UPDATE: I received the following correspondence from Daou, and wished to share it as an preamble to my post:
The title of my post ("How a handful of liberal bloggers are bringing down the Obama presidency") was largely interpreted as a slam on the bloggers themselves. It certainly wasn’t meant as one, which I hope was clear from the body of the post. Rather, it was intended as a literal observation that a small group with disproportionate influence was contributing to President Obama’s depressed approval ratings by holding him accountable whenever he appeared to undermine core Democratic and progressive principles. Which is why I said "bringing down" not "brought down." The former is a question of degree, and reversible, the latter much less so. And nowhere did I argue that these bloggers wanted to bring down the administration. Quite the opposite. In a concurrent tweet, I said: "Critical difference between Obama’s liberal critics and his conservative ones is that the former want him to succeed, the latter to fail."
Earlier this week, Peter Daou accused the liberal blogosphere and many of its key figures of "bringing down" the Obama presidency. I myself plead innocent; after all, the solution to the game of Clue about the downfall of Democratic fortunes this cycle is a simple one: Conservadems. In the Senate Chamber. With the filibuster. Now, the progressive blogosphere was certainly at the crime scene, but in what context? An innocent bystander? A Samaritan trying to warn the victim? Or an accomplice?
Daou clearly believes the last. Now, I have nothing but respect for Daou, and I wish to emphasize the point that any disagreement I share here is not a "calling-out" as such, but is rather an ideological sparring match over the role of the netroots movement in what appears to be the rapid decline of Democratic fortunes since the early days of Barack Obama's presidency.
While the power, influence and readership of the netroots movement has expanded exponentially since the days of the few alarmed voices shouting their defiance to the wind during the first term of Bush the younger, the relationship of the movement to the progressive Democratic base has not significantly evolved: while we online activists may be doing our best to drive media stories and put together some moneybombs, the netroots and grassroots have been and continue to be two separate worlds in many ways.
I'm involved in both worlds--that of the netroots, and that of the grassroots Democratic activists and issue advocates for whom substantially more of their activism is done offline. In my experience heretofore, there has still been very little overlap between the two, especially in terms of the narratives that are being driven on the blogs that maintain nationwide focus. The grassroots base is depressed, no question about it. They're not happy with the administration on a wide variety of fronts. But these disappointed activists have, for the most part, never heard of Glenn Greenwald or Digby. If they have heard of Daily Kos, they mispronounce it 90 percent of the time, and something called FireDogLake would stand a better chance at being a pond on an Native American reservation than a website with significant media influence.
Daou's characterization of leftblogistan as being responsible for "bringing down" the Obama presidency is, in my opinion, an extension of Chris Bowers' so-called Political Junkie Fallacy, except applied in this circumstance to an even more specific subcategory: the ongoing feud between, for lack of better terms, the "Firebaggers" and the "Obamabots." At their most extreme on each end, one side believes that they should punish Obama administration for its transgressions against the left by encouraging the left not to participate, while the other side does its best to present the case that by throwing the left under the bus, Obama is actually acting in the left's best interests and that the tire tread marks are exactly what the left needs in the firefights ahead. But this ongoing dispute, as well as the sites held responsible by Daou for bringing down the administration, aren't arguing about whether the administration has disappointed the left, because that fact is self-obvious:
Healthcare advocates are disappointed because of the lack of a a public option; women's rights advocates seethe at the very mention of the name of Stupak; environmental advocates have their own issues regarding the administration's handling of the crisis in the gulf; the LGBT community is incensed by the repeated mixed messages of a president who claims to want to end DADT, but fails to take the numerous opportunities available to him to do just that; advocates for the Latino community are disappointed about the inaction on immigration issues and the DREAM act; peace activists are dumbfounded by the escalation in Afghanistan; civil libertarians are outraged by the fact that the administration is claiming executive powers that in some cases seem to surpass those demanded by President Bush. If you have a pet issue and you lean to the left, chances are that the administration has done something to tick you off.
The political junkies that the left counts on to be motivated and to light the fire under everyone else already know about this, and they didn't need Glenn Greenwald or Jane Hamsher to tell them just how upset they should or should not be. They are already disappointed and demotivated--not by anything that Daou's stalking-horses may have done, but by the very actions of the administration itself. And all this other online crosstalk is merely a debate about how to prevent the next shoe from dropping--or about what to do when it does.
But no matter how much the administration has disappointed us, there's one thing that's certain: we must keep control of the House and the Senate. Nancy Pelosi must not be forced to suffer the costs of mistakes that she did her absolute best to correct, and any chance we have toward further progressive change would be drastically undermined by the prospect of having the Duke of Orange as our next Speaker.
Because of that, I strongly disagree with those who want to sit out this election just to prove a point, and a fortiori with those who would encourage others to do the same. But I also disagree with holding them responsible for bringing down President Obama. The fault there rests entirely with one person. Or maybe two, one of whom may now be running for a certain mayorship. Only time will tell.