Here's a very interesting story about Malaysian bloggers and the influence they had on the most recent elections in Malaysia. Not only is the article interesting from the perspective of Malaysian politics, it's interesting from the perspective of what's missing in our own liberal blogosphere, something that was hoped for but never quite achieved:

He said what is interesting in Malaysia is that mainstream media are almost entirely controlled by the majority while the alternative and new media are being used widely by the opposition.

I think the reason the liberal bloggers haven't been as successful is that blogging has been an effective tool of the right, as well, for blunting the critique of the left. This has two causes: first, in certain respects the right wing blogosphere was first in America, if you consider the Drudge Report a blog (which I do), not to mention Instapundit and others like him. Second, it's been entirely co-opted by the right wing noise machine and its money.

And now? Now it's just a mess, in the sense that the mainstream media is so cowed by the right-wing noise machine that it's afraid to go with stories liberal bloggers uncover. Coupled with 'alternative outlets' of its own the left is largely frozen out of the mainstream media, so a stalemate remains.

Regardless, give the article a read. It's worthwhile.