Modern marvels:
Here's a wonderful example of how the joined efforts of bloggers in various forums can get word of obscure but important news items out:
Daily Kos tells the story. The Democratic Senate leadership runs a Website with a News Tracker blog. They followed up on a Washington Post story that said President Bush was getting daily security reports on the situation in Iraq from Kroll Associates, which showed the situation was worse than the Administration was willing to admit. Soon after, the White House told Congress the reports were canceled. But the Senate democrats report the reports are still online on Kroll's Website, including the latest which says there's no way the election can be held on schedule in January. According to Kos,

As far as I can see, the media know nothing of these reports. They don't know (or aren't reporting) that the President's own advisers think he's going to postpone the Iraq election as soon as he secures a second term. I'll do what I can to get the word out. Can you Kos'ers help?

Interesting. I hadn't looked at Daily Kos today yet, but saw the link on MyDD, another political blog I read for the first time today, after seeing it mentioned in debate reaction stories and the New York Times magazine story on political bloggers, Fear and Laptops on the Campaign Trail.
Who says bloggers aren't having an influence?