in USA Today Bruce Kluger has a piece titled Lieberman “Snakes” and the seductive mythology of the blogosphere where he makes some obvious observations, and some very poor conclusions.

If ever America needed a wake-up call about the mythology of blogging, we got it this month.

On Aug. 8, Connecticut businessman Ned Lamont defeated U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman in the Democratic primary, a triumph widely credited to the rah-rah racket produced by pro-Lamont armies stationed along the Internet.

Indeed, the bloggers had scored big. They had helped vault a local politician to national prominence and cemented the Iraq war as Issue No. 1 in the congressional elections. Not a bad day.

But their victory was short-lived. Even before the primary, Lieberman announced that, should he lose, he’d still run in November as an independent. This electoral chutzpah effectively rope-a-doped the bloggers and recharged the senator’s fabled Joe-mentum. Lieberman’s still the man to beat in the general election.

Very true, but what Kluger fails to mention that many on the right, and many of us in the center were saying all along that Lamont’s primary victory was really a loss for the Democratic party.

There is no way you can take way the victory of the netroots. They won the primary for Lamont there is no denying that. Without Kos and Firedog lake, and many others Joe Lieberman wins that primary going away.

Kluger goes on:

If this wasn’t enough to drain the effervescence from the blogger bubbly, America’s noisy Web wags were dealt an even more sobering blow 10 days later when Snakes on a Plane opened nationwide to a decidedly flat $15.3 million box office.

Before its premiere, Snakes had been the latest blogger darling, as swarms of online film geeks prematurely crowned it the summer’s big sleeper. This hyperventilating fan base even convinced Snakes‘ distributor, New Line Cinema, to up the movie’s rating to R, to ensure a gorier, more venomous snake fest.

But all that clapping and yapping couldn’t put enough fannies in the seats. Ticket sales for Snakes‘ debut barely topped those of Talladega Nights, which was already in its third week.

Although Connecticut and Hollywood are a continent apart, the two events speak volumes about the capriciousness of the blog culture.

The “blogosphere” is not a gigantic megaphone for the ”blogger” collective all speaking unanimously with one voice. It is exactly the opposite. It is a collection of small and large voices each advocating their own ideas and opinions. I had no idea any blogger said Snakes on a Plane was going to be a blockbuster and I read blogs night and day.

If Hollywood executives actually believed that something some blogger or group of bloggers says, can make a stupid movie appealing to the mass market, then that speaks to the idiocy of those particular executives not the effectiveness of the blogosphere.

Lieberman’s boomerang reminds us that voters represent a meager percentage of the total populace — and that bloggers are an even tinier subset of that group. Consequently, what appears to be a coast-to-coast juggernaut on a 17-inch monitor is, in the real world, simply an elaborate PC-to-PC chain letter — enthusiastic, but not necessarily the national mindset. 

I am sure some on the left and the right claim to speak for the entire country. Most bloggers and most people with common sense realize they do not.  So you aren’t telling us anything new here. However I believe it is definitely true that by monitoring blogs on both the left and right you can get a very good sampling of how the public at large feels.

“There isn’t much point in detailing the chest thumping of the various blognut extremists,” wrote Time’s Joe Klein in his analysis of the Lamont victory. “Their reach is minuscule.”

I assume by repeating it Kluger agrees with Klein?

I couldn’t disagree with folks like Daily Kos or Firedog Lake more, and I realize the obvious point made by Kluger above, a minority of Americans actually vote, an even smaller minority vote in primaries, and an even smaller group of them have their own political blog. All that being said discounting the real and powerful effect a group of left wing activist bloggers had on a Democratic Primary election is whistling past the grave yard.

The netroots in effect selected the Democratic Party’s candidate for 1 of the 50 seats in the United States Senate and purged a former Vice Presidential candidate and long time encumbent Senator from the party. That is a huge no matter what side of the aisle you are on.

Is it Woodward and Bernstien bringing down Richard Nixon? no but it’s pretty damn big.

The question of if that was a good or bad thing for the Democratic Party or the country is an entirely separate one, and subject to debate. I don’t think it was the point Mr. Kluger was attempting to make.

Now Kluger makes the next big jump.  

For those who think Klein is underestimating the power of the blog, I have four words: Howard Dean for president.

The blogoshere put Howard Dean on the map. Howard Dean lost the election. Just like Snakes on a Plane no amount of PR, or advertising, or campaigning can “dress up a pig” so to speak. And by the way can you say Howard Dean Chairman of the Democratic Party?

Do you honestly think he would have ever achieved that without the blogosphere?

Time Magazine certainly didn’t get him there.

On the other hand, as August 2006 clearly demonstrates, bloggers can just as easily get it wrong. That’s worth remembering.

Let me answer this with one of our super secret blogger terms….. DUH. Bloggers being as there are between 12 and 50 million of us (depending on which numbers you believe), and the nature of the medium get it wrong about half the time.

The newsflash for Mr. Kluger might be, The New York Times, and CBS get it wrong pretty often themselves while supposedly playing it right down the middle. Anyone seen Dan Rather or Mary Mapes lately?

Kluger concludes the piece with the kind of condescention that continues to result in ever lower circulation numbers to MSM outlets around the world:

The whole thing reminds me of child-rearing. As the parent of any toddler can tell you, the younger the child, the louder the screams for attention — and quite often, the degree of the crisis is in reverse proportion to the decibels of the bellows.

To that end, it’s important to remember that the blogosphere is still in its infancy, and like any kid, it needs to be watched very carefully.

It seems to me the people doing all the kicking and screaming lately are MSM hacks trying to protect their endangered gigs.