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Don’t Cross the ‘Cult of Kos’ or You’ll Live to Regret It

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102 Responses to “Don’t Cross the ‘Cult of Kos’ or You’ll Live to Regret It”

eric says:

July 10, 2006 at 9:04 PM

i called john kerry a crowd quisling because during the campaign for the nomination for both 04 and now for 08 his first principle has been to appease the crowd in front of him. he now has an even bigger onus to finally be consistent, so he plays for bloggers by “courageously” finally coming down to his lonely stand on deserting commitments we have made. (need to be consistent is now greater than his appeasement which got him into so much trouble.) the party knows this, and that is why he won’t get the nomination again. i am a repub who wanted him to do well because gwb makes me cringe so much, but kerry was, to apply your words to a different context, absolutely horrid. he has dreamt since the 1960s of being the next jfk. the real jfk, flaws and all, would never recognize him or what this party has become. on prior comments, of course i recognize the thread is about intolerance within the left community, and i understand that a comment about intolerance to the right might be seen as interloping. but it is not. it is all of a cloth. btw, if you conur there is as much intolerance on left as on right, i’d be happy with that place of agreement. and yes of course i read all of the columnists, and i read both left and right. i can “tolerate”just about anything except the vivid and daily reinforced impression that the leadership of the left hates gwb more than it hates the sworn enemies of the country, and that it takes its hatred of bush more seriously than it takes the sworn enemics of your children and mine. and more and more of the country gets the same impression, which is why although 2006 should be a dem cakewalk the party still can’t find a consistent voice outside of the likes of markos and howard and and cindy teddy and increasingly strange mr murtha. and those folks don’t measure up.

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eric says:

July 10, 2006 at 9:07 PM

sorry for the transposed words in the last sentence. and i don’t mean to distract the thread. it is an interesting exchange and i probably should have jumped in on another thread. i’ll leave this one alone, but thanks for the airing./e

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kidneystones says:

July 10, 2006 at 9:27 PM

Hi Richard,

I read your diary and MaryScottOConner’s screed in defense and can’t quite make up my mind whether you’re willfully ignorant, duplicituous, simply self-promoting, or some combination of all three.

I’ve been on the receiving end of a few of comment swarms and admit it can be a bit confusing trying to keep up with the various ad hominum attacks, slurs and outrageously unsupportable analogies.

But that’s the nature of the beast. And part and parcel of the entire KOS experience, an experience I suspect you understand very well.

You may, as you assert, be completely ignorant of tagging rules, trusted user status, troll-wars and the arcane details that underpin the operations of Daily Kos. Certainly as a KOS diarist you’ve done little to explain these operations to readers here. Nor, do I see, on first reading, any clear reference to the KOS FAQ which appears on your KOS home page, in which all these operations are described and explained in some detail.

Good work!

Like you, I was somewhat confused about the accussations of dishonesty being bandied about. And, operating from a state of ignorance decided to look into the charges being levelled against Markos. I visited the sites, researched and came away with the sense that there was no substantive proof of any kind despite the legions of accussations being parroted about the web.

Sill unsure of my conclusions, I turned in the end to Markos critic Mickey Kaus for the defnitive statement about the actual instances of clear corruption. Kaus is not beholden to KOS in any way and is famously aggressive in his attacks on Markos. To paraphrase Kaus, Markos cannot be conclusively linked to any act of corruption, even on an attenuated scale of four possible levels of corruption, Markos still skates on two.

So we have an avowedly and openly hostile Markos critic declaring that Markos is factually innocent of all charges of corruption.

Not good enough for you?

Fair enough.

Post your diary. But be aware that yours is not the first diary on the topic, but rather merely one of the most recent in a long series of unsubstantiated attacks of Markos and the community he serves.. Indeed, your original questions about Markos have morphed into a much larger attack on the KOS community as a whole, myself included, a community composed primarily of readers, rather than writers. And I con’t care much for this sort of attack on my independence.

