Here's a daily thought for people to respond to. I am a regular reader of both DKos and
The New Republic Online (TNRO). I noticed that both seem to have a steady stream of criticism of the Administration. My question for the day: which of these fine opinion-monging institutions is doing more to help our nation rid itself of Bush?
I would submit TNR. Spencer Ackerman, Ryan Lizza, Noam Scheiber, even Andrew Sullivan (!) and the list goes on and on, have taken shots at the Preznit and all aspects of his
miserable failure of an Administration, that are usually grounded in solid research and reasoning and are cleverly aimed, sometimes snarky or smarmy or what have you, but often persuasive.
Kos is more timely, more interactive, more empowering (we get to vent and get involved in debate and link to donation sites).
TNR seems better researched (usually) because they have full time paid staff including researchers, writers and editors.
But what of TNR's vaunted ownership by Republicans and their notorious right-wing screeds? Their legacy of Peretz, Sullivan, Barnes, Kondracke, and Krauthammer? I say it only lends more credence and balanced readership to a set of views in the rest of the magazine that are generally well reasoned, well researched, and well articulated BROADSIDES on the Bush Administration.
The circulation of TNR may not be high, but the quality of readership (I'm an avowed elitist) is. I'd admit that DKos probably reaches gazillions of people, but we are the people in the 45% of America who don't need any more convincng, we already know Bush is pretty much our modern day Satan. (I read my first apologia of Bush hating in TNR, by the way. I think it predated Howard Dean and it brought unabashed Bush-hating out of the closet).
Of course I'm torn, because I love DKos. But the thing that bugs me all time when I'm here is the echo chamber idea. Who else is buying this? Who are we pulling in?
I remember the Clark Community Network had a forum dedicated to "switch" stories, people who switched to Clark from other candidtes. A big part of that was Independents and Republicans who switched from McCain or Bush. Maybe if I heard the center stampeding onto DKos and being won over by the arguments made here I'd feel better.
Sorry for the long post.