As a general rule, I confine myself to strictly lurking and rarely post anything on dKos, although I'm here every day. However, in light of the recent media frenzy, I half to chime in with a little bit.
I just finished reading a "goodbye cruel world" diary by someone who is upset at all the negativity on dKos since all the WSJ fiasco has been ongoing. To anyone who doesn't understand the reason for all the fire and brimstone being put forth by angry Kossacks, let me explain, in terms so simple even the reddest Republican could understand, mainly because it follows their primary logical foundation: they attacked us.
Yes, I know that Markos and Jerome are the only people being smeared in the media storm, but the attempt goes much deeper than that. They are trying to marginalize the entire left blogging movement. While we liberal identify ourselves and everyone else as peers- I mean, isn't that the founding idea of liberalism, equality- the right, and its twin brother, the media, identify hierarchies only. Since dKos and MyDD are such prominent Democratic and liberal blogs, they associate Jerome and Markos as figureheads for the rest of us. So when they are swinging at him, understand they are really swinging at us. After all, if it weren't for the amount of readership this site has, they wouldn't really care about his having worked for Dean. It's us they're after, for many reasons that should be obvious. As one diarist said, we are at war. Maybe it is a war that needs to happen.
That is the reason for all the vitriole recently. When we see people up there lying and spinning about Jereome and Markos, we know that they are really lying and spinning about us. After all, is it not only in the context of blogging that everyone is going after them? So I think it is safe to say that Markos's blogging while working for the Dean campaign is not the real issue here. It's the community itself, the existence of something that is completely outside the realm of influence for the media. Think about it. Publishers can decide what does and does not need to be printed, editors decide what should and should not be published, reporters decide which quote should be included and which quote left out. The same with any sort of media person- they decide what to say, what not to say, what pictures shouldn't go in the paper or on the news. These people are used to control. And here we are, doing their job of providing information and insight to the masses, for free, and completely out of their control. They can't stand it.
As has already been documented, this is not true of the right blogosphere because it has long been incorporated into the mainstream media. Remember, the Lewinsky scandal began on the Drudge report, essentially the first right blog, and Memogate, with its bogus "fact-checking", got its start on a blog. Rush, Hannity, and O'Reilly and all the rest of the sorry lot regularly peruse the blogs to find the most outrageous thing with which they can attack the left. And that's what is all about- attacking the left. And that means taking on Kos, by which they think they are taking on all of us.
So for that diarist and those who dislike the treatment that Zephyr and the WSJ got on dKos, I would like to ask, what else do you expect us to do? While the right has made self-victimization the most useful ploy in the galaxy, this attack is very real and is no simple crying of wolf. Remember, from now on, anything that comes out of dKos will probably be accompanied by a small aside noting that Markos worked for the Dean campaign, which will be turned into a complete discreditation by Novak & Co. They are trying to paint the entire liberal blogging movement into a corner, and although it is only Kos's name up on the T.V. screen, it is the entire community which they are trying to marginalize.
Not that I, for one second, think it will work, mainly because people turning to blogs are typically fed up with the MSM as it is. But just so you know, all this fire and brimstone from the Kossacks and similar ilk is with good reason- they are on the attack, therefore, we are on the defense.