I’ve been openly critical of Markos, his attacks on Hillary and Bill in comments and diaries at Daily Kos, and openly question his political accumen and judgment. I’ve written a number of diaries that have advanced ideas unpopular to many of those who choose to comment on the site, the active minority. And guess what, I always come away better informed about the strengths and weaknesses in my arguments. Getting told “to blow it out my ass” is simply another version of “your arguments are completely unsupportable.”

The idea, then, that debate is unreasonably stifled at Daily Kos is, based on my own experiences, transparently flawed. Criticism of your piece was served up. Were it the first diary or commentary on the subject, it might well have been ripped apart with even greater enthusiasm. So what? I can still read the diary you wrote.

Most folks don’t like your diary and many ojbect to what they see as your laziness.

What’s the problem?

You’re a victim.

KOS diarists email you to apologize. You have a link via Slate.

Your diary and the resulting commentary seems a fairly well executed exercise in self-promotion.

Nothing at all wrong with that.

Enjoy the bump in traffic.

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Richard Silverstein says:

July 10, 2006 at 10:06 PM

Markos cannot be conclusively linked to any act of corruption, even on an attenuated scale of four possible levels of corruption, Markos still skates on two.

So we have an avowedly and openly hostile Markos critic declaring that Markos is factually innocent of all charges of corruption.

Kidneystones: Your comment is about as welcome as a Kidneystone. What an apt name you chose.

Anyway, my diary is NOT an attack on Kos and I explicitly said this in the diary and I’ve written it at least once before in this comment thread. Sheesh, complaining I don’t read the Kos FAQs when you haven’t even bothered to read the diary you’re attacking. Or at least if you’ve read it you haven’t grasped what I wrote.

And as for your claim that Kos is off the hook because he is “factually innocent of all charges of corruption,” that’s a mighty good indicator of someone’s ethical purity! “Even on an attenuated scale of four possible levels of corruption, Markos still skates on two.” So does that mean he’s only half-way toward being outright corrupt? I guess that standard may satisfy you but it doesn’t me and it shouldn’t satisfy other progressives. I want transparency and full disclosure of potential conflicts of interest. That’s quite a bit more demanding a standard than” innocent of corruption.”

your original questions about Markos have morphed into a much larger attack on the KOS community as a whole,

Oh, puh-leeze! Because Mickey Kaus, Little Green Footballs and Real Clear Politics have linked to this controversy you think the sky’s going to fall in at DKos? Gimme a break. I think the site and the movement it represents are a bit stronger than that.

As I’ve written here, if Armando and the acolytes hadn’t played games with my tags, troll rated my comment & spewed crap at me, those other sites would still be attacking Kos but just using some other pretext to do so. Armando has only himself to blame for the attacks on DKos.

I…can’t quite make up my mind whether you’re willfully ignorant, duplicituous, simply self-promoting, or some combination of all three.

C’mon. “Can’t quite make up yr mind??” What is that suppoed to be–some kind of rhetorical device? You quite made up your mind to think the worst of me. Why aren’t you big enough to write what you really mean? And your opinion means an awful lot to me and I’m simply heartbroken that you think the worst of me. For yr information, I didn’t publicize this controversy except by writing this post at a site visited by 600 people a day. No one would’ve known about my diary being trashed if Maryscott O’Connor hadn’t written about it. If I’m such a self-promoter I must’ve somehow bamboozled her to write about it, right? Wrong. I don’t know MSOC. Didn’t know her website. Didn’t know she was writing about my diary. Never asked her to do so (though I’m pleased that she did). So much for my grand conspiracy to promote myself.

It never crossed yr mind that there may be actual values embedded within Maryscott’s and my posts that we wish for the progressive blogosphere to uphold when it comes to political blogging? Thanks for giving yr opponent the benefit of the doubt.

And contrary to you, I don’t enjoy reading the Kos FAQs. So I knew nothing about vandalizing tags and troll-rating comments. Nor did I know about trusted users. So shoot me. I’ve got better things to do than learn the arcane internal operational principles of DKos. But from what I’ve learned about them, they’re about as opposite to the type of transparency I wrote about as you could hope to find.

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eric says:

July 10, 2006 at 10:08 PM

I’ll reverse course and comment on a couple of your comments, Richard.

