Is It the Apocalypse?

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.

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.

Kos Foolishness Exposed in Salon

Originally published: Tuesday, May 02, 2006

As I wrote days ago, Kos has been rallying his forces against the Sierra Club for daring to endorse an environmentally friendly Republican. Now his embarrassing tirade has landed on the pages of Salon. As I explained in my earlier entry, Kos's position on this reveals him as the authoritarian, anti-democratic bully he is. It also shows him to be a poor political strategist.

Kos would like to relegate issue groups like the Sierra Club and NARAL to props for the Democratic Party. He thinks they should serve the Party. Whom, then, does the Party serve? What is to motivate Democrats to consider the agendas of organizations who sit squarely in their hip-pocket? Is Kos really so ignorant of the voting records of Democrats that he thinks they'll just automatically champion women's rights and environmental protections? Kos expects us to trust that even though some Democrats are anti-choice and consistently vote to allow ANWR drilling, that if the party retakes the House and Senate, they will control the agenda and do the right thing. Was he asleep in the year plus when Jim Jeffords defection allowed the Democrats to retake Senate? Beltway Democrats had an opportunity to check the unbridled aggression of the Bush Administration, insist on facts regarding the march into what is likely the greatest military blunder in US history, and prove their worthiness to maintain control of the Senate. Why on earth should any progressive believe that they will not snatch defeat from the jaws of victory once again?

It would be a very gullible issue group who put blind trust in Democratic leadership. Why would a group like NARAL want to be a cog in a machine that would replace one anti-choice Senator, Rick Santorum, with another, Bob Casey. But those are the options Democrats are handing Pennsylvania voters, by throwing their weight behind the backwards son of a former Governor, putting name recognition before principle. Someone has to put the issues first and thank goodness the Sierra Club has the courage to do so.

As quoted in Salon, Carl Pope explains, "It is absolutely vital that environmentalism be nonpartisan." Well no kidding. They would be fools to trust the future of the environment of the mostly falling fortunes of the Democratic Party.

As Martha Marks, president of Republicans for Environmental Protection, further explains, "If the environmental community turns its back on Lincoln Chafee, who is one of the strongest environmental leaders of our day -- Democrat or Republican -- then it will have no credibility with any Republicans going forward…. The only time you make any long-term, permanent progress on anything in this country is when you have bipartisan support." Pay attention Markos. That is a strategy for success. These issue groups aren't so dumb as you think. They are actually considering the possibility that the Democratic Party will continue its losing streak, a fairly safe bet, and putting the advancement of their cause first.

It's that kind of bipartisan approach that makes victories like this one possible.

Here's the latest on the battle over the refuge:

Thanks to the heroic effort of 29 moderate Republicans (who were encouraged, no doubt, by the many letters they received from activists like you), the House of Representatives decided to strip from its budget reconciliation bill language that would have authorized oil and gas drilling in the refuge. The House bill narrowly passed, which sets up a showdown with the Senate, whose version of the bill includes Arctic drilling.

As this issue goes to the Senate, where Democrats are currently in the minority, Republican opposition to ANWR drilling is crucial. It has thus far been blocked only because there is bipartisan support for the environment. Democrats Akaka, Inouye, and Landrieu have repeatedly demonstrated their willingness to give the entire candy store to the oil companies as in this March 2005 vote, which was only blocked because of Republicans crossing party lines. Would that happen if environmental groups only approached Republicans with sticks and no carrots?

Kos may think politics are a game and that what's important is what team jersey you're wearing, but some of us care about the future of the planet, a woman's right to choose, and host of other issues that must transcend petty gamesmanship. Especially when the Democrat team keeps handing off the ball to Republicans and walking them walking them into the end zone.

Kos can promise all he wants that, "when Democrats regain power, choice, the environment, worker's rights -- the whole gamut -- will be protected." But I don't like the odds and I think his despised "single issue" groups are wise to hedge their bets.

