Markos Moulitsas and I disagree on a lot of things. I even think his taste in baseball teams leaves a lot to be desired. But we do agree on a piece of contrarian wisdom that goes against everything the Beltway establishment holds dear.

In the Beltway’s eyes, Markos leads a movement of progressives in the blogosphere. But this is inaccurate, and Markos would be the first to tell you so. Markos doesn’t lead the movement. He stands in front of it and is symbolic of it, but the movement’s direction and interests flow directly from the people who compose it. The movement is a bottom-up thing, not something that a guy leads from the top.

It’s probably comforting for Democratic politicians to believe that Markos leads the movement in the progressive blogosphere. That being the case, all they have to do is soothe the savage breasts of Markos and other rabble-rousing bloggers and then get back to business as usual. That’s why Democratic politicians are so unfailingly solicitous of the liberal bloggers.

But it doesn’t work like that. If Markos came out tomorrow and said he’s supporting Hillary, the people who read his blog would tell him to pound sand. They would keep reading his blog, but they wouldn’t open their hearts or their wallets for Hillary.

CONSERVATIVE TALK RADIO has the same kind of dynamic. The people who listen to conservative talk have their own views, and they are extremely well informed ones at that. They listen to conservative talk because they hear opinions that are friendly to their political and personal philosophies. Listeners also tune in to conservative talk because, unlike liberal talk, conservative talk shows are fun and entertaining.

On Friday while pinch-hitting for Hugh, I interviewed Mort Kondracke and directly asked him his views on conservative talk radio. The exchange went like this:

DB: So Mort, let’s talk a little bit about talk radio. A productive part of our society or a destructive part of our political dialogue?

MK: Boy, I’ve got to say, well, look, everybody’s got a right to say what they want to say, and I mean, you know, the problem with much of talk radio is that it’s out of control. It’s out of self-control, I should say. And the competitive forces impels somebody to try to whip up the rage of the listenership, and make people frantic about something, and it inhibits calm discussion about anything, as witness the immigration debate. Do I think…in the case of the immigration debate, I think what the radio talk show hosts did was terribly destructive toward the solution of what everybody agrees is a huge problem.

DB: When you say talk show hosts, you’re referring to Michael Savage, and us, too?

MK: I’m referring…you know, the truth is that I don’t listen to everybody, so I can’t tell you who…I listen to Rush, I think he’s a destructive force in this case.

DB: Really?

MK: Yeah, of course. I mean, you know…and you know, Rush has been…Sean Hannity, I think, has been a destructive force, Laura Ingraham’s been a destructive…I mean, I don’t exactly know where exactly Hugh has been on this issue, but you know, anybody who is declaring…and Lou Dobbs is the worst…anybody who declares that this bill is amnesty is just not helping the society solve a problem.

Mort’s a great guy, but he has the immigration bill debacle completely bass-ackwards. Talk radio didn’t lead the charge so much as it gave voice to the angered conservative base. The Republican Party’s problem wasn’t that it angered a handful of professional talkers (myself included). Its problem was that it outraged virtually its entire base with the content of the immigration bill and the downright un-American way the Senate and the administration attempted to shove the bill down the throat of the American body politic.

As a double-blind test of Mort’s thesis that talk radio leads its listeners like so many aimless sheep, we can look back at the Harriet Miers drama. My mentor had a disagreement with most of his audience and readership. He thought she was an adequate choice for the Supreme Court; most of his listeners didn’t. By the time Miers withdrew her name for consideration, Hugh had convinced few of his listeners or readers to see things his way. If talk radio listeners were really the gullible dupes that Mort Kondracke conveniently figures them for, the Miers thing would have gone down quite differently.

THERE’S ANOTHER AREA WHERE Mort has it completely bass-ackwards, and this one, while less important than the other, is pretty damn important in its own right. A lot of conservative politicians haven’t enjoyed the presence of conservative talk radio and the right half of the blogosphere recently. Some nostalgists like Trent Lott even yearned for the good old days of the Fairness Doctrine. But, as we saw in the past, Trent Lott is nostalgic for some pretty weird things.

In truth, the Republican Party should be grateful for both talk radio and the blogosphere. If certain Republican politicians had paid attention to talk radio rather than baselessly assail it, they would have seen how dangerous this immigration bill was. If the bill had passed, the damage to the party would have been incalculable. The political class should appreciate the presence of an early alarm system like talk radio rather than bemoan it.

As far as the blogosphere is concerned, both the left and right blogopsheres have readerships that are puny parts of the electorate. Rush’s and Sean’s audiences are each nearly 50 times the size of the most-read center right blog. But the blogs provide an even earlier alarm system. If we’re going berserk in the blogosphere, the smart politician should take note.

BLAMING TALK RADIO AND THE BLOGOSPHERE for the Republican Party’s difficulties? That’s just killing the messenger. The political class would be well advised to remember that the message that so distresses them comes from the people.

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