Sorting The Palin Family Laundry -- Updated

I think when all is said in done, the thing I will take away from the bizarre Sarah Palin fiasco is the certainty that the Daily Kos is ridiculous. They win the prize for catapulting an utterly irresponsible piece of "journalism" into the public eye. While it shows the power of the blogosphere to shoehorn issues into the MSM, it also opens the left wing blogosphere to charges of really shoddy, tawdry, bottom-feeder reporting.

The absurdity of all this is not lost on Lee Stranahan, whose own coverage of the John Edwards mess, got him banned from the orange city.

The irony for me, of course, is that despite making over fifty short political videos with a clear progressive point of view, I was banned on DailyKos for saying that it seemed reasonable that John Edwards was seen at the Beverly Hilton late at night.

This is what marks Daily Kos as a thoroughly partisan organ, trafficking in the worst sort of hackery. When legitimate questions are raised about a prominent Democrat, shout down the offending voices for spouting tabloid sleaze. When dubious charges are leveled at a rather suddenly prominent Republican, it's full speed ahead and don't worry about trifles like proof before you publicly try and convict.

I will not be pulling up the Daily Kos story in question. I did so the other evening and it froze up my browser for a good twenty minutes. It wasn't worth it. I was stunned at the crappiness of it. I was stunned at the quite possibly libelous nature of it. I could not believe that a diarist could be so stupid as to state such assertions as fact. And, I could not believe that a blog as censorious as DKos allowed that to stand, when so many perfectly fair diaries have been deleted and so many reasonable people been banned.

I will, however, tip my hat to doberman pinche, who offered up the outrage of Townhall.

"Sarah Palin is NOT the Mother" is the title of this DailyKos blog that accuses Bristol, a completely fit-looking adolescent teen, of having a "baby bump" in a photo they allege was taken March 9th of this year.

"Sarah, I'm calling you a liar" wrote blogger ArcXIX. "And not even a good one. Trig Paxson Van Palin is not your son. He is your grandson. The sooner you come forward with this revelation to the public, the better. " Photos of Bristol with detailed commentary about her abdomen are contained in the post.

Not only is the DailyKos disgustingly inspecting Bristol's midriff with all the fervor of LA paparazzi examining J-Lo's or Jennifer Aniston's washboard stomachs for evidence of a "bump," the DailyKos is wrong on when the photo was taken. It was taken, and published, by the Anchorage Daily News in 2006. Baby Trig, a child with Down's Syndrome, was born on April 18, 2008. That's a long time for a teen girl to be carrying a "bump" which looks nothing more than the curve of a tight sweater.

The Daily Kos induced furor has now forced the campaign to announce that 17 year old Bristol is 5 months pregnant and planning to do what all good, Christian, teen mothers do; get married. I wish her well and I'm truly saddened that her private life has been dragged into the spotlight. But it is certainly arguable that Sarah Palin's own richly layered idiocy is largely to blame.

I'm ambivalent about a lot of this. There is certainly plenty of fodder with which to attack Sarah Palin's candidacy, without dragging out anyone's gynecological history. From the bizarre video in which she wonders aloud what a VP does all day, to the fact that her own mother-in-law seems unsure she's qualified, to the statements about Iraq being both a war for oil and God's work, to the fact that she was almost a recalled over corruption charges as mayor, to possible secessionist leanings... Okay. The list gets pretty long. But, I remain unconvinced that the questions surrounding the birth of little Trig aren't relevant and worthy of, all be it, more responsible scrutiny.



Sarah Palin: Not Flat Busted
Photo: Provided by the Palin Family
I Can't Take This Woman Seriously

I found myself somewhat at odds with Maryscott on this issue. I agree strongly about the sanctity of a woman's right to privacy regarding reproductive choice, but I have a hard time defending that right for a woman who would take that very privacy away from women everywhere.

I disagree (8.00 / 1)

and this is why. Because this is a woman, running for the Vice Presidency, who fully intends to have her nose in every other woman's uterus, not only in this country, but in any nation to which we apportion aid. This is a woman who wants to make abstinence only education the law of the land, but who can't get her own, unwed teen daughter to close her legs. And, I can say that now, because I just heard on the car radio that Bristol is pregnant right now, at 17, and they are busily arranging a shotgun wedding.

"What fresh hell is this?" -- Dorothy Parker

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by: Curmudgette @ Mon Sep 01, 2008 at 15:13:32 PM EDT

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So. Because SHE'S a hypocrite, WE have the right to be hypocrites? (0.00 / 0)

Interesting logic.

--7.88, --6.56 If I can't rant, I don't want to be part of your revolution.

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by: Maryscott O'Connor @ Mon Sep 01, 2008 at 15:47:24 PM EDT

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Because she's a hypocrite (6.00 / 1)

she has a right to be exposed as a hypocrite. Period. It reminds me of when both Bush the senior and Quayle were asked if someone in their family had an unplanned pregnancy, if they would want them to have access to abortion. They both said, it would be a private family matter, and they wouldn't discuss it. Fuck that. When you're talking about intruding on the privacy and integrity of every other woman's body in America, fuck you. You don't get a right to privacy.
Right to life extremists are pushing for legislation all over that country that would force women who miscarry -- miscarry -- to prove it. So fuck 'em. You want to crawl up my twat with a flashlight? You don't get dispensation to do things that women could be prosecuted for under some of the legislation you and your wingnut pals want to push through. If she traveled after her water broke, she endangered the life of her unborn child. That will be prosecutable offense if some of these whackjobs get their way.

"What fresh hell is this?" -- Dorothy Parker

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by: Curmudgette @ Mon Sep 01, 2008 at 15:59:09 PM EDT

Admittedly, I can get a little worked up over this issue... And, I may have lost my objectivity. Mainly because I'm sick to fucking death of these whack jobs who are bound and determined to legislate a standard of morality that even they cannot meet.

But, there is a line. Daily Kos crossed it.

Update: It would seem that the powers that be at Daily Kos have been sufficiently shamed into deleting the diary (or diaries) in question. The user known as ArcXIX now shows no diaries in his listing. As of this writing, he also has no comments listed after 8/29, for whatever it's worth.

From the Irony Files

I have been unable to muster much interest in the battle between Bill O'Reilly and the Daily Kos. O'Reilly's penchant for distortion and slander has become so old hat, that most of the time I can muster neither outrage nor the belly laugh most of it deserves. This, however, is a riot. One of my dear friends from My Left Wing, dhonig, is the latest to be defamed by Bill-O and the underlying premise turns reality squarely on its head. The falafel lover (and, yes, that's a double-entendre) has accused dhonig of, hold on to your hat, anti-Semitism.

Let me back up and explain why that is hilarious, aside from the fact that dhonig is Jewish. I don't think I've ever encountered anyone more sensitive to the subteties of anti-Semitism than dhonig. I personally have accused him of seeing it where it just does not exist. In fact, I've told him that he begins to sound like this to me:



I can't think of a worse kossack to quote in trying to prove your case, as O'Reilly is, that anti-Semitism is rampant on Daily Kos. Here is dhonig explaining how Bill-O took a segment out of his diary and twisted it completely out of context:

Ever since the 2006 Lebanon war, anti-Semitism became a significant topic, particularly in the I/P debates. People on one side of the debate cried "anti-Semitism," and people on the other side (in my personal opinion far more) inserted prophylactic demands "don't call me an anti-Semite but ...." It got so heated that I decided to write a diary, ultimately several of them, to distinguish between criticism of Israel, even criticism with which I vehemently disagreed, and actual anti-Semitism. This particular diary was a response to claims that people were too quick to make the anti-Semitism accusation, and that there really wasn't any on Daily Kos. Rather, the theory went, there was just legitimate criticism of Israel, and Israel's supporters were trying to shut it down with false accusations.
Okay, let's go straight to the money quote, shall we?