Kos Takes Sierra Club to the Woodshed

Originally published: Friday, April 28, 2006

Readers of the Daily Kos, at least those who read Markos's blog entries, are by now quite familiar with his disdain for single interest "silos." Why, oh, why he opines, won't organizations like NARAL and the Sierra Club get on board with the Democratic Party and stop endorsing Republican candidates like Lincoln Chafee? Yesterday brought another tirade against the environmental advocacy group for endorsing the moderate Republican. Kos's logic is fairly simple. Endorsing any Republican, even one with a voting record consistent with the interest group's goals, assists the Republican Party to maintain their congressional majorities. The Republican Party as a whole does not further those same goals. Therefore, to endorse the individual Republican candidate, is "stupid." In other words, Kos wants non-partisan organizations to become nakedly partisan.

I wrote yesterday how Lincoln Chafee repayed the Sierra Club and the League of Conservation Voters for their endorsement by failing to block the nomination of a polluter lobbyist to handle clean air issues at the EPA. And this polluter lobbyist is really, really bad.

I emailed the Sierra Club's national press secretary, David Willett, and asked him if the Sierra Club was still happy with the Chafee endorsement despite the vote, and the response:

Absolutely. If we only endorsed candidates who voted with us 100 percent of the time, we wouldn't support very many candidates, including many Democrats. Chafee IS an environmental champion and we support him.

Nice. Chafee enables 30-40 years of anti-environment judges and gives a rabid polluter the keys to our clean air office, and he's a "champion" of the environment.

I wish conservative issue groups were this stupid. And I wish ours were as smart as theirs.

According to Kos, Republicans have us coming and going, in terms of message discipline, centralized authority, and dogmatic adherence to the party line. Well, of course they do. They're Republicans. They're essentially autocratic. What Kos demonstrates with these little diatribes is that he is too. His formula for "winning" is to adopt the same "with us or against us" mentality that has defined the Bush Presidency. NARAL and the Sierra Club dare to endorse a Republican candidate, they have become the enemy. They are "stupid." They are "morons." If this kind of infantile name calling and bullying sounds familiar, it should. It's how Republican hard-liners talk. Kos increasingly reveals himself as a poor man's Tom DeLay. The only thing standing between Kos and a K-Street Project like racket is his current lack of power and resources.

Taking another page from the Republican playbook, Kos also plays fast and loose with the facts to make his case. In another recent tongue lashing of the Sierra Club, he does his best impression of Ann Coulter, by citing a source that was, itself, wrong about Chafee's voting record.

This may very well be the most moronic move by any organization this election cycle.

U.S. Sen. Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island is seen as one of the most vulnerable Republican senators in the country. But Wednesday, the national Sierra Club came out in support of him.

The Sierra Club is endorsing Chafee even though the group gave the senator only a 20 percent rating in its environmental scorecard in 2004.

The club said a vote for Chafee is better than a vote for a Democrat because of his position as a dissident within the majority party.

Um, guys over at the Sierra Club? Yeah, you, Carl Pope? How has Bill Frist and the Republican Congress been for your agenda? You know, the guys that Chafee enabled? And how was his 20 percent rating? That's all it takes to get an endorsement these days? Are you really that easy?

Of course, the idea would be to make Republicans the minority party. But good luck seeing your agenda continue to be demolished by the GOP leadership Chafee will continue to enable.

A 20 percent rating on environmental issues? Endorsing such a candidate would indeed indicate a serious lapse in judgment on the part of the Sierra Club, if it were true. But it's not.

Carl Pope, President of the Sierra Club, explains:

Update: The Sierra Club's endorsement was criticized in the blogosphere, where an inaccurate article misleadingly stated that Senator Chafee only had a 20% environmental rating from us. This number came from an article on a local Rhode Island TV station's website. The station has since removed that number. The League of Conservation Voters Scorecard currently ranks Senator Chafee at 90%.

Member of Daily Kos slouise217 exposes the erroneous reporting of the source Kos cites without scrutiny.

I looked up Chafee's record

In 2006 (yeah, only 2 votes so far)

100% pro-environmentalist

In 2005, on 19 votes

84% pro-environmentalist

In 2004, on 5 votes

20% pro-environmentalist

In 2003, on 20 votes

50% pro-environmnetalist

In 2002, on 14 votes

79% pro-environmentalist

In 2001, on 7 votes

57% pro-environmentalist

In 2000, on 7 votes

100% pro-environmentalist

In 1999, on 6 votes

50% pro-environmentalist

That's as far back as it goes.

