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June 23, 2006BELTWAY BLOGROLL
Friday Festival Of Blog Bits (The Kos Edition)
The big news in the blogosphere this week may not be all that newsworthy -- at least not yet -- but bloggers everywhere are talking about it. The issue is the ethics of two of the left's best-known bloggers, Markos Moulitsas Zuniga of Daily Kos and his "blogfather," MyDD founder Jerome Armstrong.
The trouble for Armstrong and Moulitsas actually began a few weeks ago, when Salon published a piece that pegged Armstrong as "just another political consultant." The duo had ridden a wave of positive publicity for weeks after the publication of their book "Crashing The Gates," but the flip side of fame is that it often makes the media cast a more critical eye upon the newly famous. While the Salon piece didn't generate much buzz, it hinted at more scrutiny to come.
Moulitsas and the netroots movement he and Armstrong helped foster enjoyed another burst of mixed publicity earlier this month. The subject was the much-hyped YearlyKos convention in Las Vegas. Moulitsas appeared on NBC's "Meet The Press," but he also found himself and his community as the subjects of numerous critical articles and blog entries.
Armstrong, meanwhile, indirectly became enmeshed in controversy because of the work he is doing as a consultant for Mark Warner. The former Virginia governor threw a lavish party at the convention and openly tried to woo liberal bloggers who fashion themselves kingmakers in the Democratic Party these days. Not everyone in the liberal blogosphere thought that was such a great move, and substantive critiques of Warner on policy issues continue to surface online.
Late last week, The Opinionator, a subscription-based blog of The New York Times, entered the fray as it tried to connect some seemingly unrelated dots: Moulitsas' influence as a publisher; his former political consulting partnership with Armstrong; Armstrong's work as a consultant during and after his business relationship with Moulitsas; and Armstrong's pre-blogfather settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission over his role in touting various stocks in Internet forums.
Then on Sunday, in a story slugged "Shill To Hack: Celebrated Lib Strategist Has Shady Market Past," the New York Post pointedly detailed the allegations about Armstrong in a forum that everyone could read. From there, the story snowballed, and now the controversy has splintered into a whole series of mini-controversies.
Here are some of the bigger, most intriguing and just plain bizarre storylines that have developed, with plenty of links for your reading pleasure (or insomnia treatment):
-- When Armstrong says "Jump!" for the candidates who hire him, Moulitsas says "How high?" RedState dubbed the unspoken (and unproven) arrangement "Hype For Hire." Jim Geragthy of National Review Online pulled together a timeline to make the case. Mickey Kaus of Slate also has been making the claim. Moulitsas proved that he could have a future in politics by offering a non-denial denial.
-- Like all other political machines in American history, the netroots noise machine that Kos celebrates is run with an iron fist. Moulitsas controls the membership of the Liberal Blog Advertising Network, and other bloggers listen when he tells them to stay silent. Liberal bloggers are becoming the monster they are fighting. Not so, Moulitsas said in finally breaking his silence -- at which point other blogs like MaxSpeak, MyDD (here and here), Pandagon and Tapped started talking.
-- The New Republic is a tool of the right. Moulitsas leveled that charge when one of the traditionally liberal magazine's bloggers suggested that Kos is the puppetmaster of the netroots. TNR owner Martin Peretz countered with an attack on Moulitsas. Moderate Democrat Ed Kilgore of New Donkey also challenged Moulitsas' ridiculous argument that just because TNR dared to challenge him, they are part of a right-wing conspiracy.
-- Moulitsas is a hypocrite. That was the conclusion from both the right (Captain's Quarters) and the left (a commenter at Pandagon) after hearing about some of the behind-the-scenes activities of the netroots. Wrote Ed Morrissey: "[I]t's exactly the kind of coordination that the left often tosses out as accusations against their political opponents -- and this shows a significant level of hypocrisy in those accusations."
-- The netroots movement will fall. "[I]t's a myth based upon a lie sitting upon a foundation of fragmented political thought. The genesis for the Netroots movement stems from a fixation on, first the stockmarket, then astrology, and it only found politics, probably, when it was barred from engaging in a previous financial fascination that ultimately led to real trouble with the SEC." Jonah Goldberg offered a slightly different view at National Review Online, arguing that if Democrats regain control of Congress and the White House, the netroots will become irrelevant because they have nothing interesting to say. Instead, they're all about winning.
