Right-Wing Welfare Queens

Jane's post about the new paradigm of the right blogosphere, which has become more of an extension of "pay for play" Armstrong Williams-type media than anything else, was spot-on. While those on the left are paid little or nothing for their efforts, the right has set up a structure (and received plenty of seed money) where they can parrot talking points all the live-long day and get cash for it, from the same institutional outlets that have funded the Heritage Foundation and the Cato Institute and the rest of the Noise Machine since time immemorial. And they aren't generating any more hits for their money.

This was pretty instructive for me:

About two weeks ago, Pajamas Media AND TBogg linked to blog posts of mine in the same week. (Guess that makes me the fucking best moderate in the world!!!! Except I'm, um, not that moderate.) The Pajamas link caused a slight ripple in my traffic. TBogg got me record hits by a factor of 5.

Of course, the Pajamas guys get paid. Tbogg doesn't. Shouldn't pay for bloggers be merit-based? What's up with all these welfare queens on the right doing nothing and earning all this bread? Talk about a system that needs reforming!