My position on Kos: He said a dumb thing, then apologized. I think he deserves benefit of the doubt given his history. End of story. Kos most vocal critics are unwilling to grant him that benefit, but they do so from the cover of pseudonymity and thus are immune from being held accountable to the same standard. I, for one, welcome the implicit acknowledgement that the Left is held to a higher moral standard than the Right. We may, as a group, fail to meet it, but it speaks well of the expectations.
Like Kos himself, I can't fault the Kos advertisers for pulling their ads. Running for office is a complex political calculus, which it is pointless to pretend doesn't exist. As Kos keeps saying, don't punish those who withdraw, reward those who stay - such as Jeff Seeman. For the record, Dean Nation is ready to accept any ad from any candidate.
In fact I will make it a policy that Dean Nation will allow free advertising - from Democrats or Republicans alike - who also place a paid ad on Daily Kos AND link to Daily Kos from their blogroll section. (A link to us would also be nice, but not neccessary). I encourage all Dean Nationals to spread the word on the various other liberal blogs about this policy.
As Jerome points out, the Kerry weblog team has burdened themselves with the responsibility of policing every weblog on their blogroll for potential exploitation by the Right. They are welcome to their burden. I however suggest that the proper response is to de-link the Kerry blog from as many liberal blogrolls as possible - a slap on Kerry's wrist, so to speak.
Further I advise all blogs listed on the Kerry blogroll to write to the campaign and request that their link be removed, following Atrios's example.
Finally, I will continue to support Kerry by linking to his contribution page, but I will no longer use my Kerry Team link. The only Contribute link to Kerry's campaign that I will promote on my blogs is via Daily Kos. In my opinion, it would be best if ALL blogsphere donations to Kerry were done solely through the Kos link. I enocurae any other liberal bloggers to add the following Donate! link to their pages if they agree:
Save Kos! Fund Kerry
(cross-posted to Dean Nation)