Hoosier Political Report
Taking Down Words was one of my favorite local political blogs for a long time, and I really miss it. Since Jennifer Wagner switched over to a new URL and format — Hoosier Political Report — things just haven’t been the same, and sadly, it’s going to get booted from my feed reader soon.
Rather than the astute and funny local political commentary contained on the old blog, the new one is composed almost completely of press releases from political candidates (YAWN), videos of recent campaign commercials (I fast forward through them on TV, so why would I waste my time on the internet?) and collected links from local newspapers (I get the headlines from the papers I care about in my feed reader already, so this is just redundant.)
The one thing I thought would be even mildly interesting – The Capitol Report – (where Jennifer sits down in a political pundit style video format with opposing viewpoint radio guy and erstwhile blogger Abdul Hakim Shabazz) just sets my teeth on edge the two times I’ve tried to watch it. Jennifer seems to be trying to remake her image from “witty political gadfly” into “sober political commentator” and the transition just doesn’t sit well with me – mainly because sober political commentators in Indiana are a boring dime a dozen, but witty political gadflies are a rare and desirable creature.
And it’s no secret that I can’t stand Abdul. Given his dubious past running the libelous and in one case criminal Indy Undercover blog (he compromised an arson investigation and endangered the life a police informant by posting her name on the blog) I have trouble with the idea of lending him a sheen of respectability that he just doesn’t merit.