-- The blog war is a direct reaction to the growing power of the netroots and proof that the gates of the political establishment not only will be crashed but toppled. Yes, Moulitsas managed to turn the controversy into a not-so-subtle plug for his book in an appearance today at NDN, a think tank for "new Democrats." (The Corner has a partial transcript for the preceeding video link from PoliticsTV.)
-- "Elite bloggers" are better than the elites of the political and journalistic establishments. That's what Micah Sifry said at Personal Democracy Forum: "[T]he people who will hold him accountable are his reader-writers, who are hardnly a herd of cattle. That's the blogger creed. It may not work perfectly, but compare that level of accountability to the sort of impunity assumed by elite politicians and elite journalists, and I'll take the blogger creed any day."
-- Armstrong is a fan of astrology -- the implication being that he is not to be taken seriously. This would be one of those bizarre storylines I mentioned, with RedState, Riehl World View and Wizbang on the case. The revelation doesn't seem relevant to anything and sounds like the beginnings of a smear campaign much like the one directed at conservative blogger Ben Domenech earlier this year. Liberal bloggers dug until they found something on Domenech (plagiarism) that stuck. Now some bloggers on the right seem to be on a quest for the smoking gun that will topple Armstrong, Moultisas or both.
Unrelated to the scandal surrounding Moulitsas and his machine, David Broder of The Washington Post picked this week to pen a commentary about the shortcomings of the netroots, as opposed to some new Democratic activism with online connections.
Here's the slam: "[T]he blogs I have scanned are heavier on vituperation of President Bush and other targets than on creative thought. The candidates who have been adopted as heroes by Markos Moulitsas Zuniga, the convention's leader, and his fellow bloggers have mainly imploded in the heat of battle ... or come up short."
Enough About Kos
For folks who want a more balanced Friday blog diet, check out these other stories from the week:
-- The Senate Commerce Committee began its telecommunications debate yesterday, and blogs like Daily Kos, Firedoglake and MyDD that are pushing for "network neutrality" on the high-speed Internet are urging their readers to call the key lawmakers.
-- Americablog resurrected its complaint about the House's sudden and unexplained inaction on legislation designed to ensure the privacy of cellular telephone records. I addressed the subject in a February column.
-- The Theme Team of the House Republican Conference is holding another blog workshop this morning for congressional staffers in the party. It's a follow-up to the session where I spoke in March. The staff of Theme Team Chairman Jack Kingston of Georgia also organized two conference calls with bloggers this week, one on immigration legislation and the other on the Voting Rights Act.
-- What will the House look like if Democrats regain control? Patrick Hynes of Ankle Biting Pundits fearfully noted two possibilities: Howard Berman of California as chairman of the ethics committee and Alcee Hastings of Florida as chairman of the Intelligence Committee.
-- Matt Stoller of MyDD, who wants Democrats to run the House again, had kind words for Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., after Waxman filed a bill to address global warming.
-- Wizbang had the scoop on how the prosecutor in a high-profile rape case in North Carolina condemned bloggers (and the mainstream media) for "speculation" about evidence in the case.
-- Jeralyn Merritt of TalkLeft penned her first column for The Examiner. The topic: "Bloggers, Karl Rove And The Presumption Of Guilt."
-- Mark Tapscott of The Examiner, who tapped Merritt as part of his "blog board of contributors," pointed readers of his blog to an article that touts a "citizen auditor Web service" as a check against government spending. Tapscott also penned a response to my recent entries on the convergence of blogs and the MSM.
-- The brouhaha over blogs being blocked on government-owned computers in Kentucky prompted Copyfight to pose this question: "Is 'Blog-Swarming' A New Journalism?"
-- Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack, a Democrat, won some praise for a recent blog entry at Daily Kos, and John Edwards, a former Democratic senator from North Carolina and 2004 vice presidential candidate, earned kudos for his latest video podcast.
Posted by Danny | 05:30 PM
