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Bloggers In Awe Of Bill Clinton

After his encounter with former President Bill Clinton in New York yesterday, Chris Bowers of MyDD was awestruck.

He said he "felt a tremendous swelling of patriotic pride and love for America" during the lunch Clinton hosted for select Democratic bloggers. And afterward, Bowers called the experience "a dizzying and remarkable moment that reminds you just what the true promise of this nation really is, of the greatness we have achieved, and of the still yet untapped potential of America to accomplish far greater things still."

Sadly, Bowers' colorful but uniformative commentary is about all that curious blog readers can find about Clinton's unprecedented netroots lunch. For now at least, the bloggers who attended are far too enthralled by the whole experience (perhaps understandably so) to actually give people much substance from the lunch.

The Carpetbagger Report has one of the few newsworthy posts I've seen on the lunch. It revealed that "about a year ago, the former president began reading blogs, from both sides of the aisle, and his daily press clippings compiled by his staff include blog posts of particular interest. It seems to have piqued his interest in the medium -- how blogs fit into the left's infrastructure, what the impact the medium has on news dissemination overall."

But even that entry transformed into Clinton hero worship.

It reminds me of the way Republican bloggers behaved when they were invited to Washington earlier this year and given insider access to a steady stream of GOP dignitaries. The courtship of the blogosphere continues.

Here are links to and excerpts from the two better reports from the Clinton blog lunch:

-- Liberal Oasis: Clinton "dismissed criticism of liberal bloggers as counterproductive extremists. This is a healthy development -- for someone of Clinton's stature to recognize that blogs are more than potential ATMs to be talked down to, but can positively shape political discourse and create a more hospitable environment for Democrats to thrive. ... As more and more people already in positions of great influence become open to really hearing the substance that originates in the blogosphere, the influence of entrenched special interests wanes, and the voices of the grassroots get louder. Yesterday was a step in that direction."

-- Daily Kos: "He's very impressed by the amount of research and fact-checking that happens on the blogs on a daily basis, particulary compared to the traditional media. ... He was impressed and grateful for the work done in pushing into the mainstream the travesty that the ABC/Disney movie was. He encouraged Democrats running for election this year to run as Democrats -- to not run away from the party and to stand tough on Iraq -- regardless of their position on troop reductions, pullout, whatever."

The Mahablog, Seeing the Forest and TalkLeft also have posts on the event, though they don't say much. And there is nothing yet at Crooks and Liars, Eschaton, Feministing and Firedoglake, which were represented either in New York or by telephone.

UPDATE: John Amato of Crooks and Liars, Jessica Valenti of Feministing and Jane Hamsher of Firedoglake now have posts on the meeting, but they are no more substantive than the others.

Hamsher used her space to take a potshot at high-level Democrats who like to say bad things about bloggers. "Maybe all those snappy, forward-thinkers in the Democratic Party who might have an interest in doing likewise could leave off calling us dirty urchins long enough to figure out most of us are actually successful professionals who have some interesting things to say and a lively place to say it," she wrote.

Jeralyn Merritt of TalkLeft updated her post with a few more details of the meeting, including Clinton's thoughts on criminal justice, a favorite topic of Merritt's. "We also talked about America's criminal justice system, how politicians are too afraid to do what's right, about the over-jailing of offenders, particularly those with minor drug offenses, about mandatory-minimum sentences and how they haven't worked or promoted fairness," she wrote. "He said former offenders should regain the right to vote."

Also see Merritt's comment on my entry below.

Posted by Danny | 10:34 AM

Comments

The reason some of us didn't have more at the time you wrote your post was because we had flown back to the other side of the country, were trying to sort out our photos and quite simply, were still relishing the afternoon.

In an update I wrote:

I offered [President Clinton] the opportunity to blog at TalkLeft -- I added that I'm sure all of us at the table would welcome guest posts from him. He said he might take us up on it.

My commenters were pretty harsh on the former President. My response:

As for those of you who seem to assume the conversation was one-way and we were just listening to spin, we bloggers did our fair share of the talking. And he listened intently and responded on point.

As to the substance of our conversation,

We talked about the Iraq War, the alleged terrorists in overseas secret prisons, health care (he said John Kerry's plan was the best of all, including his own) and he had nothing but praise for bloggers. While many of the mainstream politicians view us as the outlaw element of political society, up to no good, President Clinton has a different view. He complimented us on our fact-checking and our ability to get the word out on a moment's notice, such as the last week's blogswarm over ABC's movie, "The Path to 9/11″, which was written by a GOP guy and contained major inaccuracies as to what was done and not done during Clinton's terms.

We also talked about America's criminal justice system, how politicians are too afraid to do what's right, about the over-jailing of offenders, particularly those with minor drug offenses, about mandatory minimum sentences and how they haven't worked or promoted fairness. He said former offenders should regain the right to vote.

It was a heady experience, and one I will always appreciate and remember. How many of you have had the opportunity to sit down with a President for two hours, with your child, no less? In terms of access and being heard, which are primary goals of netroots and grassroots activism, it doesn't get any better than this.

TalkLeft | 09.13.06 07:41 PM

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