“eric: There is a diff. bet. PlaidPolarBear’s attitude toward the left & yours. He tries to assume the basic humanity of someone he disagrees with & you see yourself as the victim of the left (which doesn’t presume that our side has humanity when it comes to how we see you).

Saying that Howard Dean sees you as “evil” is using him as a convenient whipping boy to reinforce all yr worst fears & hatred of the left. Besides where precisely did he say you are ‘evil?’ It’s easy to throw around charges, but let’s back them up or not level them.”

My point is that I don’t just try, but I do assume the basic humanity of people I disagree with. I morphed, in any case, from liberal to conservative. I campaigned for Paul Simon in Illinois, voted for Jesse Jackson for President in a primary, could not being myself to vote for GB41, but simnilarly could not bring myself to vote for Al Gore or John Kerry. I could not vote for GWB in 2000 and went with Nader, but voted for GWB in 2004. But Richard, I do assume, embrace, find joy in the humanity of people with whom I disagree. And, well, I guess those who disagree with me and know me feel the same way about me. That’s just the simple truth. BTW, I am not a victim of the left, never occurred to me to think that way.

Yes, Howard Dean’s disparaging comments do connect and add up to slander of evil against Christians. It is not hard to document. I don’t need him as a convenient whipping boy. He has plainly said he considers the Repubs to be evil, and he has plainly said Repubs are a bunch of white Christian males. So I do not need a phd to connect those two dots. He is an embarrasment. (A lot of libs do it. Even Jimmy Carter, who equates conservative Christians with Islamist fundamentalism. That is so unbelievably stupid and damaging to national discourse as to defy belief.)

I don’t hate the left. I hate the left’s hatred. I hate the left’s laziness and celebration and putting forth of mediocre leaders, because if they could put up serious and intellectually consistent and courageous leaders, they would do the country good. Instead, we get triangulators and crowd quislings, or no-gravitas sales jobs from North Carolina. But, there is not much going on the other side. At least they know there is a real war going on.

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Richard Silverstein says:

July 10, 2006 at 10:22 PM

i can “tolerate”just about anything except the vivid and daily reinforced impression that the leadership of the left hates gwb more than it hates the sworn enemies of the country, and that it takes its hatred of bush more seriously than it takes the sworn enemics of your children and mine.

eric: This isn’t the time or the place to try to rebut yr claims about the progressive movement so I won’t. Suffice it to say that we have some pretty strong disagreements on that score.

But I do take special humbrage at the notion that the left hates Bush more than it hates America’s enemies. In fact, I disagree with the entire notion you posit about “sworn enemies of your children and mine.” I hate George Bush because he’s making this country even more hated by its ‘sworn enemies’ than it ever was before he took office. In addition, Bush is making this nation hated by its former allies as well. Hardly anyone stands with us in the War on Terror or Iraq. Everyone’s been burned by Bush’s lies & won’t trust him as far as they can throw him.

Until 9/11, we were hated by a violent, dangerous, but fringe group of Islamic extremists. Now, we’re hated virtually the world over. George Bush did that.

But eric, pls. let’s take this conversation either to private e mail or let it lie. This particular thread isn’t an appropriate place to debate George Bush’s policies.

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Bluesee says:

July 10, 2006 at 11:39 PM

Hey, Tommy, if I thought red people were better than blue people I would have joined them.

This isn’t about race, sir, it is about politics, so kindly desist from your characterization of me, and I won’t attack you.

Yes, I think Al Franken is a better person than Rush Limbaugh. I even think Alan Colmes is a better person than Sean Hannity.

I think I am allowed my perceptions of individuals, even collections of them. You act as though your politics are not a matter of choice.

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Petey says:

July 11, 2006 at 6:29 AM

“If you read this could you provide me a link to something that talks about his involvement w. Wal-Mart?”

Here ya go: punch up this link, and search for “Armando” on that page.

Also, this BuckeyeStateBlog post discusses the issue a bit. BuckeyeState is an excellent resource in general for progressives who think something is rotten in Kos-land, as they were at ground zero for the Brown-Hackett money shenanigans.

