According to Politico, Tea Party favorite, Rep. Allen West (R-FL), painted a very ominous picture this week while discussing AOL's plan to purchase the Huffington Post for $315 million [emphasis added]

“You look out there, you see that AOL has purchased the Huffington Post. Now all of a sudden a very far left liberal blogger such as Arianna Huffington has a huge influence in the Internet world,” he said.
“We cannot allow ourselves to be suppressed. We cannot allow them to take over the Internet,” he said, as audience members nodded vigorously and started clapping.

This seems to be a (purposefully?) misguided reading of the situation, but one that will likely be echoed at CPAC, and elsewhere, in coming days: Liberals control the Internet!

The real point that conservatives ought to be dwelling on in the wake of the blockbuster deal for the left-leaning Huffington Post, is that they have only themselves to blame. Meaning, they have completely failed to build anything remotely as groundbreaking or as popular as the Huffington Post. (Does anyone think The Drudge Report, which looks/reads exactly like it did in 1998, is worth $315 million? I didn't think so.)

Instead of building something new and fresh and innovative and interactive, the right-wing blogosphere has instead spent the last several years building a insular community filled with outposts that pump out misinformation and partisan trivia at an impressive rate. But it's also an insular community filled with outposts that the AOL's of the world seem to have little interest in teaming up with.

Can you blame them?