Today, the New York Times highlights the hundreds of bloggers who will be attending next week’s Democratic convention in Denver. Not only will they be receiving national credentials — which members of the media also have access to — many bloggers will get coveted state blogger credentials to “cover the convention alongside its state delegation, with unlimited floor access.” A look at the blogger presence at next week’s events:

This year, both parties understand the need to have greater numbers of bloggers attend. While many Americans may watch only prime-time television broadcasts of the convention speeches, party officials also recognize the ability of bloggers to deliver minute-by-minute coverage of each day’s events to a niche online audience.

One perk that bloggers will have access to in Denver is the Big Tent, an 8,000-square-foot two-story structure adjacent to where the convention is being held. For a $100 entrance fee, 400 credentialed bloggers will be allowed to enter the air-conditioned space, hosted by a coalition of progressive blogs and organizations and sponsored by the Web sites Google and Digg, where they can eat meals and find work spaces with Wi-Fi.

Several members of ThinkProgress will be blogging from both the Democratic and Republican conventions in the coming weeks, so keep an eye out for our coverage and let us know in the comments section if you’ll be there too.

St. Pancras International is not only “one of London’s best loved landmarks,” but one of the UK’s largest transportation hubs. But Prison Planet notes that the station has “implemented stringent filters that block users of their wi-fi service from accessing even mildly political websites.” Paul Joseph Watson reports that “milder left-leaning commentary websites like thinkprogress.org” and “every non-mainstream news website” are inaccessible.

Digg It!

Poblano at DailyKos notes that disgraced “reporter” Jeff Gannon is blogging at the National Press Club (NPC). Gannon gained notoriety as the former male escort who, for two years, gained a White House press pass using a pseudonym. There appear to be seven active blogs on the NPC’s site, including Gannon’s. Steve O’Hearn, chairman of the NPC’s new media committee — of which Gannon is also a member — told ThinkProgress that the “current policy” is that any NPC member can have a blog on the organization’s site, although it’s so far mostly members of the committee. Gannon’s most recent post goes after CodePink and its “ties to terrorists and repressive regimes around the world.”

On Monday, Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) introduced 35 articles of impeachment against President Bush. Today, a spokesman for House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) dismissed the call for impeachment as the efforts of “left-wing bloggers“:

This is just another example of the Democratic leadership in the House indulging trivial and silly conspiracy theories from left-wing bloggers, rather than working with Republicans to deal with the real issues facing the American people.

But impeachment is more popular than Boehner would like to admit. A July 2007 poll found that 46 percent of voters in favor beginning impeachment proceedings against President Bush. Furthermore, a 2005 poll said 42 percent of voters say that “if it is found that President Bush did not tell the truth about his reasons for going to war with Iraq, Congress should hold him accountable through impeachment.”

The White House and its allies have gone out and attacked former press secretary Scott McClellan as “disgruntled,” a “traitor,” and even “Judas.” But one of the insults increasingly popping up is probably, to the Bush administration, the most insulting: comparing McClellan to a left-wing blogger.

Today, for example, the Weekly Standard’s Stephen Hayes went on The Diane Rehm Show and tried to undermine McClellan’s allegations by saying that he was simply reciting “left-wing blogworld talking points” in order to get attention:

HOST: Steve, do you think this deserves all the attention it’s getting?

HAYES: I don’t know that it deserves all the attention it’s getting, and I think, as Eamon points out, Scott’s not necessarily saying much that’s new, he’s just saying a lot that’s new for him. And you know, to see Scott go from White House talking points to these new, almost left-wing blogworld talking points, is enough to make our colleagues in the Washington press corps pay close attention to it.

Listen here:

Some more examples of this right-wing meme:

Former White House aide Karl Rove: “First of all, this doesn’t sound like Scott. It really doesn’t. Not the Scott McClellan I’ve known for a long time. Second of all, it sounds like somebody else. It sounds like a left-wing blogger.”

Former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer: “We were wrong about whether Saddam had a WMD but that didn’t mean the president manipulated anything. And Scott uses the very same words that the far-left uses and I find that troubling because I find it inaccurate.”

Former counselor to the President Dan Bartlett: “But he uses these very infammatory and explosive words like, ‘shading the truth,’ ‘propaganda,’ all these touchstones of the liberal left, which really makes me pause to think, ‘are these Scott’s words or are they the words of a liberal publisher who’s the guy behind this book.” [The Mike Gallagher Show, 5/30/08]

The Politico’s Mike Allen also said that Scott has adopted the “vocabulary, rhetoric of the left-wing haters.”

The right wing needs to get over its conviction the “liberal left” is responsible for any criticisms of the Bush administration. According to the latest Quinnipiac poll, 67 percent of the American public disapproves of the job Bush is doing. Sixty-seven percent also disapproves of the way he is handling the Iraq war. It’s highly doubtful that all these people are left-wing bloggers.

Small Wars Journal reports that Lt. Gen. William Caldwell, IV, Commanding General of the Army Combined Arms Center (CAC), “one of the Army’s leading intellectual hubs,” has issued a memorandum directing students and faculty to learn more about blogging:

Command and General Staff College faculty and students will begin blogging as part of their curriculum and writing requirements both within the .mil and public environments. In addition CAC subordinate organizations will begin to engage in the blogosphere in an effort to communicate the myriad of activities that CAC is accomplishing and help assist telling the Army’s story to a wide and diverse audience.

As part of this effort, CAC has even started its own blog. But as Noah Shachtman notes, “It’s a position that appears to run counter to stated Pentagon policy. YouTube is officially banned on military networks. Personal blogs cannot be maintained during duty hours. Many influential blogs are blocked. Stringent regulations, read literally, require commanding officers to review each and every item one of his soldiers puts online.”