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| Someone at the White House is a regular reader of Legal Schnauzer |
Every now and then an acquaintance will ask me, "Roger, what kind of influence does your blog have? Do people really pay attention to it, beyond maybe a few folks here in Alabama?"
If that's the kind of queries I get from people who are more or less friends, you can only imagine the stuff I hear from enemies. That usually comes in the form of anonymous comments that go something like this: "Schnauzer, nobody reads your pathetic excuse for a blog, and nobody cares what you think. You're just a loser--in court and in life--so why don't you get a job?"
Trying to quantify the influence or impact of a blog is an inexact science. The Web features all sorts of "analytics" services that provide data about number of visitors, page views, and such. I've written before about that kind of data and what it says about Legal Schnauzer. But that still doesn't go to impact or influence or the kinds of people you are reaching. The biggest question perhaps is this: Who is your audience?
I can't answer that question with precision, but I do know our little blog reaches some influential places, including the White House--the one at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C. And that's not all; we have visitors almost every day from dozens of law firms, government agencies (uscourts.gov, doj.gov, etc.), universities and other institutions, mainstream media outlets, the U.S. Senate, U.S. House, and so on.
But my favorite has to be when we get a visit from "Executive Office of the President," with the location of "Washington, D.C." And I would say we've had 15 to 20 visits from them in the time Barack Obama has been in office--and they seem to be drawn by all sorts of topics.
Our most recent visit came earlier this week, and it was the result of a keyword search for "karen johnson lobbyist rove." We try not to toot our own horn around here too much. But when a little braggadocio is called for, I like to pull out my "Executive Office of the President" file. Here is the latest entry. I get a kick out of showing it off:
Visitor Analysis & System Spec
Search Referral: www.google.com — karen johnson lobbyist rove #2
Host Name: Browser: Chrome 22.0
IP Address: 198.137.240.197 — [Label IP Address]
Operating System: Win7
Location: Washington, District Of Columbia, United States
Resolution: 1440 x 900
Returning Visits: 0
Javascript: Enabled
Visit Length: Not Applicable
ISP: Executive Office Of The President
Navigation Path
Date Time WebPage
www.google.com — karen johnson lobbyist rove #2
22 Oct - 08:24:21 - legalschnauzer.blogspot.com/2012/07/karl-rove-and-karen- johnson-political.html
EVERYBODY is interested in Rove's gay affair.
ReplyDeleteCould a pardon for former Gov. Siegelman be next?
ReplyDeleteWell maybe you could start posting to President Obama to pardon Don Siegelman his next 4 years in office.
ReplyDeleteAnon at 8:36--
ReplyDeleteSomeone in his office already is reading, so I hope they are working on it. More than that, I hope Obama is planning to hire a real attorney general for the second term, one who will work toward holding corporate and legal criminals accountable.
Wow, Legal Schnauzer.. their web crawler probably picked up the mention of Obama not doing anything about the justice or lack of situation in this part of the country.
ReplyDeleteThe Power of the written word....this is wonderful. Kudos to you. Congratulations to you...maybe you will star in your own reality series soon. I can see it now, you and Mrs. Schnauzer dealing with all the injustices all day long; reading crazy emails, I think it would be wonderful if you had the time.
LS, rumor mill is Holder is going, but we can't hold our breath in the U.S. with respect to justice, or we know the disappointment is greater than what the outcome is supposed to be, justice.
ReplyDeleteSlow, the wheels of genuine rule of law, due process. However, we can HOPE? Mr. dope addict has been called by a writer at RT, ears and ass, then there is the "Teleprompter Reader," and no matter what suit gets to dress up at that fancy address visiting your blog, the reality enema is there is no such idea: President of the United States of America.
But, we can HOPE and pretend pink unicorns are coming to save us from the injustice.
Your "blog" is international and the information, that is NEWS, happens to be the FOOD healthy bodies, minds, SOULS need to be higher intelligence.
ROVE is a very deadly weapon from the "Republicrats," the "White House" got to experience his voter and election tactics. He was the master, "Turd Blossom," however, the bloom is gone - with any luck at all Mr. ears and ass can get sober long enough over these next four years, to not make nice with those that played very dirty in his world of rock'n'roll gangsta Chicago tribe.
Your exceptional and tenacious journalism should be taken seriously. Hopefully change will come because of it. Great work.
