Opinion: Rippling through the blogosphere

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Here at the Times’ Opinion Manufacturing Division, we like to check in on how our editorials and Op-Ed articles are doing -- and where they are going -- in the blogosphere. What follows is a sampling of blogs that have picked up our opinions and generated opinions of their own.

Jerry Roberts’ and Phil Trounstine’s Op-Ed listing six factors that are at the root of California’s inability to be governed caught the attention of several blogs this week. The Housing Chronicles Blog linked to a post about its own theories on California’s detrimental changes:

When it changed, it just wasn’t due to Prop. 13, although that was the start of it. I remember joining my family to protest the proposition (my first foray into politics), and when a cigar smoke-smelling Howard Jarvis waddled by and told my brothers and I, ‘Why don’t you go home and learn to read?’ I’m sure he didn’t realize that home schooling would become the savior for many of today’s families.

Bob Burnett of the Huffington Post linked to the piece in his take on California’s growing troubles and who’s to blame:

Nonetheless, while California’s decline can be blamed on Governor Schwarzenegger, the legislature, and the size and complexity of the state, the primary responsibility falls on the voters.

On FarmPolicy.com, a blog dedicated to news about the farming industry that took particular interest in the climate change bill passed by the House of Representatives last week, linked to The Times’ editorial that supported the bill. It seems the farm industry, based on the blog’s long and varied list of supporters and naysayers, is quite conflicted on this issue. The Harvesting Justice blog came out slightly more strongly against the editorial’s favorable position on the bill, offering this comment (which I believe is meant to be sarcastic?):

The Los Angeles Times agrees in an editorial about the inordinate power that leads to ‘the theory that heading off global catastrophe is only worthwhile if agribusiness can profit from it.’
Another example of the excesses of the ‘greedy growers,’ as former Wyoming Senator Alan Simpson used to say. We poison the environment and our farmworkers and agribusiness continues to lobby for the ability to continue to do so, while getting paid subsidies not to do so.

On June 26, The Times ran an Op-Ed by former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John R. Bolton -- a controversial figure in the world of diplomacy -- that encouraged the United States to support regime change in Iran. Not surprisingly, several bloggers had a lot to say in response. The Citizens blog said Bolton’s argument is a veiled call for war:

What is a ‘policy’ of regime change about? The answer, of course, is exactly what it was in Iraq: confrontation, building a ‘case’ for war, then invasion. The imposition of our will on Iran. Sure, Bolton and others will talk about ‘support’ for pro-democracy movements and such - the same sort of ‘support’ that has been so successful in Cuba this past half century. But they mean war. They just are too cowardly to openly say that they see military force as the only option. So let’s call them on it.

The UN Dispatch blog offered a similar reaction, and added that the target of Bolton’s attack was clearly the Obama administration, and even worse, offered no real solution to his goal. It was written for a partisan purpose and little else, the blog said.

Gregory Tejeda, a Chicago-area freelance writer and former UPI reporter, took issue with Zev Chafets’ Op-Ed, in which Chafets argued that Latino baseball players are being singled out by the Hall of Fame for their use of steroids. Tejada said he knows just as many non-Latino ball players who were disgraced by their drug use:

The same people who now are getting all worked up in saying that Sammy Sosa’s 600-plus home runs (and three seasons of 60 or more) are no longer good enough to include the one-time Chicago Cub in the Hall of Fame seem to get equally vehement in their opposition to either Bonds or Clemens getting baseball’s version of immortality.

And finally, Noel Sheppard on the NewsBusters blog was quite taken aback by Karen Bass’s statement during an interview with Patt Morrison that Republican radio talk-show hosts were ‘terrorizing’ their fellow Republicans in the California legislature.