson left the show in February 2005, but is an occasional guest).

Tucson shooting

Mirengoff left the blog shortly after writing a January, 2011 post on a Tucson memorial service honoring those who died as the result of shootings at a Gabrielle Giffords rally; in his post he criticized the inclusion of Native American rituals. The post was later removed, but days later Mirengoff left the blog, and in announcing his exit thanked Hinderaker, Johnson, and the readers for the opportunity to participate in the blog.[16] When Mirengoff left the site, Hinderaker and Johnson recruited Steven Hayward to replace him. On Apr 20, 2012, Mirengoff rejoined the site, saying "My return to blogging coincides with my retirement from the practice of law. With all that extra time on my hands, I hope to be a better, more productive blogger this time around."[17]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Kher, Unmesh (December 19, 2004). "Blogs Have Their Day". Time magazine.
  2. ↑ Hinderaker, John (February 22, 2007). "Introducing Power Line AOL". Power Line.
  3. ↑ Budoff Brown, Carrie (13 June 2007). "GOP issues rules to avoid Macaca moments". Politico.
  4. 1 2 "AEI - Scholars - Steven F. Hayward". American Enterprise Institute. Retrieved January 5, 2010.
  5. ↑ "Ashbrook Staff: Steven Hayward". Ashbrook Center for Public Affairs. Retrieved January 7, 2010.
  6. ↑ http://phillysoc.org/presiden.htm
  7. ↑
  8. ↑
  9. ↑ Scott Johnson, Scott (September 9, 2004). "The sixty-first minute". Power Line.
  10. ↑ Hinderaker, John (April 8, 2005). "Real Memo, Fake Story". Power Line.
  11. ↑ Johnson, Scott (March 3, 2006). "Jimmy Carter: Nut". Power Line.
  12. ↑ Hinderaker, John (February 2, 2005). "Administration Critics Keeping Mum". Power Line.
  13. ↑ Hinderaker, John (February 16, 2005). "Jimmy Carter Revisited". Power Line.
  14. ↑ Mirengoff, Paul (May 26, 2009). "How will the Sotomayor nomination play out?". Power Line.
  15. ↑ Hinderaker, John (August 20, 2010). "Once Again, Pageant Queen Outsmarts President". Power Line.
  16. ↑ Farewell and thank you, Powerline http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2011/01/028232.php
  17. ↑ One happy Deacon, Powerline http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2012/04/one-happy-deacon.php
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