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Dave S says:

July 11, 2006 at 11:04 AM

You should be glad that the Kos people are not in power. They would have sent you off to some sort of re-education camp. Who knows what they would do to us conservatives.

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Ken says:

July 11, 2006 at 3:27 PM

You wrote in that post:

“Second, I don’t know whether Kos himself has here addressed any or all of the issues I’m about to raise. ”

I think what many were trying to tell you was that the diary should have been written AFTER you ascertained that info.

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boadicea says:

July 11, 2006 at 4:43 PM

Repeating for hopefully the last time, I didn’t change any tags on your diary.

I believe you were being deliberately deceptive, or lazy in your arguments, and I responded accordingly.

Also, for the record, I’m not a guy.

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Ali Karim Bey says:

July 11, 2006 at 8:51 PM

I used to visit DK from the very beginning. This was when Dean was the key guy. I was in the site when his announcement in Burlington got many in the site excited. Some from the site even went there. But, I was an independent. I criticism left and right. When I went after the right, I was cheered on. When I attempted to get to the left for their intellectual dishonesty, I was banned. When the system changed, I could not survive the numbering system (where you get quickly hidden). Once I posted a note, and in less than a minute, my comment disappeared. This is tough. I do not go there. I am not tough.

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Richard Silverstein says:

July 11, 2006 at 9:49 PM

Boadicea: Yes, let’s correct the record. You claim you didn’t vandalize the tags. Though you’re a mean shite we’ll give you the benefit of the doubt. But let’s let the world see what you did write to me in the comments:

You’re missing a tag:

“Things blown out of my butt about which I am completely, utterly clueless”.

Fix that, would you?

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Richard Silverstein says:

July 11, 2006 at 11:23 PM

Christopher:

Jeb Bush in 2008!

Why do you waste your time & ours so??

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boadicea says:

July 12, 2006 at 12:17 AM

Richard, indeed I did say that.

And nothing in your behaviour subsequently has lead me to believe any different.

You were so horrified by the comment-in at least one other venue rewrote to make your putative point against me- which displays a pattern of playing fast and loose with the truth that was what caused the reaction in your original diary.

Perhaps you should convene a blogger ethics panel to refresh your own understanding.

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Richard Silverstein says:

July 12, 2006 at 12:36 AM

Boadicea:

You were so horrified by the comment-in at least one other venue rewrote to make your putative point against me- which displays a pattern of playing fast and loose with the truth that was what caused the reaction in your original diary.

I do have no idea what you’re talking about and since you don’t make your point very clearly neither will my readers I’m afraid. Playing “fast & loose with the truth?” Whatever are you talking about?

And as for playing “fast & loose with the truth” in my DKos diary–are you referring to the only factual error anyone has pointed out to me about my diary? i.e. that Kos never consulted for Sherrod Brown? If so, that’s silly because Kos has consulted for Howard Dean. If I changed the words ‘Sherrod Brown’ to ”Howard Dean’ the comment would have been true. Big deal. Why weren’t any of you big enough to point out the Dean relationship in your comments? Perhaps a bit inconvenient to you in yr attempts to demonize me? I do give Kos credit though because it appears he DID prominently note his relationship w. the Dean campaign at DKos at the time. But there are other potential conflict of interest issues he has addressed less satisfactorily (such as paid political advertising).

And btw, don’t ever try here the kind of cheap trick smarm you wrote about me at my DKos diary. I have a bit higher standards than they do over there.

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boadicea says:

July 12, 2006 at 1:06 AM

I say this in utter seriousness, Richard, because it’s an important point.

You used as your starting off point old and previously debunked charges against Kos-then you perpetuated the false equivalency of the Thune bloggers. It would be easy to find out that info, but because it didn’t fit into your premise that the blogosphere needs to be more regulated than even traditional media outlets will allow themselves to be. Britt Hume is just one example off the top of my head.

Then, when challenged vigorously-and though you’ve taken particular umbrage at my comment it was not vulgar in the way you’ve described it to heighten your own sense of victimhood-you declared we were mean and smarmy to you. If you weren’t so serious about this charge it would be laughable. It’s as if, for all your time registered on Dkos, you’d never read it.