If Jews love the US so much- how come their #'s in the US military are dismal? Instead of selling ones soul to be diamond brokers, investment bankers

Did I write that? Nope. Actually, that was one of the hateful quotes I was criticizing. It is, of course, also worth noting that it was troll-rating into oblivion, 0 to 15.

The punchline is that dhonig is an attorney and seriously considering a law suit. I think he should sue. As noted by dhoning here, you can make your own opinion on that known here.

Not surprisingly Keith Olbermann has picked up on the controversy. Enjoy:

Cult Purge Announced at Daily Kos

I have, on more than one occasion, compared Markos Moulitsas of Daily Kos with that other power-mad autocrat George W. Bush. Some may quibble with that analysis, but I think it gets a little harder when Markos apes the President so nakedly. Without a trace of irony, Markos has pronounced -- and I'm not making this up -- that members of Daily Kos are "With us or against us."

There has lately been an alarming rise in diaries and comments that seek to impugn (without evidence) the motives of those they disagree with on various issues.

Yes, there's the impeachment stuff, but this nasty rhetoric is also rampant in the primary war diaries.

This points to a serious breakdown not just on civility, but in the ability of people to properly debate various issues. As such, it presents a serious threat to the integrity of this site.

I much prefer it when the community moderates itself, and for the most part it does a good job of this. The libertarian in me prefers it that way. But sometimes, self-moderation isn't enough. I'll act swiftly and mercilessly when I'm pushed into defending the effectiveness of this site. And at this moment, my patience is wearing thin.

It goes on like that for a few more paragraphs; veiled threats of banishment for vaguely defined transgressions. I think it's safe to assume many kossacks will be branded unmutual in the coming days and weeks. And with over 1200 comments from the hallelujah chorus, I think it's safe to say Markos will be able to count on that cyber torch and pitch fork wielding mob to do a lot of the dirty work.

Huzzah for the Blog Keeper!(53+ / 0-)

Recommended by:

Kestrel, pb, StevenJoseph, DFWmom, RubDMC, elveta, sarahnity, als10, L0kI, celticshel, dejavu, aggressiveprogressive, lcrp, JohnGor0, randallt, eztempo, murrayewv, Thirsty, vcmvo2, historys mysteries, 3goldens, el dorado gal, Elise, deepfish, LithiumCola, pmob5977, ohcanada, MadGeorgiaDem, buddabelly, BachFan, Lashe, SaraPMcC, JVolvo, Dauphin, ER Doc, edgery, MBNYC, droogie6655321, va dare, RantNRaven, FrankieB, GoldnI, godislove, Jimdotz, Nordic Kossor, lizpolaris, Pink Lady, dragoneyes, smartdemmg, TokenLiberal, NogodsnomastersMary, mommaK, Tropical Depression

(It's fun talking like this.)

by Bush Bites on Mon Jul 23, 2007 at 10:39:26 AM PDT

You can't make this shit up, folks!

It's a predictable pattern in organized groups as they devolve into insular cults. Leaders always think, if I can just get rid of this undesirable personality, the dynamics will right themselves. Then another. Then another. For a while it all seems harmonious again, until the next personality conflict arises, or the next uncomfortable discussion occurs, or someone has the temerity to question the leadership. So you get rid of more troublemakers and things seem to smooth over for a little while, until another fight breaks out; until the atmosphere is more toxic than it ever was... Before you know it, you're chasing ants with flame throwers in a vain and endless attempt to purge the group of those nasty, negative influences that seem to creep in from every nook and cranny. Or you could just buy a mirror.

Buy at AllPosters.com

Same as the Old Bosses

Just finishing the thought from the freshly minted Mother Jones article, "Meet the New Bosses." Subtitle: "After crashing the gate of the political establishment, bloggers are looking more like the next gatekeepers." Bingo!

Last June, Markos Moulitsas Zúniga, former soldier, one-time Reagan Republican, and proprietor of the wildly successful liberal blog Daily Kos, sent an email to an invitation-only listserv known as Townhouse. Consisting of some 300 liberal bloggers, journalists, activists, and consultants, the list was an outgrowth of weekly strategy sessions held at a D.C. bar—a forum for brainstorming on issues and tactics, and a means of creating a "unified message," as Moulitsas later put it. Its members were bound by one main rule: Nothing from the list was to be quoted or distributed, which, this being politics, meant that a leak was bound to happen.

In the message that would end up putting Townhouse, briefly, on the outside world's radar, Moulitsas asked list members to "ignore" a blog item by the New York Times' Chris Suellentrop that revealed that Jerome Armstrong—founder of the popular liberal blog MyDD and a close friend and business associate of Moulitsas—had once been implicated in a stock-touting scheme. Suellentrop noted parallels between stock-hyping and bloggers' touting of candidates such as Howard Dean, who had hired both Armstrong and Moulitsas as consultants during his 2004 presidential campaign. Moulitsas, who had recently coauthored the book Crashing the Gate with Armstrong, told Townhouse members that these revelations were "a nonstory." "So far," he wrote, "this story isn't making the jump to the traditional media, and we shouldn't do anything to help make that happen." He urged participants to "starve it of oxygen."

When The New Republic's Jason Zengerle blogged about the Townhouse email, "The Kos" urged readers to cancel their subscriptions, writing, "It is now beyond clear that the dying New Republic is mortally wounded and cornered, desperate for relevance. It has lost half its circulation since the blogs arrived on the scene and they no longer (thank heavens!) have a monopoly on progressive punditry. We have hit their bottom line, we are hitting their patron saint hard (Joe Lieberman) and this is how they respond. By going after the entire movement." Many of Moulitsas' followers—Kossacks, they call themselves—then filled Zengerle's inbox with all manner of invective.

The irony is this: Moulitsas' reaction echoes the very control-the-message philosophy the blogosphere once rose up to fight... [emphasis mine]

Lots more good stuff in the Mother Jones piece, including some sparkling insight from my girl Maryscott O'Connor of My Left Wing. (Full disclosure: I am a front-page writer and editor for that site. I wouldn't want to be accused of undisclosed bias. That would surely be ironic, no?)

O'Connor speaks like she writes, in stream-of-consciousness bursts, and she told me she had begun to feel there was a "schism" in the blogosphere. "I think that certain bloggers, the big ones, think politics is sexy," she said. "They want in, and they're getting in. They'll do anything to get in, almost. They want a seat at the table. They want to be in the inner circle of the Democratic Party." A member of Townhouse, she was at first reluctant to talk about the list but changed her mind midway through our conversation, predicting that her comments would get her banished. "It's fucking Skull and Bones, man," she said. "The very secretive, behind-closed-doors nature of it is anathema to everything that blogging is supposed to be about: accountability. We are supposed to be showing the way, not skulking around behind closed doors, coming up with strategies. Those are the people who we're trying to fight. I know about 'the real world' and all that shit. But we're the idealists, aren't we?"

The article concludes with a list of quotes about the blogosphere. This one cracked me up:

micah sifry
It's true that Josh Marshall and Markos Moulitsas are very influential, but they are constantly held accountable by their audience. If Markos makes a mistake, right there in the blog comments people are bashing him. He can't stray that far from accountability, the way that editors of the old gatekeeping institutions—whether it was the New York Times or The Nation—were inherently insulated. It's no coincidence that you see a flowering of new voices and people earning their status on merit rather than going to the right college.

It would appear that Mr. Sifry is oblivious to just how many kossacks have been banished to cyberia.

I would probably have much more to say on this insightful bit of journalism, if I hadn't been saying it, and saying it, and saying it, until I'm tired of fucking saying it.

Markos Issues Non-Apology Apology

But first let me quote Booman's post from yesterday, addressing the urgent need for Markos to make an apology.

And here is my conclusion. Markos has pissed off so many people, and pissed them off so much, that there is no more benefit of the doubt left for him. I seriously doubt that these reactions would be anywhere near as strong if the dismissive statements had been made by any other blogger on the left.

