¡gritos cabritos! It's Texas KOS!
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Despite my best efforts, I've only ever been thrown out of one bar in my entire life. Actually, they didn't even throw me out, they just cut me off. Oh well. I guess I'm no Hitchens.
But today, I got this message for the first time in my online life.
Banned by webmaster. Your comments will not be added
AMERICAblog.com
That's right. As much as I rant, rave, and antagonize, not only has it taken me this long to get banned from a blog, it was a liberal blog!!!
Here's the deal: John Aravosis of Americablog broke a very basic rule in party politics: "criticize in private, praise in public." He's sided with his personal friends against Howard Dean, claiming that the Democratic Party and its chair not only don't give a damn about gay issues, but that Dean fired someone for saying so. The proof? Nothing.
Yeah, like Howard Dean needs this shit. Like the Democrats need this shit. Like the blogsphere needs this shit. We need this like a bad case of the clap. We really need one of the top ten liberal blogs working for the GOP.
But wait, it gets worse. Aravosis claimed that this is just like the Valerie Plame incident.
Think about that for a moment. I'm snarkless.
And just why am I about to put this on a public blog? Because John Aravosis has already broken that rule, so he does not have the benefit of it. Since he has decided that his personal friend and his issues are more important than the whole party, more important than defeating the Republicans, I think it's important to reevaluate how we expect to get things done here. I think it's important to reevaluate who our allies are and whom we can trust.
Let me make one other thing perfectly clear: Americablog is John Aravosis' blog. He can do with it what he likes. He can even run off the people that made his blog what it is. I don't care if Aravosis wants to crash a car into a tree, so long as its his car and his tree. No problem.
But if he wants to use his blog to launch unsubstantiated attacks on Howard Dean then he shouldn't be surprised if he gets called on it. And if he wants to ban everyone who criticizes this faux pas, then he shouldn't be suprised what happens next.
There are other blogs, you know.
Dean replaced Donald Hitchock as the DNC's gay outreach advisor with Brian Bond. Unlike Hitchcock, apparently, Bond has extensive fundraising experience and critical campaigning experience, working on Clinton's 1992 and 1996 campaigns. Bond was clearly in demand, as the National Stonewall Democrats wanted him as their executive director.
Dean, meanwhile, has replaced the centralized DNC constituency desk means of outreach with the kind of decentralized and grassroots approach, insisting that each and every DNC office is reponsible for constituency outreach, including GLBT outreach. Some have chosen to see this as Dean's vendetta against gays. Whatever. Dean's been doing this for some time. Some claim that Dean has done nothing to counter the GOP's use of gay marriage initiatives on state ballots, but in reality planning has been going on at the highest levels, including Dean himself.
Short version: Bond is an improvement over Hitchcock and Dean is on the job. There have been changes, but those changes are in line with how Dean has been operating all along.
See? I got all of that from an article Aravosis linked to. I wonder if he's read it?
Aravosis has insisted that his critics make an argument on the "merits" of the case, even though he doesn't have one and hasn't done so himself. Comical. Just comical.
This is the kind of crap I expect from Free Republic. Suddenly, "civility" is an issue. Bullshit. That's just an excuse to cut people out of the conversation who're pointing out just how badly Aravosis fucked up.
I wish I could show you the comments that got me banned at Americablog, but they've been deleted. As I recall, I asked him directly just what his problem was, jumping to conclusions, presenting no evidence other than timing (which isn't evidence), and failing to resolve the issue privately. I quoted another poster and emphasized how stupid the whole thing was. I pointed out that Aravosis was only helping the people he claims to oppose.
Then the man himself posted in the comments section, and I went to respond with the post below, but I'd been banned. Just for the record, I was going to say this:
[ARAVOSIS] - This is the gay liaison for the democratic party getting fired because concerns were raised about gays being ignored by the democratic party
[GMT] - If you have evidence, let's see it. Dean doesn't have to walk on water for me to be able to tell that you don't have an argument. Reading the Blade article, it's clear that Bond is an upgrade. Don't fly off the handle just because your friend was replaced.
If this is the way you and Hitchcock want to play, then your replacement was inevitable. We can't afford people like you, and by that I don't mean gays, I mean flighty amateurs.
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This is not a conflict between party loyalists and special interests. We're all in the same boat here, but I guess some people are too het up or too traumatized to see it. It's very simple: it's all about access. We want a party that represents us, not the corporate donor. Right now, we don't have that party. All we have left is the chance of making the Democrats into that party again. Immigration, GLBT, we're all asking for the same thing, someone to represent us.
It's that simple.
The fact is that we're all in the same boat, we're all shut out. And if we start pulling in different directions, we're doing the GOP's work for them. Aravosis isn't satisfied with the way the Dem's treat gays? Get in line! We're all asking for the same thing, and we all despair at one time or another.
But I'll be damned if the cause of my despair and disappointment come November is due to one of my fellow lefties. I have enough of an enemy in the GOP. I don't need any more enemies and I can't afford to rely on people who are unreliable.
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