Talking the loudest
Yesterday morning, Markos of Daily Kos fame, went on Meet The Press to participate in a confusing and borderline ridiculous debate with Harold Ford, the current chairman of the Democratic Leadership Council.
And it revealed why, despite sharing some common ideological visions with members of the Daily Kos community, I feel like it's more and more like romper-room over there. In one fell swoop, Kos proceeded to blame the DLC for the Minnesota bridge disaster, take full and complete credit for the recent Democratic takeover of Congress and complete rewrite the rules of logical debate to benefit only him, while harming Ford.
It was truly astonishing to watch, particularly the latter point I allude to. Kos took great effort throughout the discussion to chastise Ford for poormouthing Democrats on a variety of media outlets, namely Fox News. After enduring 10 minutes or so of such childish attacks with grace and respect, Ford finally responded ...
REP. FORD: But, but, Markos, in all fairness, your site has posted awful things about Jewish-Americans. Your site ... You - now you have a site up about ... something about Cindy Sheehan, she uses it as a - she has a heavy presence there in talking about her run against ...
MR. MOULITSAS: It's called democracy. If you don't like regular people--hundreds of thousands of people ... Because I don't control hundreds of thousands of voices. You and your organization have a few dozen people. You can control that message. And you don't need to attack Democrats.
Hmmmmm ... anyone else see this? It's democratic for Daily Kos to lambast Ford and other centrists, but it's wrong for Ford to return the criticism. It's the type of immature logic that makes your head want to explode.
Now, hear me out ... I'm a moderate Democrat, but I've had some issues with some of the positions the DLC has taken in recent years. But they've been over ideological differences, and isn't that what we're supposed to wrestle with in politics? And, particularly since we both fall under the same party banner, shouldn't we find a way to resolve those differences and work together and not bristle when someone says 'I think X is a better way to do that?'
I've never fully grasped this need for the Daily Kos community, along with many others in the liberal blogsophere, to believe that they are responsible for the 2006 election results. Kos said his blog has about 1 million readers, which is most impressive.
However, in the 2004 election, 48 million people voted for the Democratic nominee for president. Am I to believe that 1/48 of the Democratic voting population is responsible for this change?
It's part of the ironic frustration that I have as a blogger. I recognize that my blog provides commentary on existing current events. I play a small role in conveying views and opinions, but I would never be so arrogant to think that I have the ability to sway an election (even a local one).
And it revealed why, despite sharing some common ideological visions with members of the Daily Kos community, I feel like it's more and more like romper-room over there. In one fell swoop, Kos proceeded to blame the DLC for the Minnesota bridge disaster, take full and complete credit for the recent Democratic takeover of Congress and complete rewrite the rules of logical debate to benefit only him, while harming Ford.
It was truly astonishing to watch, particularly the latter point I allude to. Kos took great effort throughout the discussion to chastise Ford for poormouthing Democrats on a variety of media outlets, namely Fox News. After enduring 10 minutes or so of such childish attacks with grace and respect, Ford finally responded ...
REP. FORD: But, but, Markos, in all fairness, your site has posted awful things about Jewish-Americans. Your site ... You - now you have a site up about ... something about Cindy Sheehan, she uses it as a - she has a heavy presence there in talking about her run against ...
MR. MOULITSAS: It's called democracy. If you don't like regular people--hundreds of thousands of people ... Because I don't control hundreds of thousands of voices. You and your organization have a few dozen people. You can control that message. And you don't need to attack Democrats.
Hmmmmm ... anyone else see this? It's democratic for Daily Kos to lambast Ford and other centrists, but it's wrong for Ford to return the criticism. It's the type of immature logic that makes your head want to explode.
Now, hear me out ... I'm a moderate Democrat, but I've had some issues with some of the positions the DLC has taken in recent years. But they've been over ideological differences, and isn't that what we're supposed to wrestle with in politics? And, particularly since we both fall under the same party banner, shouldn't we find a way to resolve those differences and work together and not bristle when someone says 'I think X is a better way to do that?'
I've never fully grasped this need for the Daily Kos community, along with many others in the liberal blogsophere, to believe that they are responsible for the 2006 election results. Kos said his blog has about 1 million readers, which is most impressive.
However, in the 2004 election, 48 million people voted for the Democratic nominee for president. Am I to believe that 1/48 of the Democratic voting population is responsible for this change?
It's part of the ironic frustration that I have as a blogger. I recognize that my blog provides commentary on existing current events. I play a small role in conveying views and opinions, but I would never be so arrogant to think that I have the ability to sway an election (even a local one).
posted by Jmac at 2:42 PM
12 Comments:
Every time I hang out for a while at Daily Kos or My DD, I'm reminded of how moderate I really am.
I haven't been keeping up at all...how's that Eric Gagne trade working out?
Couldn't resist.
This comment has been removed by the author.
I never go to Kos any more. I used to go there daily and once found it very useful. Then I began to realize that most of what I read there was fueled by emotion, not reason, and it wasn't the healthiest kind of reason. Further more try posting something unconventional or slightly "to the right" of what the majority of people want to hear. The criticism is withering. So, while it beats Freerepublic or something like that, so what? A nut is still a nut.
My fear is that we are headed toward a Gore 2000 moment. Despite the widespread disenchantment with Bush, and with republicans generally, we might not get a democratic President.
As in 2000, when Nader voters bought into the "there's no difference between the major parties," I fear that much of the net-driven left will fail to turn out for the democratic nominee, particularly if that nominee is HRC. Let's try to learn from 2000. A democrat who isn't quite as liberal a you want is much metter than any of the republican field.
Darren
A democrat who isn't quite as liberal a you want is much metter than any of the republican field.
I swear to god. If anyone gets on my case about this this time around, I'm going to... well, I'm not really going to do anything except complain on the internet, but there is a difference between "not quite as liberal as you want" and "has _significant_ ideological differences from you."
HB-
We've had this discussion before. I trust your judgment; you'll make a logical vote for you. At some point, though, I think you have to suck it up and vote to keep out the bad option.
Out of curiosity, do you believe that you have significant ideological differences with the democratic Big 3? None of them are exactly Mark Taylor as the democratic nominee for governor of Georgia, after all.
And thanks for cutting and pasting my words, complete with "metter" where it should have said "better."
Darren
Metter a liberal than a Republican, I always say.
It's Girardian rivalry all over again, anyway.
After living in New Orleans, lo, these past ten months...
Anything greater than zero is more. Sometimes you just got to hold your nose and vote for the lesser of two evils. Please, do it. Otherwise, you could end up with folks like Nagin in charge of things, and your ideological purity will not help you when the murder rate gets this high.
YW, Darren. I had a brief crisis of conscience over whether to make the correction or not.
Anyway, yes, I do think I have some pretty strong ideological differences with those folks, mostly with regard to Iraq. I still don't know if I can vote based on that issue. I can probably make a decision based on how likely I think particular candidates are to get us into something like that again. And, frankly, I think Hillary C's more likely to do that than some of the Republican candidates (well, Ron Paul). If the candidate ends up being Obama or Edwards in the general election, I'll probably be okay with it, but we'll see what's said during the next year and three months, you know?
Metter a liberal?
Metter is between Dublin and Savannnah, and I don't think it is liberal at all.
I'm happy someone finally made the Metter, Ga joke out of my typo. I figured I was disqualified.
Darren
I grew up falling asleep to those Michael Guido "Seed from the Sower" short sermons.
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