My inclination was to assume he had no idea that Kathy Sierra experienced significantly more trauma than mere run of the mill death threats. I assumed that he was tired, uninformed, and annoyed with yet another call for blogger ethics. I assumed that he did the equivalent of blogging while drunk. I did not assume that he was picking on her because she was a woman. I did not assume that he was dismissing what really happened to her because it did not appear that he knew what really happened to her. But there are two things that are more important than the possibility that he was tired and his post was unintentionally assholeish.

First, he hasn't apologized or clarified his position. I know he is busy with his children and his wife, but he is getting a lot of criticism and he surely knows that people (including some of his front-pagers) are very upset about what he wrote. His continued silence will eventually force me to abandon any benefit of the doubt I was willing to grant him.

Somehow, I don't think anything less than a full-throated, I acknowledge the grievousness of my omission and ignorance, type of apology will really quell the outrage Booman is referring to. I don't think this will cut it.

I don't disagree with anything Lindsey wrote. I disagreed with using a bloggers threats as an excuse to foist upon us all a "Blogger Code of Conduct".

That's what I was saying. 1) There are assholes that will 2) email stupid shit to any public figure (which includes bloggers, but 3) that won't be stopped by any blogger code of conduct.

You see, stupid asshole psycho threatening emailers don't care about codes of conduct. That's all.

Leave us say it's not going to cut for me. I can't help but notice, and not for the first time, that Markos and Bush have way too much in common. Mostly it's the autocratic, dictatorial thing. But, in this case, I refer to his total inability to admit mistakes; glaring, odious, epically poorly judged, mistakes.

Terrance has an interesting take on this that I respect, even though I completely disagree.

First, the “code of conduct” he refers to isn’t being “foisted” on anyone. It’s entirely voluntary. At last count, there are 76.4 million blogs out there. There’s little chance of anything being successfully “foisted” on anyone, let alone being enforced. (By what authority?) Kos, and any other blogger can simply ignore it. (And Kos might have done well to do so in the first place.)

Second, nobody’s said that “stupid assholes” are going to stop making threats because of a code of conduct.

Assholes tend not to follow any code of conduct, and deeply resent any suggestion or expectation that they should. They tend to reject any notion responsibility to or for anyone but themselves.

The recommended code of conduct here doesn’t apply to the assholes making the threats. It applies to those of us who (a) operate blogs and (b) chose to follow the suggested guidelines. . . .

In all fairness, I can understand why this might be cause for concern for a blogger of Kos’ status. After all, how many comments does his site get on any given day, counting front page posts and member diaries? Far too many for Kos to keep up with, and probably too many even for his “trusted users” or others with administrative capabilities to keep up with. The idea of taking responsibility for comments on a blog that size, given the possibility that some like the ones Kathy received might escape notice and actually result in someone getting hurt or killed would be enough to keep anyone up at night.

So why do I disagree with this? For starters, as I said, I actually agree with Markos that the Code of Conduct is wrong-headed. It's a very slippery slope to start drafting apologia for censorship of content we don't like. Obviously death threats -- which are illegal -- should be deleted, as should people's addresses and phone numbers, obvious libel, etc. My problem with this idea is that it justifies the censoring of ideas and personalities. As I've said many times, no one has a first amendment right to publish anything on another person's blog, but I have always aimed to adhere to the spirit, if not the letter of the law. I believe in a marketplace of ideas and that includes protecting the right of others to say bonehead shit. That said, I think the blog administrator that allowed pics of Kathy Sierra with a noose around her neck to remain is an idiot. Death threats! Illegal! Not protected! Do we not know this?

But the major reason I disagree with Terrance, in this instance, is that Markos's problem has never been a laxity in enforcing speech restrictions on his site.

As caliberal said the other day:

I left dailykos because of the misogynistic and sexist statements made to women, I also left because the man in charge never said one word about it, he banned those with conspiracy theories but didn't deem it a bannable offense to say hateful, vitriolic things to women.

No, thought policing has never been in short supply on Daily Kos. It's just that misogynistic vitriol is not one of the numerous thought crimes for which a kossack may be banished to cyberia.

If Markos's contempt for all things feminist wasn't apparent when he referred to a solid chunk of his membership as the "sanctimonious women's studies set," his utter inability to comprehend and articulate why a woman getting graphic rape/mutilation/murder threats is hideously serious, should really clear up any remaining misconceptions.

But there are those who are still willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. Not surprisingly one is his former enforcer, the Cuban Heel. And skippy explains it all to you:

we think big tent armando needs to attend a few 12 step meetings learn the meaning of the word enabler. because then he might not be so quick to defend markos as "merely clueless" rather than outright "misogynistic.". . .

however, in this case, he is making the same mistake that most humans with penises between their legs make in their approach to active misogyny, and that is that, as eldridge cleaver said about rascism, if you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem.

sorry, bta, but being clueless about misogyny, especially in the 21st century america, is not a valid, or even believable, excuse. to say, "hey, the guy wasn't the one who punched the broad in the face, he was just watching," is not a defense that will hold up under scrutiny.

armando would have us believe that markos does not hate women. replace the concept of women with the concept of black people in that world view, and you get the old canard, "some of my best friends are negros."

just as there is such a thing as lying by omission, there is such a thing as bigoty by inaction. and in something as horrific as a woman getting photoshop-quality graphic death and rape threats anonymously, such firmly-stated inaction can be legitimately viewed by some (read: human beings with vaginas) as beyond the pale.

you don't have to lynch negros to be a racist, you just have to sit by as institutionalized racism destroys entire communities.

and you don't have to rape to be a misogynist, you can just as easily poo-poo someone's legitimate fears of rape.

Markos Said WHAT?!!

I've been taking it very easy the last couple of days trying to kick this cold once and for all. Imagine my horror upon awakening from my four hour nap this afternoon, to read on My Left Wing that Markos has weighed in from the orange pulpit on the Kathy Sierra firestorm, and pronounced it much ado about nothing.

I'm in and out of commission, so I hadn't heard of this so-called "death threat" thing. So I looked it up.

Prominent blogger Kathy Sierra has called on the blogosphere to combat the culture of abuse online.

It follows a series of death threats which have forced her to cancel a public appearance and suspend her blog.

Ms Sierra described on her blog how she had been subject to a campaign of threats, including a post that featured a picture of her next to a noose.

Look, if you blog, and blog about controversial shit, you'll get idiotic emails. Most of the time, said "death threats" don't even exist -- evidenced by the fact that the crying bloggers and journalists always fail to produce said "death threats".

I don't know what's worse. Markos's ignorance about women's issues, his laziness, or his pseudo-British punctuation. He goes on to compare the campaign of hate waged against Sierra with an ambi-directional rant against liberals he received... and strangely what sounds like some threats he kinda shoulda reported because they were leveled at his children.

So according to Markos, the answer for women like Sierra who receive death and rape threats is, hey, toughen up. Don't be so thin-skinned.

Believe it or not, I agree with Markos's broader point. I think the Code of Conduct for bloggers is a poor if well-intended idea. I honestly think it trivializes what happened to Sierra to cast it as a case of bad manners. No one thinks writing death threats along the lines of "fuck off you boring slut... i hope someone slits your throat and cums down your gob," publishing her home address, and photoshopping pictures of her with a noose around her neck, are protected speech. They're actually a form of assault and that's why the authorities are involved.

The conversation that needs to happen on the web is not about how we can be more civil and restrained in our verbiage. I've met some very subtle, articulate misogynists in my life. As in most cases where free speech is involved, I think the answer is more dialog, rather than restricting the parameters of debate. The discussion we need to have is about why it is that there is no corner of the world where women can go and not be reduced to our body parts, our sexual exploitability, and our physical vulnerability.