ReplyDeleteAnon at 11:08--
ReplyDeleteI think we've had in the neighborhood of 15-20 visits from them, and it seems to come on a variety of topics. This one was about Rove and his new "wife." Some have been about the Siegelman case. I know one had to do with something we had written about former White House counsel Greg Craig. Some have had to do with Eric Holder. Some had to do with Alabama bingo trial (and retrial) and stuff related to Bob Riley and other gambling-related stuff. I'm pretty sure some were related to Siegelman-case whistleblower Jill Simpson. At least one visit had something to do with a post I had written about Medicare fraud at UAB and with Rob Riley's physical-therapy company. They definitely are aware that we have a cesspool in Alabama. Whether they will do anything about it is another story.
Well, the White House ought to be reading the blog and hopefully learning something from it. If, and this may be a big if, Obama gets a second term he ought to:
ReplyDelete1. Bring Karl Rove and his cronies to justice.
2. Grow a pair and pardon all those who were politically prosecuted by the Bush Administration
3. Hire a new Attorney General and dump the present AG who is nothing but a career DOJ hack and apologist.
4. Call for a national conference dedicated to reigning in the abuses of the U.S. Justice Department and various federal agencies.
5. Call for a national conference on how to reform the federal court system, both at the trial and appellate level.
Wel, we can wish, can't we!
Anon at 11:18--
ReplyDeleteAgree on all points. Well stated.
And cesspool in Virginia too.
ReplyDeleteI was wondering why Judge Robert G. Doumar was receiving high profile cases after letting my case procceed to trial KNOWING it would violate the fifth amendment grand jury clause.
That was the reason-"to fool the public into believing there is a just legal system in this country when in actuality it's just us."
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/28/us/us-set-back-on-treatment-of-combatant.html?ref=yaseresamhamdi
When I was blogging during the Bush Administration, my favorite visitor location was the "Anacostia Naval Air Station." The Navy closed it a few years before I was born. However, Marine Corps Helicopter Squadron HMX-1 or "Marine One" lists Anacostia NAS (their original home base) as their physical address from time to time for security reasons. That means President Bush's wireless internet service aboard Marine One was registered to locations like Anacostia Naval Air Station, a place that both him and his helicopter could never be.
ReplyDeleteSo, if you see Anacostia Naval Air Station on your blog stats, it pretty much means the Prez is reading your blog. Later that same day, I would get hits from places like Crawford, Texas or Kennebunk, Maine. It was pretty easy for me to figure out who was reading my blog. Anacostia NAS, Bolling AFB & Andrews AFB (Home of Air Force One) are all located adjacent to or very close to each other. The military constantly changes the names and addresses of these facilities to protect the President. When you get a blog hit from "Anacostia Naval Air Station" and later that same day get another one from Hawaii or the south side of Chicago, you can rest assured the Big O himself or someone close to him is reading your stuff.
One of my law school classmates was an Air Force One pilot during the first Clinton Administration. Even the food aboard Air Force One is purchased from different grocery stores. The food must be sampled by different flight attendants and be certified safe to eat before the Prez can dig in. My classmate had some problems with both the US Air Force and the Alabama State Bar which could be a good topic for a future blog post.
Once I heard Arianna Huffington in an interview discuss which topics received the most hits on huffingtonpost.com. After hearing Arianna's interview I have made a point of giving tons of hits to subjects and authors that cover important issues. Especially under reported issues or when truth was uncovered. I want to reward good reporting with as many hits as I can manage. I do the same with blogs I respect. Some blogs get sponsors based on hits to their blog. I've done searches to learn how best to help but never really learned the formula. I've heard things like so many points for article being emailed, etc. but nothing definitive. I hit LS, Scott Horton, etc. when I'm online more times than necessary to simply read the piece. I vote with hits like viewers of American Idol call in to vote for their favorite.
ReplyDeleteShould have mentioned in the Arianna Huffington interview she discussed how many searches on certain topics people entered in the huffpost search box. For instance enter in the search field wherever you want attention drawn. For instance huffpost has a whole section devoted to divorce. In the search field one could enter Ted Rollins, divorce, perjury, Romney or Jeep, Rollins, campus crest, or Karl Rove, Don Siegelman or Karl Rove, Michael Connell. Huffpost takes notice of what people are searching. Use it to draw attention where you feel attention is needed.
ReplyDelete