So the reporter of this story seems to have deceptively quoted only one year of Chafee's record, and that year is his worst year.

Now, I don't know how other politicians typically do on these votes - the Sierra Club website's VoteWatch didn't seem to have an easy way to compare Senators side by side. But overall, Chafee's record is that on 80 votes in the past 7 years, he voted pro-environmentalist on 67% of the votes.

I am NOT saying that the Sierra Club shoulda given him ANY donations.

I'm just saying that the 20% rating, from one year, is not an accurate picture - it's not even from the last full year that he voted in the Senate. In 2005, he had an 84% pro-environmentalist record, and counting back from today through 2004, his record is a 73% positive rating.

Like I said, I don't know what rating most Senators get. I don't know what a good rating is for a Republican, since I didn't quickly find a site that ranked them like that, but it sure seems to me like this was a questionable presentation since it only mentions that one really bad year for him.

I guess slouise217 never got the memo about not confusing Kossacks with facts. Daily Kos enforcer Armando is quick to dismiss her call for credible journalism by redirecting the issue to the party line:

Ah

The Sierra Club does not consider the Majority Leader vote.

Morons.

The most important vote on the environment in every Congress is the leadership vote.

Morons that they are they dont consider it.

As I explained in an older entry, Kos does not consider himself ideological. His entire focus is on crafting a winning agenda. I would go a step further and say that he lacks the sense of civic responsibility that should lie at the heart of politics. Like the current, eerily monolithic Republican Party machine, Kos has no love for small "d" democracy. Ed in Montana explains:

I have no trouble

With folks thinking that the decesion to endorse Chaffe was the wrong one. What I have trouble with is Kossacks not understanding that its one of the Club's strengths that they allow, and even require, that local members vote on whom to endorse in their own state. It's called grassroots democracy, which sometimes gives results that I don't like.

If folks don't like it, join the Rhode Island chapter of the Club and work to reverse it.

Bloggers should look closely a DKos's track record for winning endorsed races first (2 won and 13 lost) before casting the first stone at other political strategies.

So, not only does Kos expect special interest groups to sacrifice their ideals on the altar of team loyalty, his own losing streak rivals that of the Democratic Party he hopes to re-envision. Kos's entire winning strategy seems to be to browbeat people into a "Democratic Party right or wrong" loyalty. He dangles in front of reluctant donkeys the carrot of endless promises that a Democratic majority will advance all progressive causes. Two words: Zell Miller.

As Will Rogers famously quipped, "I belong to no organized party. I am a Democrat." Democrats will never operate with the hierarchical discipline of Republicans. They can, however, be counted on to vote with Republicans on enough issues to gradually cede all power to the statist, corporatist agenda of the radical right. If anything, we need grass roots, small "d" democratic organizations to push harder against a Democratic Party that has come unmoored from the concerns of constituents. It is only through direct citizen action that a progressive agenda has any hope of moving forward. As kaleidescope points out, the Democratic Party, without the pressure of grass roots agitation and independent, non-partisan organizations, has never been and will never be an agent of progressive, social change.

So By Kos's Logic

The mid-sixties NAACP should've endorsed segregationist Democrats in Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia.

Editor's Note: In the interest of full disclosure, I should state that I was banned from the Daily Kos. Said banning is explained here. I suppose some might say that my criticism of the agenda and social climate of the Daily Kos is just sour grapes. It's not.

Can the Democrats do Better? Markos has a Vision!

Originally published: Thursday, March 09, 2006

"Together, America Can Do Better." That's the slogan the Democratic Party's brain trust has produced. Sadly, this weak, grammatically incorrect verbiage is appropriate to the current party backdrop. It's innocuous, meaningless, purposeless, and fairly inoffensive. Better relative to what? A Republican agenda that is driving the nation off a cliff? But according the Washington Post, Democrats are still foundering when it comes to articulating a unified strategy and compelling vision, even though they are faced with the most corrupt, incompetent, dangerous administration in American history. It should be a no-brainer, but they don't really want to differentiate themselves from Republicans on any of the important issues: the occupation of Iraq, corporate excesses, military adventurism, wholesale violations of civil liberties... In short they don't conflict with the dangerous vision of "American Empire." If they did they would have crafted an opposition by now. No. The Democrats just want to adminstrate that empire "better." How to market that idea? Well, you can see what they've come up with. I shudder to think what slogans didn't make the final cut: "Democrats: We're Not AS Bad" or "Democrats: The Slower Boat to Hell."