It's too bad Markos drove off so much of the "sanctimonious women's studies set" from his site. Because it looks like it's going to be up to those of us who have read Steinem, Atwood, Bunch, et al., to explain why the terror campaign endured by Kathy Sierra strikes such a delicate nerve. It comes down to fear. Not irrational fear. Fear of the kind Gavin DeBecker endorses women to heed in his book "The Gift of Fear." It's the ever present fear of predators. It is exactly that fear that Sierra's verbal attackers were counting on. Whether or not there is any chance of this escalating to a physical confrontation -- and that is a legitimate concern -- they know full well that a good way to silence a woman is to make her afraid to leave her house. And that is exactly what happened. Not because she's too thin-skinned, but because she came face to face with every woman's worst nightmare.

A woman's worst nightmare? That's pretty easy. Novelist Margaret Atwood writes that when she asked a male friend why men feel threatened by women, he answered, "They are afraid women will laugh at them." When she asked a group of women why they feel threatened by men, they said, "We're afraid of being killed."

I you think, gentle reader, that this famous anecdote is not indicative a greater social phenomenon, read the article I quoted. That would be a good start. Then read Chris Clarke's fantastic response to Kos. Says Clarke:

If no woman in your life has ever talked to you about how she lives her life with an undercurrent of fear of men, consider the possibility that it may be because she sees you as one of those men she cannot really trust.

In closing, I think The Fat Lady Sings put it best on My Left Wing:

Every man walking down the street towards you is a possible attacker - and you size him up as such. What is he capable of? How can I escape? Can I use my purse as a weapon? It's automatic - something you just do if you're female. Why do you think every woman goes out to her car carrying her keys wrapped through her fingers as a weapon? To put some mans eye out should he attack. And before some of you pooh-pooh this as unnecessary or extreme - try asking the women in your life what they think. You will find they walk through life in permanent paramilitary mode. We always have to be prepared; and those of us who are survivors of rape look upon men with a more jaundiced eye than most. So Markos should shut the fuck up about Kathy Sierra. He has no idea what she's going through - none at all.

Staring at Train Wrecks

What is it about crazy people that makes them so compelling? But we're all mesmerized. Its hard to turn away. I don't want to rubberneck the mad pile-ups on my television and computer... and yet I do. Anna Nicole Smith. I'm not proud of it, but I had to watch at least a little of the faithful, interminable, press vigil. I cover my eyes and try not look. I peek. She was just such a fascinating, tragic, beautiful, mess. Like Marilyn taken to the nth degree, in every area of her short, sad life.

But now, in keeping with the news cycle, my eyes are drawn by the glint of other shiny psychos: Ann Coulter and the artist formerly known as Armando.

I don't think I'm revealing any state secrets when I say that Armando rose phoenix-like from the ashes of his infamous outing as Big Tent Democrat. (Affectionately known as BTD) It looks like we won't have him to kick around anymore and I find that I'm a little sad. Like Coulter, he's just so fun to hate.

As reported earlier the artist penned a GBCW diary. It seems he bridled when it was suggested by the Great and Powerful Kos, that he should make a greater attempt at civility. Perhaps Kos finally realized that banning people right and left for spitting on the sidewalk, while simultaneously letting the artist spew venom at anyone and everyone, was, how say, incongruous. He as much as admitted that he's been hypocritical as hell. From the thread of a thousand and one nights:

If you want to talk "double standards",

fact is you would've been banned a long time ago if you weren't you.

It's a perfect example of sliding-scale standards -- you are such a stellar writer, thinker, and friend that you survived despite behavior that would've zapped a lesser mortal long ago.

I really wish I could have my cake and eat it too in this case -- keep your writing brilliance without the message board meltdowns.

by kos on Mon Mar 05, 2007 at 11:45:32 PM PST

But then, we've long known that there were special rules for special boyz.

As per Booman it's now official. The artist has been shown the door permanently.

Since this is a meta thread, I guess I'll add that Armando has been banned by Markos from Daily Kos. Armando claims it was done at the behest of DHinMI and Plutonium Page. That's just his opinion. Apparently they suddenly noticed that Armando wasn't civil. That's a fine way to reward his loyalty. I used to get angry emails from Armando anytime anyone so much as thought of criticizing Markos and/or Daily Kos. Armando's flamewars jacked up the pageviews at Daily Kos into the stratosphere. I guess he's no longer convenient.

Armando acted unforgivably in the orange threads for several years. He made many enemies. But that is still no reason to try to do him harm or get him fired. And it's a little late to ban him for it.

Interesting perspective. So flame is good if it's "loyal" flame; like if you're serving as a noble knight for his royal majesty, King Kos. Once again. Special rules for special boyz. Whatever.

So the artist formerly known as Armando will no longer have a comfortable, orange platform for his screeds. And it looks like Ann Coulter has also jumped the shark. It seems high profile conservatives have, to borrow Booman's phrase, "suddenly noticed" that she's vile and offensive.

In the melee triggered by her unfortunate use of the word "faggot" to characterize John Edwards, she has now been dropped by four newspapers. (That's as of this writing. I fully expect that number to climb.)

The Times of Shreveport, Louisiana has become the fourth newspapers [sic] to drop Ann Coulter's column as a direct result of her 'faggot' remark aimed at presidential candidate John Edwards.

"Today we move past the rhetoric and unproductive dialogue offered by Ann Coulter. The Times is dropping her column effective immediately." Times Executive Editor Alan English wrote.

"It is her recent 'joke' about John Edwards being considered a 'faggot' that is the back-breaking straw for a decision we've openly discussed for some time," English added.

The Times joins The Oakland Press of Michigan, The Mountain Press of Sevierville, Tennessee and the Lancaster New Era (Pennsylvania) in dropping Coulter. Others may follow suit.

Coulter has become embarrassing enough to conservatives, that we're beginning to see things like this from within their ranks:

Coulter’s vicious word choice tells the world she care [sic] little about the feelings of a large group that often feels marginalized and despised. Her word choice forces conservatives to waste time defending themselves against charges of homophobia rather than advancing conservative ideas.

Within a day of Coulter’s remark John Edwards sent out a fundraising email that used Coulter’s words to raise money for his faltering campaign. She is helping those she claims to oppose. How does that advance any of the causes we hold dear?

Denouncing Coulter is not enough. After her “raghead” remark in 2006 she took some heat. Yet she did not grow and learn. We should have been more forceful. This year she used a gay slur. What is next? If Senator Barack Obama is the de facto Democratic Presidential nominee next year will Coulter feel free to use a racial slur? How does that help conservatism?

It's taken them long enough, but it looks like conservatives have finally noticed that Coulter serves liberals/progressives very well by providing fodder. Her screeds are more of a rallying cry to the left than the right. She even makes for fun party games.



What we're witnessing with Coulter is a tipping point. It's all downhill from here. My husband has long had this theory that when Ann Coulter's career started trending inexorably south, she would pose for Playboy. She can't live without the attention, so the theory goes. We'll know soon whether or not my husband's prediction is accurate. But what will Armando pose for? Shudder.

Impeachment Porn

Now there's a term. This is apparently the phrase of choice for the keepers of social norms at Daily Kos. Yes "impeachment" -- another verboten topic in the orange place. Here are some choice excerpts picked up by the folks at Mo Betta META.

Exhibit A:

Exactly what I did (0 / 0)

when I walked away from MLW and BT. And why I fervently hope the purveyors of impeachment porn at this site will get tired of it and go somewhere else, or else force Markos to boot them and ban that kind of mindless shouting at the rain.

When the signal-to-noise ratio drops to 1 or less, it’s time to move along. That hasn’t happened here yet, but it’s well past that at MLW and BMT–or was when I left both places.

So explain to me why I would particularly want to have them on “my” side? Especially since it just makes it easier for the MSM to mischaracterize blogs and bloggers as a temporary annoyance instead of a true threat to their traditional dominance of the field of news and opinion.