Then, in your comments here and elsewhere about me, you repeat your charges-without correction really. The closest you come is acknowledging my comments, but even then you call me a “schmuck” and a “mean shite”-where’s your elevated discourse, eh? I thought this blog had standards?

The problem with your post was not that it criticized Kos-lots of people do that on Dkos, including on occasion me.

The problem is that you did so either dishonestly or carelessly-given the premise of this blog it appears carelessly.

That’s what put you in the crosshairs of the Kossacks.

Now, I don’t plan on returning to this blog. So I expect this is my last word on the subject.

Enjoy your victimhood if you must. It’s your time to waste.

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Richard Silverstein says:

July 12, 2006 at 1:44 AM

You used as your starting off point old and previously debunked charges against Kos-then you perpetuated the false equivalency of the Thune bloggers.

The charges (your choice of word & not the one I used in my DKos diary) you speak of could not be ‘debunked.’ The issue of ethics and transparency is a value judgment, not a high school True-False quiz. The questions I raise about Kos or Armando’s conflicts of interest or those of any political blogger can only be labelled “false” or “debunked” by someone who finds no value in serious considerations of conflict of interest. If it doesn’t bother you and doesn’t bother Kos those are value judgments you make. I believe they will end up biting you in the ass when the right starts researching who your ad sponors are and where your revenue stream comes from. But you and he are free to address or ignore them as you sit fit.

I find it interesting that for people like you & Armando the issue is settled and any issues I raised are “debunked,” while thousands of others who read MSOC’s and my pieces at DKos took quite a different view. Unless you want to label all those who found value in what we wrote as trolls and Kos enemies, there are a helluva lot of progressives for whom this issue resonates. Ignore us at yr. peril.

The problem with your attack on me is that you don’t bother to do any work in retrieving & quoting what I wrote so that I can understand precisely what it is you’re objecting to. What precisely “old charges?” Are you referring to Sherrod Brown or what?

…then you perpetuated the false equivalency of the Thune bloggers.

You merely repeat a charge you’ve read in the DKos diary thread without noting that I’ve already responded to it.

So let me repeat it again for those hard of sight:

…You’ve misunderstood…my diary. I wasn’t in any way making an “equivalence” bet. Thune & Kos. In fact, in the diary you’ll find that I say that THune’s behavior (or more accurately, the behavior of the bloggers who didn’t reveal their affiliation w. Thune) strikes me as a more serious ethical issue than anything Kos may or may not have done. And on the contrary, I mentioned THune in order to say that the Republicans have much more to answer for than we progressives on this score. So if anything I was trying to soften the perception that I might be attacking Kos in writing this about Thune.

my comment it was not vulgar in the way you’ve described it

I wrote that you told me to “blow it out my ass” when you in reality told me to “blow it out my butt.” ‘Butt’ makes this not vulgar? Guess we’ll have to let my readers decide whose view is more credible.

…Even then you call me a “schmuck” and a “mean shite”-where’s your elevated discourse, eh? I thought this blog had standards?

Now whose pride is wounded? I save vitriol for those who use it on me first. If you could’ve phrased your disagreement with me as Elwood Dowd did you’d find me calling you no names. There are a goodly number of people writing here in this thread who disagree with my politics or with my diary who managed to express themsleves w/o smarm or snark. Your diary comments were disgraceful. I just call ‘em as I see ‘em.

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LCB says:

July 12, 2006 at 5:36 AM

It seems that “tolerance” and “diversity” only mean “as long as you agree with us.”

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Blue Crab Boulevard » Blog Archive » Kos Krash? says:

July 12, 2006 at 12:41 PM

[...] I've posted about the dust-up with TNR and other major media, but hadn't really mentioned the number of fairly well known left-wing people who have expressed negativity about what is happening at Kos lately. Sounds like real world Machiavellian politics have crashed the gates, doesn't it? Yet, O'Connor is not the only Kossack having such doubts. The day before she posted her personal revelations, Richard Silverstein wrote another blog – this one conspicuously not posted at DKos – entitled "Don't Cross the 'Cult of Kos' or You'll Live to Regret It." In it, Silverstein raised a very important question: [H]ow does a political blogger who endorses candidates at his site create a transparent environment when he may also be consulting for-or have some other undisclosed relationship with-some of these same candidates? [...]

