Zephyr's miscalculation
by kos
Thu Jan 13, 2005 at 09:20:14 PM PDT
Here's the "controversy", courtesy of the Wall Street Journal:
Zephyr Teachout, the former head of Internet outreach for Mr. Dean's campaign, made the disclosure earlier this week in her own Web log, Zonkette. She said "to be very clear, they never committed to supporting Dean for the payment -- but it was very clearly, internally, our goal." The hiring of the consultants was noted in several publications at the time.
Mr. Zuniga said they were paid $3,000 a month for four months and he noted that he had posted a disclosure near the top of his daily blog that he worked for the Dean campaign doing "technical consulting." Mr. Armstrong said he shut down his site when he went to work for the campaign, then resumed posting after his contract ended.
Jerome responds:
What Zephyr (who wanted our firm to hire her) just did was hand a return (unfactual though it is) to the Republican bloggers that are moving up against Democratic activists gaining traction against Armstrong Williams being a shill for the Republicans with taxpayer dollars.
So what's going on? Zephyr is obsessed with imposing journalistic standards on the blogosphere. We can debate the merits of this issue, and good points can be made on both sides (I think it's a dumb idea). But what Zephyr did, and which I find unconscionable, is that she took the Armstrong Williams issue, and made up shit about our involvement with the Dean campaign to score points.
And "made up shit" is the right way to word it. Jerome created the first Dean website in early 2002. He created the first Dean-centric blog. He signed up the Dean campaign for MeetUps and convinced Trippi to promote the service. In other words, Jerome was the father of the Dean netroots. That's why the Joe Trippi (not Zephyr!) eventually hired "us" (and by "us", I mean Jerome). As that WSJ article notes:
Jerome quit MyDD (which was bigger than Daily Kos at the time, traffic wise) and moved to Burlington to work the campaign, and eventually took over the campaign's online advertising. I did next to nothing (the campaign viewed me as an outsider and shot down just about every one of my suggestions), but I still slapped up that disclaimer since my firm was under contract.
Zephyr's efforts to score points for her pet cause has given Kos-obsessed wingnut bloggers an excuse to blur the Armstrong Williams issue. (And to those Kos-obsessed wingnuts I say -- "Hi!")
WilliamsGate is fucked up because 1) he took taxpayer money (it's your money, as Republicans like to say), and 2) he didn't disclose the payments. So how that can relate to the fact that 1) we didn't take taxpayer money, and 2) it was all disclosed, is beyond me. (I sort of "debate" this with Instapundit here.)
Bloggers will get hired by more and more campaigns, on both sides of the ideological divide, and I think that's a great thing. I'm generally out of the consulting biz (though I'll get back in if I feel inspired to do so), but others will get a shot, and they will deserve it. And as long as they disclose when their writing conflicts with their paid gigs, who gives a shit? Well, Zephyr, policewoman of the blogosphere does.
Update: Jeralyn over at TalkLeft goes disclosure crazy.
Update II: I toned down the title of this post. Zephyr has taken quite the beating and it's time for all of us to lay off. The message has been sent. Whether she understands the root of the problem is irrelevent. As far as I'm concerned, she's over. We should all move on.
As one poster noted, it's a target-rich environment out there. Let's train our guns on the real enemy.
Update III: Intrepid SF Chronicle columnist breaks story: "Dean consultant in Berkeley builds 'blog' into influential tool". One year ago!!
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