Michael
Musing’s musings

by musing85 on Mon Mar 05, 2007 at 11:15:49 AM MST

Exhibit B:

People that stand in the way of electing (1+ / 0-)
Recommended by:musing85

Democrats because of their addictions to drama and constant conflict have found their homes at MLW, Booman Trib, and other sites filled with malcontents that would like to collectively destroy dkos effectiveness and mission. The malcontents need to be shown the door so that they can not contaminate dkos.

Politics is the business of dkos, personality and discontent is the business of the sites Musing mentioned.

PaintyKat

WWYTR? “Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into a friend” MLK

by PaintyKat on Mon Mar 05, 2007 at 04:22:43 PM PST

Yes, if you're for enforcing the rule of law and impeaching the most criminal administration in American history, you're branded unmutual at Daily Kos. Well I don't want to live in a world where Booman is the gold standard for radical lefty.

Why the Democratic Party and its rabid enforcers in the blogosphere are so opposed to impeachment continues to baffle me. They are "outside the mainstream." Americans hate this President and want him gone yesterday. We're talking about a President who is polling at 29%, who was dissed by diners at a midwestern eatery, and who is considered worse than Satan and Osama bin Laden!!! The time for caution is long past. Impeachment! If Democrats would just demonstrate the political will to build it, trust me, they will come.

In other interesting news at Mo Betta META, it looks like the artist formerly known as Armando is finally being reined in. He has, once again, taken his ball and gone home. His GBCW diary contains this startling bit of honesty:

I am a narcissist to the end.

Yeah. No kidding.

A Still Tongue Makes a Happy Life

Don't you see that the whole aim of Newspeak
is to narrow the range of thought?
In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible,
because there will be no words in which to express it. Every concept
that can ever be needed, will be expressed by exactly one word,
with its meaning rigidly defined and all its subsidiary meanings
rubbed out and forgotten.

-- George Orwell's "1984"

What if we could make hate disappear by eliminating offensive words and limiting discourse? Would that be possible? Would it be ethical?

Such questions arise when looking at a national trend in legislation to ban a racial slur.

PATERSON, New Jersey (1010 WINS) -- Paterson has joined a nationwide effort to get people to stop using the n-word by passing a resolution to abolish the racial slur.

The resolution is symbolic, though, carrying no penalties. Council Anthony Davis, the sponsor of the bill, says the word is negative and young people need to stop using it. Councilman-at-large Jeffrey Jones voted for the resolution, but says that it has no legs because there is no one to police it.

Paterson is following in the footsteps of Irvington, which passed a similar resolution earlier this month. Other places are also considering a ban. But some people don't think it will change anything.

Paterson resident Lamont Adams says using the word is part of how he associates with his friends.

And it arises again in the blogosphere, where a battle is raging over free speech. As I wrote some time ago:

Web sites are private property not "free speech zones." Site owners do not have to respect First Amendment protections. That much is a fact. But you'd think that some of these site owners would display enough self-awareness not be total hypocrites; criticizing Bush for silencing dissent one minute, silencing their own dissenters the next. Unfortunately each site develops its own culture and its own taboos, which are enforced not only by the management but by self-appointed enforcers of societal norms. The result is that most of these sites ultimately become stifling environments and self-reinforcing echo-chambers of group-think.

Exhibit A: The Daily Kos. A few days ago, Hunter put out the latest encyclical on conduct and penalties for kossacks. It's a humdinger. Here are some of my favorite bits.

Autobanning

Through the ratings system, the community has been given the tools to, in most cases, police itself. Users who consistently bring good arguments, well thought out discussions, or simply happy doses of humor will be rewarded with "recommendations" from other site users: those that engage in offensive, disruptive, or forbidden behavior will find themselves "troll rated".

If a user constantly engages in disruptive behavior over a certain period of time, such that the community repeatedly trollrates the comments of that user, it may trigger an automatic banning of the user known as autobanning. This is the tool given to the community to police itself, and should be taken very seriously.

Autobanning is an entirely automated process -- there is no human intervention. The exact number of trollratings needed in a certain period of time to trigger autoban has not been publicly stated, but the algorithm, generally speaking, is calibrated to be very, very lenient -- you have to be very much an ass, for a prolonged period of time, before it will kick in. A mere bad mood in a comment thread or two won't do it, except in extraordinary cases. A prolonged history of trollrated comments will.

For that reason, you don't really have to worry that trollrating a single offensive post by an otherwise productive community member will get them banned: that doesn't happen. Five or ten such comments from that user, though, and they begin to be on thin ice indeed. If you are having a bad night, as a commenter, and find yourself being repeatedly troll-rated, stop what you are doing. This is considered a social IQ test: if you fail, and get autobanned, don't expect much sympathy.

One of the things the founding fathers understood was that mob rule poses as much of a threat to the free flow of ideas as oppressive government. The autobanning policy is like handing kossacks cyber torches and pitchforks. Many have been slammed with troll ratings and even banned, not for aggressive or "trollish" behavior, but for stating divergent views. As Booman observes in Hunter's thread:

Hunter

the problem I see can be clearly seen in this thread.

There is a kind of mob mentality that has taken over. Someone writes something controversial, like saying soldiers should refuse to serve in Iraq, and they don't get respect, they don't get rebuttals...

They just get blasted with meanness, and snark, and troll-ratings, and recipes.

It's out of control, IMO.

More banning offenses from Hunter:

Misrepresenting your identity. It is perfectly acceptable to remain pseudonymous on the site, meaning that you wish to provide no personally identifying information about yourself. This is fine and accepted practice: many users may have reasons why they do not want their political opinions widely known in their workplace, for example. What is not acceptable, however, is lying about your identity. You may not pretend to be someone else, claim to be a race or gender or class or nationality you are not, lie about your military service, or background, or otherwise misrepresent yourself. You may refrain from talking about those aspects of your life, but you may not misrepresent them in an attempt to bolster your pseudonymous credibility or otherwise mislead other community members.

"Outing" other site users. If a user wishes to protect their pseudonymity, and has not freely provided information which would unmask or otherwise undermine that pseudonymity, then you may not reveal private, personal information about that user that might allow others to subsequently identify them. Period. For that matter, you may not do it on another site either, if you wish to participate here: we take pseudonymity concerns very seriously.

So you can't misrepresent yourself, buuuuut... no one can point out that you are misrepresenting yourself. So you're pretty safe to flout that rule. Full disclosure: I was banned ostensibly for outing someone who was misrepresenting himself. Of course the punch-line is that I didn't out him. I simply pointed out that he had outed and exposed himself as a fraud repeatedly in his own writing. I suppose it's a fine point.

Now this is a fun one:

Consistently rating up the posts of users who are themselves engaging in inappropriate behaviors, thus thwarting the moderation efforts of more responsible community members. More on this below.

Think about that for a moment. Even supporting unpopular ideas, without writing a word, is a potentially bannable offense. As 5hearts of My Left Wing learned when she chose to support the "wrong" side in a disagreement.

I would love to know by what algorithm this happy message gets vomited out:

You've Been Warned...
2007-02-12 20:00:55
Please stop rating up other users' fights in the comment threads. MLW and Booman fights should be left on MLW and Booman, not encouraged.
I understand the above warning (posting is no longer allowed until this is acknowledged).

I clicked on pyhrro's username (a link under a comment of his) at dKos and up it popped....

Which brings me to Exhibit B: My Left Wing. Proprietor Maryscott O'Connor astonished and impressed me the other day when she threw down the gauntlet on this issue, and came down hard on the side of free speech and thought. It was a brave move and she has opened herself up to widespread criticism from the enforcers of social norms. More astonishing still, she opened the floor for debate on that third rail issue, verboten on most liberal websites; the Israeli-Palestinian crisis. Her diary on this and the heated debate it engendered can be found here.

