Beltway Wonks heading for HotSoup on the Web

It seems the Beltway types are just itching to get out on the Internets and show us rubes how it's done by attempting a new bi-partisan opinion site. Yeah, that's a nice oxymoron isn't it?

WASHINGTON - A bipartisan group of prominent political strategists on Tuesday announced an Internet information venture designed to interact with America's opinion leaders and serve as an antidote to the right-left clash that typifies political discourse on the Web.

The site, called Hotsoup.com, will debut in October and will be edited by Ron Fournier, former chief political writer for The Associated Press.

Some of the heavy hittings involved in this soon to be flambe' are:

Hotsoup is the brainchild of some of the best-known practitioners of partisan politics in Washington, including Matthew Dowd, chief strategist for the Bush-Cheney campaign in 2004, and Joe Lockhart, former White House press secretary under President Clinton and a senior adviser to Democratic Sen.
John Kerry's 2004 presidential campaign.

Despite their political backgrounds and distinct party affiliations, Hotsoup founders said the site will provide a nonpartisan forum not just for politics, but for topics ranging from science to popular culture, from business to current affairs.

"We all share the belief that partisanship is largely driven by a debate that lacks information and lacks context, and we think this community can provide both of those things," Lockhart said.

The effort is ambitious and risky, using the Internet to create an online social network similar to the popular teenage Web retreat MySpace.com. Hotsoup's target audience will be opinion leaders around the country who use the Internet to help make up their minds.

I've already made up my mind, this venture is likely to be either a) a vapid tame apologist site for the GOP with the same phony "Fairly UnBalanced" presentations of the news and facts, with Right-wing attack dogs and Fauxmacrat poodles we've become accustomed to on MSNBC, CNN and FOX or b) It'll be one big ongoing cesspoll of flame wars.

And I'm betting on option two.

Vyan