For those of you who haven't seen it Mickey Kaus has a vicious and I believe dishonest attack on Markos on his Slate blog. It suggests that Markos is much worse than Ann Coulter because of the remark he made a couple of years ago about mercenaries. At first the remark angered me because of the way it used moral equivalency to pardon Ann Coulter and at the same time attack Markos. But then I started thinking about why I read Kaus at all - I mean I have always hated him. Then it struck me, I read Kaus because he represents the canary in the coal mine for GOP talking points that make it in to the mainstream media.
I used to think he was prescient in an ugly sort of way. Tonight I begin to realize he is part of the Republican triangle that Peter Daou describes between media, politicians, and the right wing noise machine, he is part of a critical joint in that triangle that serves as a bridge between the right wing noise machine and the traditional media. He is not the canary in the coal mine but the person who carries it in - and this may be one of the keys we are looking for.
For those of you who don't know Mickey Kaus he is an odd, Dickensonian character. He burns with bitterness and jealousy as much as any person I have ever read, it jumps off the page at you. He feels that people don't realize his genius and instead reward phonies like Paul Krugman (never mind that Krugman is a celebrated economist and Kaus wrote on half-assed book on welfare reform). But he has been given a platform, first by Kinsley and now by Weissberg that is acceptable with traditional media, and he is allowed to say whatever he wants without any repercussions at all (it is one thing to have your own blog, it is another to write a blog that is part of an online journal that is attached to the Washington Post and is considered a stepping stone to fame and fortune in the traditional media). For those of you who have never seen him, he looks like he writes, a Uriah Heap character - I swear he is out of central casting.
I begin to realize again and again that I see these vicious attacks, always on Democrats and/or progressives (even though he seems to refer to himself as a Democrat, part of his role in the triangle). When you read his stuff you sometimes get the feeling that it really isn't his, that he is being fed much of this. His work in nasty and very often ad hominem. And it very often winds up in the traditional media about a week later, albeit watered down just the tiniest bit. Reading his attack on Markos tonight I thought to myself, oh they are becoming scared of Markos because of all the attention he has been getting and they are hitting back. They are trying to pull a ju jitsu, using the attacks of the progressive blogosphere against Coulter against Markos by creating this false moral equivalency based on one emotional statement. Then I thought this is going to be picked up by the traditional media and it clicked. Kaus represents a cross-over figure, one of the joints in the triangle between right wing noise machine and traditional media.
I think Daou's thesis is brilliant but it is wrong on two points. The first is he seems to suggest that information flows between the legs of the triangle based on quantity and volume. I think it is much more strategic, that there are a number of these cross-over points and we have to identify them. The second is Daou wants to work to build a progressive triangle. I think no, the right wing has worked long and hard to establish the joints of their triangle. It would take us a long time, much longer even because everybody would know that is what we are trying to do. The better strategy is to break their triangle. And you always try and break the triangle at its weakest points, the joints