Maryscott has ripped the scab off a festering wound in the blogosphere, and exposed a level of denial and hypocrisy that has astonished even me. The passion amongst a surprising number of site members for the suppression of ideas and the banning of dissenters, I find chilling. The idea that evil ideas, thoughtcrimes if you will, can somehow be stemmed by limiting discourse has found many takers. Dhonig for, instance, has written one of the most wrong-headed diaries I've ever read... and that's saying something.

Okay, so now on to the subject itself, why it is not just a matter of free speech, and why hate should be banned.

First, it is a mere aphorism that ugliness is cleansed by the light of day. And really, this is the theme for the rest of the diary. Some have argued that we should not shun the haters, but hear them, for by putting out their opinions they expose those opinions to "the light of day," where some magical process will cleanse them, or at least we will know them by the nature of their words. Unfortunately, this involves a utopian view of human nature, rather than a realistic observation.

Hate is ugly. Even the haters, if alone, know deep in their soulless little lizard brains that there might be something shameful about their point of view. They mostly keep it to themselves, huddling in the subterranean hovel of hatred. They suspect, perhaps even fear, that (a) they might not be right, and (b) their point of view might not be acceptable. But what happens when they come out, and their hate receives anything less than complete rejection, including rejection of the person and their presence forever? They get the message that somehow what they said was okay.

Their "soulless little lizard brains"... Now, where have I heard that kind of dehumanizing rhetoric used to describe a group of people before... Oh right!

In dhonig's cartoon world, only evil ideas can be viral. Rebuttals to them cannot. Discourse has no real capacity to enlighten, so certain ideas must be denied a forum. This is, of course, demonstrably false. Even in my own lifetime I have watched public opinion morph on race and civil rights, gay rights, and, yes, Jews. Racism, homophobia, and antisemitism are decidedly out of vogue; out of the mainstream, if you will. And much of what has changed these views is that we have seen the ugliness of hate with our own eyes, giving full form to social undercurrents, and rejected it. Full-blown "haters" are in the minority. As I pointed out to dhonig, David Duke, who he himself invokes in his diary as an example of hate run amok, has been rejected by voters repeatedly. Why? Because his odious views are a matter of public record. Something that would not be the case were it not for a First Amendment that protects his right to spew racial hatred.

From Nonpartisan we learn that Jews are a special group, deserving of total protection from offensive ideas. Blacks are not because not enough of them have been killed.

Have six million of them been murdered in a single generation? (0.00 / 0)
No. So...no.

Vague terms? How about this: If you think what you're about to say could in any way be offensive to a Jewish person, or could even be CONSTRUED as being offensive to a Jewish person, DON'T SAY IT.

Similar to the grounds of civil discourse in society, huh? If you persist in violating these norms in civil society, then you get shunned and maybe fired. If you do so in blogtopia*, then you should be banned.

*coined by Skippy.

Well. I'm speechless.

Note: Both The Prisoner and Orwell's 1984 are availaible in the bookstore.

Salon On Blogger Ethics

Salon's Joan Walsh has written a smart, even-tempered piece that is certain to piss a lot of bloggers off.

When the blog-friendly Edwards campaign -- the candidate's wife Elizabeth has reportedly blogged on lefty sites under an assumed name -- hired Marcotte from Pandagon and McEwan from Shakespeare's Sister, it was hailed as a victory for the blogosphere. Thus preventing their firing, or denying it had ever happened, became crucial for building "the movement," as MyDD's Chris Bowers so often describes his blog colleagues' goal.

But what is "the movement," and what are its goals? Is it correcting, challenging, augmenting and maybe someday replacing the staid, arrogant, sometimes corrupt, rarely courageous titans of the mainstream media? Or is it replacing a tired and politically timid field of Democratic consultants with a new generation of cyberspace kingmakers? Of course, there's room for both in the liberal blogosphere. But can individual bloggers do both? Does it mark me as an old-media dinosaur to even ask that question?

Well if it does, Joan, we are nibbling the tops of the same trees, because I've been asking the same questions for some time.

Maybe I'm the one who's naive, but the whole episode made me wonder: What does it mean if liberal bloggers aren't warriors for the truth, but rather for candidates? What does it mean for media, and what does it mean for politics?

As I asked here, do bloggers want be citizen journalists or publicists? Because there is a very big difference.

Lefty bloggers congratulate themselves on being less compromised and corrupted than fancy MSM reporters; on creating a new independent realm of punditry and reporting. Do a lot of them really aspire to flack for a candidate, as well? Of course there are liberal bloggers who seem mainly about independent journalism -- Glenn Greenwald, now with Salon, comes to mind, as does Joshua Micah Marshall's Talking Points Memo and Firedoglake's coverage of Plamegate -- and aren't looking to hook up with candidates. But others seem comfortable blurring the lines between independent commentary and partisan kingmaking. And while it's true that journalists have historically gone off to work for politicians, they don't keep their writing job when they go on the other payroll. Plus, their colleagues and competitors in other media organizations don't see themselves as having a stake in the former journalist's new political perch, and thus don't tend to cheer them on, or look away from exposing problems that might emerge with their new employer.

They also don't have a perch from which to bully their readership into abandoning one candidate in favor of another, as happened when Markos flipped on Paul Hackett, in favor of his business associate Jerome Armstrong's employer Sherrod Brown, and started referring to Hackett enthusiasts as the "Hackett fedayeen."

If anything I think Walsh has pulled her punches, but that will not stop reflexive snark like this:

Check out this Salon editorial as an example of this turf-protection. It is all about silencing the people. As I stated before, the netroots ARE the grassroots.

Walsh's questions are valid and worth a good mulling over by any blogger who wants to be taken seriously.

Kos Is One But We Are Many

A shout out to Skippy who has included this humble blog in his amnesty program, by adding it to his blogroll. Smooches.

And applause to Rob of Intrepid Liberal Journal for giving voice to a thought that has been rattling around my head for days.

What Skippy has started with his program is an opportunity for all of us to grow together as a movement. I propose we visit each other's sites and either post comments or send emails to each other requesting reciprocal links. Markos is but one and we are many.

If there is a lesson in this blogroll controversy, it's that bloggers have given over too much power to the Big Boys of Blogging. For many of us the impetus behind blogging was to take our power back from an arrogant White House. It should be clear now that we face a similar challenge with the anointed leaders of the blogosphere, as they race to close the gate behind them.

Kos Gives Members the Finger

Markos has finally come clean on his utter contempt for his "community" members. As per BostonJoe, whose diary on Kos's most recent proclamation is going strong in its second day on Booman Tribune. (Also front paged at My Left Wing.)

Yeah! (2+ / 0-)

People are so fucking moronic on this site that unless you hold their hand and personally guide them to the candidate blogs, they have no chance in hell in finding them!

No thanks. They're going to have to earn their support the old fashioned way -- by working for it.

by kos on Sat Feb 03, 2007 at 08:59:16 PM PST

What led up to this dis of his membership? Why the dis of his blogroll, of course.

I have updated the blogroll. It now includes only sites I visit regularly and group blogs from states I expect to become hot battlegrounds either this year (like KY) or next. The state-specific group blogs will come and go as states become politically hot and cold. Quite frankly, I now spend most of my blog-reading time in those group blogs looking for information on the House, Senate, and governor races I think will be most competitive.

I knew Kos had no respect for all the "little people" who write the content and provide the page views for his site when he referred to his feminist members as the "sanctimonious women's studies set." But a lot of kossacks aren't feminists and I guess they won't get it until he comes for them.

