Robert Draper on John McCain's disdain for blogging

Robert Draper is a journalist for GQ and has written a book about the Bush years. Draper has written numerous articles for magazines and is now offering some rare insight in the McCain campaign.

Interview with Robert Draper

Unlike some of the journalists for not only the daily papers but for networks, who have to constantly blog as well as file stories, I could be a little more leisurely, and beyond that, maintain a big-picture perspective. And frankly, the McCain campaign was much more responsive to that approach. They’ve come to be rather disdainful of the hyper-blogging that takes place on the press bus, and they think it has increased this mind-set of “gotcha” journalism, where every time John McCain would say something, instead of asking a follow-up question, people would go scurry off to their laptops and post to their blogs. And the McCain campaign believes that’s not what journalism ought to be. I’m not positing myself as some kind of superior journalist, it’s just that the format of long-form journalism allows me to be a little more leisurely, allows me to look at the longer view of things, and allows me two-and-a-half months on a single story.

Really surprised by the McCain campaign. Blogging is a incredibly powerful way of getting media out to the public. The Republican bloggers such as Michelle Malkin and the Drudge Report helped push out the Bush agenda the last election and made a difference. It is now the Democrat bloggers who have built up a powerful blogger media base that is far stronger than the Republicans. You don't underestimate the power of blogging. Bloggers have reported legitimate news before the main stream media got a hold of it. We have seen it all over the world.

It's almost sounding like the McCain campaign wants to suppress people's right to freedom of expression. Does the McCain campaign want to control the message? Looks like Communism to me.