Meanwhile, Markos Moulitsas Zuniga, whom Eleanor Clift once characterized as "Moses leading Democrats to the promised land," may have really hit on a strategy. It would not force Democratic candidates to address any of those hot button issues. It would be a full frontal assault on the "family values" meme we've all been beaten to death with. Kos, the man whose dis of the "sanctimonious women's studies set" and endless diatribes against NARAL sent women running in droves from his site; the man who said he would not be part of a party defined by abortion rights, has finally realized that the death spiral of Roe v. Wade could affect men.

Good point. No abortions means more 18 years of child support after a drunken "mistake". [sic] Choice isn't a woman-only issue.

Tracing back through the links, we find that the notion comes from Digby, via Atrios. Digby, to his credit, appears to have been directing this idea to some thickie who just hadn't considered the full ramifications of the South Dakota law and its portents for the future. There-in lies the marketing genius of Kos's revelation. What Kos understands innately is that all interest is self interest. He is now ready to begin Crashing the Gate with a new vision for the Democratic Party. Democrats must become the party of rabid self interest. "Ride the wave," my ass. Don't let Kos's claims that he's no leader fool you. The man who's said flat out that the reason he wrote his book was his desire to buy a house, is absolutely the man to craft this winning strategy.

Forget morality. Forget civic responsibility. Forget what we can do for our country. What can the Democrats do for ME? There's your '06 strategy. Reagan's "Are you better off than you were 4 years ago?" was clever but it didn't go far enough. Eight years of Reaganomics showed us that "greed" works as a political strategy, so why not "total selfishness?" And Democrats could finally win over that 18-34 white male demographic which has so long been a lock for Republicans. While we're at it we could really show the Bush family that they don't have the drunken frat boy vote sewn up. Let's try out some new bumper sticker copy shall we:

• "Democrats: Fighting For Your Right to Paaaaaarty!"


• "You Can't Spell Democrats Without ME"


• "Vote for [insert name of Democratic candidate here]: Because Everybody Makes Drunken Mistakes"


• "It's Spring Break Again in America."

Kos Defends Democratic Stupidity... Again!

Originally published: Tuesday, February 14, 2006

Kos has an interesting take on the Democratic Party's shafting of Senate contender Paul Hackett. In his official capacity as Party apologist, Kos insists that it's really a good thing that Hackett has cleared the field for Sherrod Brown. Hackett, a Marine and Iraq veteran who nearly won an upset victory against Republican congressional shoe-in -- and part-time harbor buoy -- Jean Schmidt, "didn't stand a chance."

Kos explains the logic of these wizards of statecraft:

But the party wasn't afraid of Hackett, they were afraid of an untested candidate in a high-profile Senate race. He'd have all the support in the world had he decided to run for OH-02. And he'd be able to build on that support for a Senate race in 2010.

Untested? He nearly won a congressional race in staunchly Republican district.

I don't think Hackett stood a chance in the primary. I think either candidate would be able to take DeWine. But Hackett had fallen woefully behind on the money and organizational races, and lacked Brown in name ID. It would've been a tough slog.

If Hackett had no chance of winning the primary, why the pressure to drop out? Maybe it's my youthful idealism talking, but I can't get past this crazy notion that elections are supposed to be about "we the people." Why not let voters decide who should stand against against DeWine in November? I just can't get it through my thick skull that money decides politics, not democracy.

Kos also engages in some revisionist history.

To be further clear, Brown announced his candidacy before Hackett did. Yes, Reid and Schumer were urging Hackett to run, but he wouldn't commit to running . Labor Day, the traditional announcement day for most candidates, came and went with Hackett refusing to say what his plans were. So after waiting and waiting and waiting, Brown essentially said "fuck it" and got in. It was only after news of Brown's impending announcement were leaked that Hackett decided to commit to the race.

Not so says Mother Jones.

