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June 25, 2006BELTWAY BLOGROLL
The 'Blogfather' Breaks His Silence
Jerome Armstrong used the MyDD forum he created to finally respond to ethics outcry against him and co-author Markos Moulitsas Zuniga of Daily Kos.
"Let me just state for the record that any payola allegations or some quid pro quo deal involving Markos and myself are complete fabrications," wrote Armstrong, whom Moulitsas calls his "blogfather."
Armstrong's comment was posted as an addendum to a post authored by Matt Stoller that was dismissive of the ongoing controversy. "I think these insiders and Republicans are just obsessed with us," wrote Stoller, who has faced criticism himself at The Channel Changer for his "apparent lack of concern about the (Jerome) Armstrong dust-up."
Moulitsas, sounding like the leader of an effort that he alternatively has called both a leaderless movement and an "everybody-who's-part-of-it-is-a-leader" movement, also took to the Internet yesterday afternoon and urged the netroots to stay the course.
"Just a quick reminder as the media nip at our heels: We didn't get here because of them," he wrote. "They can praise us, they can trash us, they can ignore us, and ultimately none of that will matter as long as we keep doing what we've been doing."
Matt Margolis of GOP Bloggers, meanwhile, has some thoughts on Moulitsas as a leader. Commenting on a statement by Moulitsas to Newsweek, Margolis wrote:
The way Markos talks, he clearly thinks he's the messiah of the Democratic Party. ... What Kos fails to understand is that the greater influence he does have in the Democratic Party, the more Republicans are going to win. And if he wants to ignore that fact, by all means, he should continue what he's doing. Kos not only suffers from delusions of grandeur, but he also harbors delusions that he is in the mainstream, and that Republicans and moderate Democrats are not.
UPDATE: Moulitsas' stay-the-course message, apparently written in response to a critical New York Times piece by conservative writer David Brooks (subscription only), was not well-received by one diarist at his site. And her admonition to Moulitsas that "The Cover-Up Is Worse Than The Crime" was not well-received by the Daily Kos community.
The diarist, Karen Collins, just happens to be married to journalist and former America Online editorial director Jesse Kornbluth, who counter-attacked at The Huffington Post. Some excerpts:
For better or worse, Markos is on trial. And this is tragic, for the site is one of the greatest on the Web and Markos, on his worst day, is a zillion times the man and thinker that Brooks is on his best. But in his e-mail, Markos got it exactly backward. If the "news" about Armstrong is indeed nothing, he would have done better to suggest that his friends in the progressive community write about it. ... But there's an easy way out: Markos, do what my wife asked --- give us an explanation. And then promise you'll never send another e-mail that makes you look like Vito Corleone [of "The Godfather" movies] telling the Tattaglias and Barzinis what to do.
Also at The Huffington Post, Marty Kaplan offered a different view of Brooks' column.
UPDATE II: Armstrong now has responded to the astrology angle to the story (same MyDD link as above). "I have done the new-age-type things over the years -- life's never boring that way," he wrote, adding that "it has nothing to do with what I consult with in online political strategy."
Posted by Danny | 04:14 PM
