WHAT, CHUCK NORRIS AND CHARLIE DANIELS WERE UNAVAILABLE?

I see that the right wing has found itself a new expert, one with strong opinions on the recent controversy involving The New Republic:

In the course of a discussion with Reason editor Nick Gillespie on "technology and freedom," [the expert] brings up the New Republic's Baghdad Diarist:

"Blogging and the internet has changed that entirely, it's broken up the monopoly on information. Just for one example, the Baghdad Diarist at the New Republic, which was a total fraud, was exposed by military bloggers, who came out and said this guy doesn't know what he's talking about, this is a lie, it's a smear on all soldiers. That wouldn't have happened 20 years ago."

The identity of this media savant? MTV's Kurt Loder.

Yeah, that would the guy on the right:



In the link above (from The Weekly Standard's blog), we're told that Loder "was once the editor of Rolling Stone and has been a news anchor at MTV for as long as I can remember. He is also a veteran of the Army." His work on hard-hitting examples of filmed journalism such as Madonna: No Bull! The Making of "Take a Bow" is left unmentioned.

This isn't the first time the right has tried to present Loder as an expert on something other than Gwen Stefani's hair-care techniques: This past summer, Loder was invited to discuss health care on the Fox News program Your World with Neil Cavuto, after he slammed Michael Moore's Sicko on MTV.com.

Good thing these guys hate celebrities, right?