Hackett met several times with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Sen. Chuck Schumer, chair of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC), both of whom encouraged him to run for the seat of Ohio's senior senator, Republican Mike DeWine, in '06. Hackett said he would—after been told by Ohio Congressman Sherrod Brown that he wasn't planning to run—and on October 3 he publicly threw his hat in the ring.

Then, last week, his phone rang again. It was Sherrod Brown calling to tell Hackett he'd changed his mind: he was running after all. Then Schumer called, and this time he wasn't delivering a pep talk. Hackett got the distinct sense that he was being asked to make way for the party insider. "Schumer didn't tell me anything definitive," he says. "But I'm not a dumb ass, and I know what he wanted me to do."

It was Brown, not Hackett who hid behind the typical politician's excuse as he waffled about running.

Brown maintains that he was simply wrestling with whether to run because of family considerations. "If your readers or others can't understand that, then so be it, but my family comes first," the congressman says.

It looks like Hackett -- who says he's not just pulling out of the race, but out of politics -- has had his fill of backroom shenanigans and cut-throat party machinations. The Democratic Party has a penchant for driving off the refreshingly honest. They also have a penchant for losing elections.

For Kos Politics is a Game of Inches

Originally published: Friday, January 27, 2006

Earlier this month, Washington Monthly, published an article on Markos Moulitsas Zuniga, proprietor of the "Daily Kos." It highlighted Kos's affection for sports and his lack of interest in actual policy. This is something that becomes rapidly apparent in his blog entries. Kos doesn't care about issues and he said so to the Washington Monthly .

"They want to make me into the latest Jesse Jackson, but I'm not ideological at all," Moulitsas told me, "I'm just all about winning."

Case in point, his latest, and possibly most preposterous post yet on yesterday's Daily Kos. According to Kos, the fact that the Dems can't muster a filibuster in the face of the deeply frightening Alito nomination, is not call to abandon the party, says Kos.

As many of you freak out at the Democrats, you need to keep some things in mind.

We only have 44 Democrats. 44. Jeffords was a Republican and remains one of the two most conservative member of our caucus. We lose Nebraska's Ben Nelson more often than we get him because of local political factors. So we're down to 43.

43.

Not much of a margin for error, is it?

And, of course, he couldn't resist a sports analogy.

That remains to be seen, but if [Reid] pulled it off, it would be the political equivalent of pitching a no-hitter (as opposed to a perfect game).

But what Kos is doing is more akin to scolding fans for not sticking with their losing team, than carving a winning strategy for Democrats. Yes there is a difference between the civic responsibility of voters and the dollar votes of season ticket holders. One is about recreation. The other, the future of the free world. That is precisely why Kos's bloviating is so misplaced. The problem is the party, not the people, as my esteemed colleague, the Blogging Curmudgeon, points out in the thread on Daily Kos.

Here's the essence of Kos' plan:

We abandon our deeply-held principles, hold our noses, and vote for Democrats whose policies and principles make them DINOs (Democrats In Name Only).

Those DINOS then allow the Democratic Party to control committees, liberals are elected to the leadership, hurrah, all is well.

EXCEPT things don't work that way.

Here's what REALLY happens:

The DINOS get into office--then, with the power of incumbency, they stay there for election after election. The DINOS vote with the big corporations because that's their financial backers. The DINOs feel free to tell the Democratic Senate Majority leader to go fuck himself because they're not dependent on him for ANYTHING--they can line up plenty of endorsements and money from their corporate financiers.

Principles matter. Ideology matters. They are NOT irrelevant nor inconsequential. Supporting fake Republicans so "we" get the majority doesn't work because what we get are a lot of traitors in the party who fuck us over on important votes--like the Alito nomination.

As the Blogging Curmudgeon has said repeatedly, Dems will continue to lose if they keep quibbling over a few percentage points, rather than returning to their progressive, populist roots and giving even disgruntled voters a reason to hope on election day.

Football is indeed a game of inches, as Al Pacino says in "Any Given Sunday," in the kind of pep talk that could only be created by Hollywood script writers. But Republicans are playing for keeps and our pathetic defensive linemen in the Democratic Party are not losing a game. They're losing the Republic.