Getting pushed around a little?

Here are two blaring problems I noticed with The Carpetbagger Report:

* For a while now, the sidebar ads have featured an ad stating "Pamela Anderson's Extreme Video" with a picture of the model standing nude, covering her breasts with her hand, and her pelvis covered by a sign. Below this picture is written:

See what all the controversy surrounding Pamela Anderson's new video is about.

Watch as this sexy icon lays it all out in this very graphic video.

Viewers beware: This material may not be suitable for everyone!
Read more...

When The Carpetbagger Report keeps attracting more and more visitors every month, isn't it a bad idea to have a kinky link that belongs on a porn site, not a political site, on the sidebar? The best thing for us is to get liberal politics attracting a more and more populist audience, including people from the "red" states-- places where people are more likely to be sensitive about things like this, no matter their political affiliation. Isn't it a bad idea and likely to alienate those people and to reinforce Republican-born misconceptions about liberals if Steve leaves this ad up on his site? He should talk to the people who supply the ads and tell them that he doesn't want it to appear there-- otherwise, he's making us all look bad.

* Today's final post reports in a one-sentence blurb: Attorney General Michael Mukasey thinks the Vice President is part of the executive branch. Will wonders never cease. But there is no sentence in the post to explain what the controversy has been as far as Cheney claiming to belong to two branches at once, or none at all. Without an explanation like that, the blurb is too likely to be confusing to new readers who may not know politics that well.

Steve Benen of The Carpetbagger Report shouldn't be making these mistakes. He is a big-time blogger who worked on a political campaign as a consultant / strategist. He should know better than this what is good for our politics. What is okay for a tiny blog barely anyone visits is not okay for Steve to do-- through his site, he represents our politics to (what is for the blogosphere) almost-as-close-as-one-can-get to a mass, mainstream audience.