Kos doesn't care about his members except in as much as they serve his own objectives. It's a totally exploitive relationship. Like Andy Warhol who gave his hangers on "15 minutes of fame" as he amassed a fortune using their personalities, tragedies, and talent in his films and self-aggrandizing personality cult. He didn't pay them for their performances; not even the lovely Holly Woodlawn who was nearly nominated for an Oscar for "Trash." He supported their drug induced lifestyles until he tired of them or they self-destructed. Well Kos has created a similar "factory" with the Daily Kos; a gallery of characters with the personality, energy, and writing talent to put his name on the map. If Kos had to rely on his own writing ability and political insight to draw readers to the Daily Kos, he would not have gotten very far. Maryscott O'Connor has articulated what I have been saying about Daily Kos and "community" sites in general for some time.

It's been a mutually beneficial relationship ONLY since I started my own blog -- which was NEVER my intent. For the first 18 months of my life as a blogger, I blogged FOR Markos. Didn't think of it that way, but that;s what it was. The Rude Pundit linked to MY PAGE at Daily Kos. You know how many hits Markos got from that one link?

Meanwhile Alexander on the Booman Tribune thread may have hit on the real reason for the blogroll purge:

I just went through the sites on his blogroll: there was only one Scoop-powered site -- Political Cortex -- but that has a radically different layout. I think that that is part of it: he is afraid of competition from other Scoop sites. And that makes sense: the more Scoop-powered political sites I learn about, the less time I spend at dKos.

Explains a lot really. A lot of the now booted blogroll members were heavy hitters on Daily Kos who went off to start their own community blogs. After the aforementioned Daily Kos Pie War, for instance, there was a mass exodus to other sites. Kos sowed the wind and reaped a whirlwind, while more feminist-friendly Booman Tribune gave harbor to the lifeboats. Booman, in turn, took a lot of heat from Armando and other Kos enforcers for so-called "Kos-bashing" among the membership. Kos has pissed a lot of people off -- and banned a lot of people -- who now populate those other blogs. Many of them don't have very nice things to say about the "big orange." Competitors, especially competitors who give bandwidth to critics, will no longer be given a seat at the table.

Not only does this spell the end of what I have long referred to as the "Daily Kos family of sites," it bodes ill for the progressive community that thinks it has a voice in the blogosphere. It's not about giving average folks a voice and a platform. It's about launching a few high profile bloggers into the punditocracy and the political machine.

I think skippy, who has been blogging about this issue a great deal on his own site, put it well in a comment over at My Left Wing.

as i said at booman, kos (and to a lesser extent, duncan, and i love saying the words "to a lesser extent, duncan") have become the very things they purported to fight against in the beginning: insular, inbred out-of-touch pundits who have little relation to ordinary citizens.

and this hypocrisy is what angers me the most. it turns out kos wasn't all about citizens participating in government at all...he was about getting into political power, only via a new, untried route...the internet. and he espoused his huey long common-man rhetoric here, and we swallowed it, hook, line and sinker.

Kos: Anonymity is for Cowards

After days of grandstanding on Daily Kos about Armando's God-given right to be an anonymous blogger. After all the wailing and gnashing of teeth over the villainous National Review, who outed his "secret identity" as an attorney, The Great and Powerful Kos has offered a pronouncement:

The poor gazillionaire consultants in DC are too cowardly to make their criticisms publicly, so they hind behind a cloak of anonymity....

They cowardly hide behind the blind quote, lest they be called on their bullshit. I have no problem attaching my name to my criticisms. Why don't they?

I don't know Markos. Why doesn't Armando? And why do so many of your loyal kossacks think it's positively noble to hide your true identity. Well, at least until some anonymous person goes after their beloved Markos. As I said before, it's the hypocrisy, stupid.

Note: Special thanks to Simon Malthus for bringing this to my attention.

New Media Same as the Old Media

Last week lots of VIBs (Very Important Bloggers), and a good number of those who bask in their reflected glory, tromped off to Las Vegas to participate in the first annual Yearly Kos convention. Much ado about nothing, methinks, but it has forced its way into my consciousness, none-the-less. I've been to conventions in Vegas. Vegas is the place for conventions; not because of the gambling, not because of the "entertainment," not because of the hookers, not even because of the cheap breakfast buffets, but because it has one of the largest convention centers in the country. It's a city well set up to accommodate conventioneers. Yes, the reason really is that boring.

The Yearly Kos drew lots of big name politicians and first string journos and got a good bit of coverage. So why do I think it's a wash? Because it is emblematic, not of the ascendancy of blogging as a political force in our troubled nation, but of our failure. What started as fertile ground for an insurgency against the hidebound mass media and its enmeshment with the political process it is supposed to be policing, is proving to be nothing but a pale imitation of that media

Case in point: "How Much Is That Blogger In the Window?" asks Salon's Michael Sherer. Sherer, who recently profiled "blogfather" Jerome Armstrong, turns now to the politician Armstrong consults for, Mark Warner. How interesting that the Presidential hopeful who pays Armstrong to help him court the netroots also threw top dollar -- 50k actually -- at the gathering of bloggers in Vegas.

To date, no other candidate has rented an Elvis impersonator to perform for supporters in a circular viewing station 1,000 feet above the Vegas strip. And no other candidate has tried to ply voters with the deadly trifecta of a vodka-chilling ice sculpture, a chocolate fondue waterfall, and free roller-coaster rides.

So will bloggers be wooed by this type of seduction? Some will. Some won't. But arguably the most prominent among them was acting like the Prom Queen.

Moulitsas, who has not endorsed any presidential candidate, repeatedly praised Warner for hosting the Friday night party and being an early endorser of the conference. "We are all going to have quite a bit of time to make up our minds," Moulitsas announced at the Stratosphere. "I've got to say, though, as a first date, this is pretty cool."

From his perch at Daily Kos, Markos continued to extol the virtues of the candidate.

Warner sent a strong message not just to us, but to the media and political establishments that the netroots matters. And in politics, $100K is pocket change. Better spend it on a blogger party where the candidate socialized with regular people than on bullshit television ads or crappy consultants....

To be honest, much of the anti-Warner tirades seemed to be coming from supporters of other candidates angry that Warner scored some points (and Warner did score points).

Disturbingly he points out that another major blogger shares his views. Dave Johnson from Seeing the Forest knows the importance of marketing.

Governor Warner has not just established himself with the blogosphere. By placing himself as a top blogosphere contender, he has positioned himself as a top contender, period....

By making himself important to the blogs, and at the same time increasing the importance of the blogs to the national political process, he is making himself a front-runner. At the same time, by increasing the credibility of the blogs now, he is strengthening their power and effectiveness as a channel for use by the eventual nominee.

So the reasoning here is that Warner has ensured his position amongst the bloggerati not by outlining the best political platform, nor by addressing the concerns that moved bloggers all the way from their comfy couches to the chairs in front of their computers, but by throwing the biggest, bestest party ever.

To be fair there were many other politicians there who spoke frankly with bloggers about issues. And I am not the only blogger who thinks Warner's stunt and others like it undermine the greater goals of citizen journalism. Hence the need for Kos and others to rush to Warner's defense and explain to us why we're wrong. But the signs of incipient media whoredom are everywhere.

A San Francisco Chronicle write-up of the event demonstrates the power of the mighty croissant to build bridges, even when Governor Bill Richards made the appalling social faux pas of low-balling the bloggers ages.

Still, [Justin] Krebs admits, maybe the croissants helped soften the crowd on such missteps. "The next time he does something bad, maybe somebody on a blog will give him a pass once, instead of pounding on him right away."

I fear Krebs, who founded "Drinking Liberally," or drunken liberals as I like to call them, is right. A lot of bloggers will prove to be cheap dates; selling their souls for far less than extravaganzas like Warner's big do.

The writing has long been on the wall that this wonderful new medium of blogging would go the way of all flesh. For all our criticism of the way most of the mainstream press has served to protect the institutionalized corruption of Washington, many bloggers routinely genuflect in front of their own sacred cows, and will undoubtedly do the same when people like the generous Mark Warner are placed on the altar.

