Exhibit A of Journalistic Failure

The article is about the presence of Ron Paul on the Internet and how it exceeds the Internet presence of most of the other GOP candidates. The measures used include MySpace friends, Facebook hits, and more importantly Technorati and YouTube video hits.

How exactly does that show support for Paul. It shows that people online know of him, but it says nothing about what they think of Paul.

I think Paul is a full-blown wackaloon whose views on 9/11 are reprehensible and his positions on many other issues are unsupportable. Yet, I would count towards the Technorati numbers because my posts are regularly picked up in Technorati and had I linked to Paul's YouTube rants on 9/11, I'd count towards those numbers as well.

The writer of this piece, Jose Antonio Vargas, has no idea what he's talking about, and thinks the numbers speak for themselves and brought out a couple of Paul supporters to bolster his point. Here's a few other numbers that speak volumes - the amount of support in various political polls - conducted by phone - give Paul no support at all. Zero. Zilch. Zippo. Nada. Nil. None.

I'd posit that much of the numbers about Paul are derived from the spread among various bloggers who saw Paul's statements on 9/11 and others, and called him out on it. Some of the most visible bloggers, LGF, Michelle Malkin, and Hot Air have slammed Paul - running his videos. LGF has had ongoing problems with spammers hitting various polls on the GOP field to the point where Ron Paul is now an option on every poll - and sometimes the only option. They repeatedly post Paul videos to show him as being a crank and loon, not out of support.

Vargas does a grave disservice by not even noting that the numbers he leads with are misleading. Vargas attempts to characterize Paul's support as being much larger than it is, and that he could or should be considered a legitimate candidate. A balanced story on the matter would show a much different picture - that he's nothing more than a fringe candidate with support from a very tiny, but vocal group on the far right fringe that sounds like some of those on the far left.