Slate tech writer bags on McCaskill for boring tweets

In a short piece posted this afternoon, Slate technology columnist Farhad Manjoo uses Sen. Claire McCaskill as an example of Twitter’s lopsidedness:

There is no justice in the fact that a banal Twitterer like Sen. Claire McCaskill has attracted an audience of more than 19,000. (A typically riveting McCaskill tweet:

“Leaving for KC soon. Meeting about American car manufacturing. Then on

to Springfield. Press avail there.”) But that’s how Twitter goes; if

you join, be prepared to deal with a lot of people who are undeservedly

more popular than yourself.

Of course, Manjoo is being a little tongue-in-cheek with that last sentence. So it might be churlish to suggest that, in an article saying Twitter has very limited relevance, he sort of misses something our boring ol’ senator (or, anyway, her staff) has figured out: its potential to make the (really boring) legislative process a tweet more transparent. (Politico already noticed.) McCaskill’s play-by-play isn’t very exciting, but 19,000 people (presumably constituents) following an elected official is a neat shot of Jeffersonian democracy.