Only two senators on the foreign relations committee voted against the Rice nomination. This was preceded by some very tough questioning by Senator Barbara Boxer, primarily. All of the forgoing was covered in the MSM. The AOL splash page led with a dour picture of Rice and a caption about the "tough" questioning. What a drama. Later there would be a picture of a broadly smiling Rice, lapping up her victory, the hollow horror of her eyes sparkling, and one of the two links below would be titled "See which senators voted no." Wow. Did I mention that there were only two of them?
Frankly, I'm disgusted. Only two. This is the kind of stuff that drove me out of the Democratic Party and into the hoary, Republican petition accepting, arms of Ralph Nader.
And what do the leading liberal blogs have to say?
But first, two caveats. The following blogs I refer to are privately owned and operated. And I am truly pleased to have found them. Please keep both of these in mind.
Atrios makes no mention whatsoever. He does comment on the hearing itself. A
reference to the Daily Show mocking Rice's "cavorting". (It is pretty funny.)
How about Kos?
He's got a post referring to Rice admitting to some "bad decisions". (It really is an understatement.)
Earlier in the day Kos "bumped" to the front page a diary by Armando, which goes into Boxer's confrontation with Rice.
Kid Oakland got a diary up later in the day called "Time to Fight"
The people in comments go on and on about Boxer and Kerry.
Marshall had this short note. "Kerry to vote no on Rice nomination." Followed by Kerry's quote. Marshall doesn't have comments.
OK. Let me digress just a little more.
Back to Atrios.
His last reference to electoral fraud (easy up now...I do have a point) before the election was here on Nov. 2nd. Just a quickie on something funky with the Cobb numbers in Ohio. A joke really.
Here he says, on Nov. 3rd he's "not all that interested in election post mortems." And, "What matters isn't what was done wrong, but what needs to be done right for the '06 elections."
Later that day.. (He moves on fast.)
"...as a troubled close election was an excuse [for the press] to be nice to their new leader, we can expect a less-close and less-troubled election will provide an excuse for them to do the same this time"
Meantime the comments sections are going crazy. Something I remember well. I can't find them now on his site. But for Atrios, no references to electoral fraud. Nothing to see here. On Friday the 5th, he "blogged off".
Blogging resumed on the 7th. And then, on Nov. 8th, he fesses up to what appears to me to have been a tantrum.
"It's entirely true that the media should be following up more of these stories; the integrity of our democracy is seriously at stake. But, the cause is not helped by touting inconclusive statistical studies as "proof" or screaming "Kerry won! Kerry won!" every five seconds."
Here he wades tentatively in. Giving it a try, it would seem, to sort our what the hell happened that crazy assed day.
On November 26th, he allows guest poster Hectate to comment, perhaps, I thought at the time, because the comments section, though tamed, had not given up on electoral fraud issues.
On November 30th, guest poster Thumb is allowed to meekly draw Atrios readers to, uh, you know.
"There's been a plethora of diaries at Kos' on the subject of election 2004 fra . . . frau . . . um, irregularities. This is the best one I've read to date. "
Notice what Thumb noticed...that this was in the diaries. Hmmm...
On December 2nd Atrios spelled out how Eschaton worked, which was summed up at the end of his post.
"Eschaton - love it or leave it!" Not surprisingly, at this point, most everyone in the comments section agreed wholeheartedly. (Comments still available as of 1-19-05) Also, I should add, fair enough. It is his blog and that is his right. And yet, his comment disturbed me.
Now I'd been reading Atrios first, followed by Kos and then Marshall, religiously for close to 2 years every morning, uh, afternoon and evening. I don't recall a similar admonishment or seeming testiness, outside of once or twice in the comments when someone suggested something illegal. I don't know if this, in particular, was a reference to the "fraudsters", as Kos has called them, but I'll guess that it was.
Readers of Kos diaries are familiar with a similar story, which played out here. Very similar in fact. (Marshall's readers had the least chance to express themselves and I have no idea of their take on his seeming lack of interest in these two topics.)
This brings me to my point. (At last you say, that is, if you made it this far.)
DKos is not a democratic institution. None of these blogs are. DKos does perhaps have the most democratic features. And I, for one am very happy to avail myself of these features. But these features do still exist at the pleasure or discretion, if you will, of this site's owner and operator, Mr. Moulitsas.
Add to this that whether DKos and Atrios will admit to it or not, they are leaders. This is a role they have both readily accepted and indeed, embraced. (How many calls to action have you heeded?)
And yet there seems to be a great number in both places like myself who are sometimes left with this weird and bitter taste. It happened on the electoral fraud issues. It's happening to me again with Barbara Boxer.
When I saw Boxer stand up for the Ohio objection I cheered. When she questioned Rice yesterday I laughed and slapped my knees (literally). For the last couple days, as I looked into the comments at Atrios and here at DKos, I find they are filled with praise for Barbara Boxer, and to a lesser degree Kerry for his vote against Rice.
And yet where are our leaders?
This is where I leave this, with these questions. Why is it, on these questions of such great interest to what seems to be a large number of these two planned communities that the leaders don't seem to show much interest? Is it because of just that, that they are very simply not interested in these topics? Are these actions that I celebrate not approved by them? Embarrassing to them? Is it actually worse than that? If everyone began petitioning Kos to write about Boxer, or at least acknowledge this on the front page, would there be another testy, threatening response like this one? Will embarrassing topics by allowed to the front only on occasion and only by guest bloggers?
Well. These are their sites after all.
Do we all know our places?
I know mine. Must go. It's past my drink time.