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SocraticGadfly says:

July 12, 2006 at 3:37 PM

Maryscott… nice points, but instead of handwriging, maybe actually talk to Kos, even lean on him? It’s HIS blog. And that goes for every other blanket Kos-defender posting.

Richard: I got banned over my comments on Armando the shyster and his “self outing.” Other people got banned before that for pointing out that Reid voted FOR Hayden to head the CIA. So, for you other Kos defenders who claim there’s really no controversy, let alone censorship about it, try again.

As for Armando, Richard, I’ve got a number of posts about him at my blog. Bottom line? He’s a PARTNER at McConnell Valdes, not just a staff atttorney. So, ALL of McConnell’s clients are HIS clients. That comes with the territory of partnership.

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Richard Silverstein says:

July 12, 2006 at 5:14 PM

Socratic Gadfly:

He’s a PARTNER at McConnell Valdes…So, ALL of McConnell’s clients are HIS clients. That comes with the territory of partnership.

Absolutely right & good point. My wife too is a corporate attorney. When she wants to take on a client she has to do a check to ensure the firm has no conflicts of interest (for example, representing clients who might currently be suing the potential new client).

So if Armando’s firm has a major corporate client (even if it is not HIS client) it is highly likely that if he ever wanted to blog about it he couldn’t and that if he did he’d have to color his writing in some way. A perfect example, I’m guessing you’ll never see Armando criticizing Wal-Mart’s labor practices (he has said he doesn’t write about clients). If we ever do see him doing this (Armando does have a habit of saying he will or won’t do something & then doing something quite different) we’ll know & understand his conflict whether he reveals it or not (though others may not know unless he discloses).

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Petey says:

July 12, 2006 at 10:46 PM

“Maryscott… nice points, but instead of handwriging, maybe actually talk to Kos, even lean on him? It’s HIS blog. And that goes for every other blanket Kos-defender posting.”

Maryscott really should be commended for her actions. Unlike you, me, or Richard, she is really sticking here neck out. Her blog is dependent on the Kos ecosystem for traffic, and her willingness to risk that in order to stand up for some basic intellectual honesty is brave. Pretty much everyone else in the Kos ecosystem is proving they aren’t that brave.

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MissLaura says:

July 12, 2006 at 11:08 PM

In answer to the question upthread about Markos’ disclosure when he was consulting for Howard Dean, there was a disclosure note on the front page of Daily Kos at all times during and for quite a while after his period of employment with Dean. It wasn’t just one post.

And you seem to be proud of the fact that you hadn’t read the FAQs or done any research about whether or not your questions had previously been covered on Daily Kos. That’s a fundamental disrespect for the readers and commenters there; no wonder it was met with matching lack of respect.

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Richard Silverstein says:

July 13, 2006 at 1:39 AM

you seem to be proud of the fact that you hadn’t read the FAQs or done any research about whether or not your questions had previously been covered on Daily Kos.

Most decidedly NOT what I wrote. If you want to attack what I wrote it’d be great if you could quote something that proves yr point. In fact, I wrote specifically that I HAD done several site searches using keywords that I’d hoped would bring up Kos’ statements on the subject in question. I could find nothing relevant which is why I asked the question in the comment which Armando troll rated.

As for not reading the DKos FAQs I plead guilty. I didn’t know anything about troll-rating or trusted users and until I wrote my diary I got along just fine in my ignorance. Why is it ‘disrespectful’ that I didn’t know about these matters? Do all “respectful” Kos members have to read the FAQs??

You’re really reaching for straws there.

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Max Sawicky says:

July 13, 2006 at 7:17 AM

The experience in question here is typical of mass politics, left right or center. The more people, the lower the common denominator in terms of civility and intelligence. A potential mitigating factor would be the quality of leadership — a fish rots from the head down.

