Did Rudy Just Bash Bloggers?

Roger Simon reports (my emphasis):

I reminded Giuliani that South Carolina was the site of a vicious Republican primary campaign in 2000, in which John McCain was the subject of venomous attacks by supporters of George W. Bush.

Has it crossed your mind that this may be an extremely rough primary in 2008? I asked him.

"It has, and it will be," Giuliani replied. But he also said he did not think the attacks would come directly from other Republican presidential candidates.

"I think more of this comes from the atmosphere in the blogging atmosphere, in the instant news atmosphere, and the minute analysis atmosphere," he said.

Update (4/7): Apparently, Tim Russert dislikes us, too:

"Bloggers," said Russert in a recent speech, "all force candidates to accept a position, to play [an adversarial] role." This . . . "puts pressure on those of us in the mainstream media [if we're not] sufficiently adversarial."

Russert seems to be mistaking "adversarial" for "opinionated" or "righteous." This is misleading, since being adversarial and being fair are not mutually exclusive but symbiotic. Journalists are supposed to be adversarial; they're supposed to play devil's advocate—or "fisk" in the blogger parlance—in order to transcend stenography.

And let's not forget the best criticism-as-compliment paid to bloggers, from Senator Trent Lott (R-MI):

I'll just say this about the so-called porkbusters. I'm getting damn tired of hearing from them. They have been nothing but trouble ever since Katrina.

To paraphrase Dan Quayle, we wear your scorn as a badge of honor, senator.