As I recently wrote here, there is rigorous enforcement of group-think and manufactured consent in the blogging community. Perhaps the best example of the pressure to sacrifice ideals to sacred cows lies in the recent "outing" of Daily Kos heavyweight Armando. As I wrote before, the talking point that what happened to Armando was wrong, wrong, wrong, was swiftly established and reinforced. Most bloggers fell in line, but the activity on Booman Tribune is illustrative of what happens when bloggers questioned this conventional wisdom. It's worth noting that it is the only site I saw where these questions were well-aired at all. Booman still allows for diversity of viewpoint on his site, though he seems to be under tremendous pressure not to, and the "keepers of social norms" were hard at work to whip those miscreants who questioned Armando's holy martyrdom into shape.

The other day someone called Brian Nowhere wrote an excellent diary on the Armando episode. The bulk of discussion it inspired, though, was on how inappropriate it was, resulting in its editing. The diary appears here. For the unexpurgated version you'll have to go to his site. Here's a sample of Nowhere's inflammatory diary.

The leader of the civil rights movement was not known simply as Martin.

The leader of the yippies was not known as just Abbie.

And aren't we all glad that The first & biggest name signed at the bottom of the Declaration of Independence is not JHcock1776?

The guy who stood up and said "How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?" did not have the luxury of using the pseudonym JFK1943

The journalist who had his career dashed against the rocks by Karl Rove didn't have the option to just open a new CBS account under the screenname ratherNotBKnown.

But the most egregious example of censorship came from someone called suskind, who immolated his own diaries rather than allow comments which were "hurtful" to Armando to continue to flicker. A complete discussion of this occurrence is here and it is well worth reading. Did Armando ask suskind to hit the kill switch, or did suskind do it on his own volition, as he claims, only to be scolded by the Wal-Mart attorney afterwords? Here's the thing. It doesn't matter. As with the mainstream press, much of the censorship in the blogosphere is self-imposed, a reflexive impulse to serve those cows on whom sacred status has been conferred, whether or not they request such adulation. Suskind's act of conscience threw hundreds of comments worth of discussion on Armando's predicament down the memory hole. Or as spiderleaf put it:

This is really not cool. I thought your comment in the last suskind diary was top notch. Should have been out there for more debate and discussion.
I also took quite a bit of time to write in those and am pretty pissed off to have wasted my time like that.

Actually I'm calling bullshit. I think you're right, there is a reason they were deleted. And it wasn't for a freeflow of information.

The other colleen explains what led up to this dramatic show of allegiance to Armando.

Yes, there were several people who were trying to martyr him and were disappointed and angry there wasn't sufficient outrage. Those attempting to generate outrage then proceeded to compare Armando's situation with Hitler's Germany (Catnip) and another (suskind) compared Armando to MLK. I wanted to issue smelling salts.

Those of us hurting Armando's feelings by being insufficiently sympathetic were told we lacked the 'big picture', had no principles, lacked compassion and that if we're not there for Armando, DK and the blogs won't be there for us when we're in need. (as if they ever have been)

At the end of his last diary Sus announced that "the left" had a sense of "entitlement" and that our main complaint here was that he is a corporate lawyer. It was a manufactured conclusion, not borne out by the responses. Most folks decided that Armando made it extremely easy to identify himself and a good many of us (myself included) have a difficult time believing that Armando will stop blogging.

And Marisacat gives voice to exactly why Armando may have found it all so terribly "hurtful."

Plus although there has been excellent commentary (Brian Nowhere in particular but also others) w/r/t "privacy'...
the enduring issue is blogging as a "progressive" - that is the preferred term of these fellows - in fact a self styled "prgressive" thought leader, one might even say...

all the while not just a corp atty/of counsel for his firm... but a major player in the legal game to wedge Wal-Mart into PR.

Tells me all of my assessments of the coordinated nasty online blogger game of roping in liberals left progressives to a rigged game for the party (think Hillary) was right on.
Plain old tired vote delivery.

For one, these are the old Democratic thug plays.

Thrashing and bashing the alternative views... holding themselves up as "leaders" all the while something else entirely.

It is called disclaimer and there is a reason he chose to blog pro-business, pro-Kelo pro-eminent domain and not provide a disclaimer.

Two faced.

In other words the real issues raised by Armando's "outing" were being discussed by people who still care about progressive values, instead of the more common lockstep marching behind the "outing is just wrong" meme. We can't have that now can we? How sad is it that in the brave new world of blogging there is already such a pitched battle over the free expression of dissenting viewpoints?

So forgive me if I'm not terribly hopeful that the blogosphere will cleave to ideals over personalities when the Mark Warners of the political world come-a-courting.

Armando Outed

Never mind what I thought that meant when the phrase started popping up all over the place last night. No. Armando's effeminacy is not the issue of the day. Armando has been outed as, horror of horrors, an attorney. What? You already knew he was an attorney? You and every other reader of the Daily Kos family of sites. But the National Review Online dug for the real dirt. Not only is Armando an attorney. He's apparently a corporate shill, representing of all damned things Wal-Mart.

Armando announced last night that he will take his ball and go home. Leaving the blogosphere no poorer, in my opinion. The reaction from kossacks has been swift and sure to condemn this violation of the sanctity of Armando's private life. But how private was it? He posts under his own name and tells all the world that he's an attorney. In the, I'm roughly estimating here, millions of posts with which he has deluged numerous websites, he has revealed many more of his particulars. It can't have been hard to reverse engineer his identity. If he was so interested in protecting his privacy, why didn't he make an effort to do so? I have no beef with anonymity -- note the dearth of information about me on this site -- but it does require a modicum of restraint. Armando is not the first and will most certainly not be the last "anonymous" blogger to be undone by a colossal ego and need for attention.

Noticeably absent from the outcry over Armando's martyrdom is any discussion of the issue raised by the National Review. It's the hypocrisy, stupid. But then, anyone who thinks Daily Kos is truly a progressive website, leading the charge against the corporatists who are choking the life out of democracy, isn't paying attention.

Look. I don't begrudge Armando his right to make a living. And I know enough about law to know that a big part of a lawyers job is to protect the law itself. (For example, I fully support the ACLU in its defense of odious clients like the Nazis in Skokie, IL, to protect the Constitutional freedoms of all Americans.) For all I know Armando is protecting the one aspect of Wal-Mart's business practices that is noble and true. I can't imagine what that would be, but that's neither here nor there.

I get it. I know bloggers take very seriously the right to privacy and anonymity, even if that amounts to keeping the blogosphere safe for liars, frauds, and hypocrites. It was definitely brought home to me when I published this piece on soj and was vilified by the multitude and banned from Daily Kos, even though it was soj who outed soj. Not me.

The thing that comes through loud and clear from both the National Review expose and the resulting brouhaha, is how very seriously bloggers take themselves. Kos, who is far from anonymous, comes across as stunningly arrogant. In other words the piece is accurate. It quotes from an interview he did with a Swedish magazine to great effect.

"I wouldn't want to be a senator or congressman. I'm able to influence politics much more effectively doing what I do. Now I can shape the national political debate. The only way I could exert more influence would be if I were president. But I’d never want that guy’s job. Never."

Wow! And there's more:

"I get lots of calls from people who want to learn how to leverage the Internet…The Swedish social democrats, for instance, asked me to come to Sweden to hold a talk, but I didn't have the time. Soon they'll have to come to Berkeley to learn the ropes."

I'm trusting that the translation is accurate and it sure as hell sounds like Kos.

At some point bloggers are going to have a make a decision about what is more important, anonymity or credibility. It's very hard to be taken seriously as an expert -- and many claim all sorts of expertise -- if you won't disclose your credentials. Anyone can say he's an attorney. We now know that Armando really is one. Some of us are a little surprised. We don't know how he finds the time. But Armando would prefer to say he's an attorney than to have us know that he really is one. Such a conundrum.

You want fame? Well fame costs.
-- Fame