Some years back, I took some trouble to compose a medium-longish post for Kos — my first and last “diary.” It got zero readers. I’m sorry, I may be boring but I’m not that bad.

Kos is a political phenomenon, in some ways an important positive contribution to better politics in the U.S., but it is not left in any recognizable respect. The sooner progressives realize that, the happier we will all be. Interacting with Kos raises the same, ancient, difficult questions as dealing with Democrats.

If a coyote bites you, it’s not because he doesn’t like you. It’s because he thinks you’re a hamburger. Don’t hate the coyote.

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AMac says:

July 13, 2006 at 11:09 AM

I’ve had respectful dialogs in web-log comments sections with liberals, conservatives, and self-identified moderates (I’m one of the latter). By and large, these sorts of discussions happen at blogs where the proprietor and the regular readers foster standards that promote civil discourse. Plenty of websites are inane, plenty are full of ad hominems, plenty are permissive of a favored flavor of bomb-throwing, be it Left or Right.

I avoid those places.

Despite its vaunted position in the TTLB blog ecosystem, I’ve never found dKos to be a congenial place to think about contributing. That community’s threshold for crossing over to personal attacks and snark seems to be as low as any place in the “blogosphere.” Too many “your mother” comments when things get heated, too few thoughtful paragraphs with links worth following.

I am sure that some diaries and some sections of dKos are better than what I’m describing–but with an embarrasment of riches at other URLs, there’s not much incentive for focusing in such a seemingly uncongenial place.

Richard, you seem committed to thinking about and responding to many of your commenters, which is noble. Your efforts to stick to the subject and avoid name-calling (or as you say, avoiding initiating name-calling) do not seem to inspire repayment in the same coin. Maybe you need to put some teeth or some specifics into “play nice or don’t play,” or maybe you like things the way they are. Chacun a son gout… Good luck, anyway.

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m.suskind says:

July 13, 2006 at 2:59 PM

Markos is not a consultant. Jerome was in some hot water some years ago with the SEC for touting stocks on an investment blog. Together, they are co-authors of a book “Crashing the Gates” that is selling briskly.

The controversy surrounding Kos was created by Nat Review Online, TNR and Redstate, intercepting emails, and infiltrating meetings…… the message in the intercepted email….. let’s keep cool on this one, keep quiet for a couple of months, etc. That was the problem. Disclosure, honesty, transparency might have prevented this controversy aspiring to become a scandal….. a scandal no one rightly understands.

Had Kos and Jerome been more forthcoming, more transparent, more accountable, I doubt that this controversy would have reached the NYT, Newsweek, Fox, etc. There you go. MaryScottO’Connor’s diary asked for transparency, accountability, disclosure. This is fair, only if Markos, and Daily Kos want to be a significant force in the political process through the netroots for which he has been such an important organizer.

What has not been addressed are the meta issues involved. Daily Kos appears to be and has proved to be a site that does not tolerate questioning or dissent. At nearly 100,000 members it is approaching implosion, just as Fox reported. This has been going on for years, and it is doing more damage to the site than all the trolls and redstaters.

I have a few suggested solutions, but the place is too big even to make those suggestions. Brave New World, indeed.

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Cheryl Hines-Dronzkowski says:

July 14, 2006 at 3:16 AM

I’ve watched them (the Daily ‘Kos crowd) for a couple of years, and was struck by how closed minded, stiff-necked and abusive they become when an opinion is offered which is not a part of the established “group-think” talking points (may as well read/join a blog run by Bill O’Rilley).
It matters not that some may feel that they are actually endorsing people who are supporting the greedy, racist, war-mongering creatures who are ruining the American way ( my own ex- hero Hillary for example), one must write what the group wants to hear, or one is attacked and slapped down, bullied and generally mistreated like a soft-spoken Liberal guest on Fox News.
No, there are no progressives there, these people are pro-establishment, no matter what.
I usually refer to the Daily ‘Kos as “The Closet Where Libertarians Hide”.

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Petey says:

July 14, 2006 at 10:49 AM

I’ve changed my mind. Max is god.

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