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The 'Angry, Adolescent Glory' Of Liberal Blogs

Dan Gerstein was despised by leading liberal bloggers last year when he served as a communications director for the re-election campaign of Sen. Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn.

Gerstein got his revenge today with an anti-netroots screed in political Washington's newest publication, The Politico. The basis of his argument was the netroots reaction to the first blog scandal of Campaign 2008 -- the hiring and eventual resignation of two bloggers by Democratic candidate John Edwards.

Here's an excerpt of Gerstein's column:

Throughout the course of the controversy, the left’s bigger digital diatribers never stopped to address the substance of what the Edwards bloggers actually wrote before joining the campaign. Had the bloggers done so, they might have found the postings were widely deemed by Democrats and Republicans alike as bigoted and patently offensive to many Christians, not just devout Catholics or evangelicals.

Nor did they ever stop to think how hollow and hypocritical it sounded for the same people who ravaged George Allen, for his "macaca" moment in last year's Virginia Senate campaign to cry "free speech" when confronted with a far more nasty, vulgar, and hurtful display of prejudice from two of their own.

Instead, right until the bitter end, most liberal bloggers responded in their familiar mode -- by lashing out at their critics and trying to marginalize them. This was, in their eyes, purely a manufactured controversy by the "right-wing smear machine" and a cynical attempt to silence and marginalize the netroots.

I haven't seen any significant reaction to the piece yet and what's out there has been rather restrained for bloggers. That tells me one of two things: 1) Gerstein is irrelevant and not worth liberal bloggers' time now that he's not working for Lieberman; or 2) not many of them are reading The Politico.

At his Dangerous Thoughts blog, Gerstein had more to say about his own column than his critics, including his prediction that bloggers would prove his thesis by further attacking him.

"Hard as this may be for my critics in the netroots to believe, I want this incredibly powerful medium to reach its potential as a democratizing and empowering force in our politics," Gerstein wrote. "But for that to happen, it has to grow up and shake off its growing reputation as an online 'Lord of the Flies' theme park. In that respect, my column was another attempt to hold up a mirror to the madness."

DotCommonweal seconded Gerstein's point and said "it's time for establishment Democrats to re-evaluate their relationship with Kos and company. ... There is certainly something exciting about what the Internet, especially blogs, can offer political discourse. But the notion that well-mannered commentary is antithetical to the nature of the blogosphere, especially when it's an uncomfortable fit for bloggers, if allowed to guide the lefty netroots, may go a long way to ensuring their obsolescence in the years to come."

Posted by Danny | 09:17 PM

Comments

I'm going to go with 2. I say that because not many have reacted to the article detailing the Democratic strategy which will avoid seeking to de-fund the war so as to avoid the smear of not supporting the troops. I imagine quite a few liberal bloggers would have something to say about that, but so far, hardly a peep.

Xanthippas | 02.16.07 11:28 PM

Surely Daniel you notice this dual doublespeak meme is the flavor of the month along the entire GOP machine. Like the non-binding House resolution passed on Friday, the "liberal bloggers" are being touted as both completely indicative proof of the entire Democratic Party's inherent anti-American elitistism while at the same time they are also totally irrelevant, obsolescent, and meaningless outside their own "echo chambers."

Funny how that works. Either they are a tautology or a trifle. The reason Gerstein's being ignored by the liberal bloggers is because he's not saying anything. He cancels himself out.

Zandar | 02.17.07 09:58 AM

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