http://www.redstate.com/...
evidently from
http://www.spot-on.com/...
by Josh Trevino.
Yes, it's pretty much what you'd expect - selected quotes and thoughts below the fold.
Barely four years ago, they were nonentities: today they stand athwart the American left, yelling, "Go!"
Yes, they're... bloggers. Grassroots, netroots, whatever you want to call it - a movement and a medium that have blossomed in the last 6 years.
(Armstrong is not, in my limited experience, the brightest bulb in the box.)
Moulitsas is a genius, and probably the genius, of his field... [but his] public record is one of chronic foot-in-mouth disease, apparently spurred by hubris and a nasty vindictive streak.
And he picks out a few diary comments made by Kos to support this:
Here, regarding soldiers in Fallujah, and here, regarding Rick Santorum's creepy response to his wife's miscarriage. I could grant him the first coming across as callous, but the second... damn, that is creepy.
Trevino also took issue with this statement Markos made while on a radio show: "I wasn't allowed to criticize the President -- not even on domestic issues, because that was giving aid and comfort to the enemy."
Well... yeah. We still see that shit.
The chapter on political consultants, "The Gravy Train," is flat-out the best in the book, and the only one deserving serious consideration from both sides of the aisle. The authors give a good overview of the inside-baseball nature of the campaign-consultant milieu, and drive home their argument that inept consultancies and back-scratching financial dealmaking (and especially their attendant effects on media strategy) are a major drag on Democratic efforts.
If only he went after the lobbyists with such a bipartisan spirit ><
the abandonment of belief... [has led] erstwhile conservatives [to] find themselves defending Medicare Part D, political speech restrictions, Nixonian secrecy paranoia, and Wilsonian foreign policy as the price of governance. Moulitsas and Armstrong think this is the price of victory: but when Republicans finally suffer a serious electoral reverse, it will be the cause of their defeat.
It seems that Trevino understands that the single-mindedness that leads to bad decisions like his examples, and that they are in fact bad decisions. Hm... political speech restrictions, you say? Didn't he just tear into Kos for percieving those?
these institutions, ranging from the Heritage Foundation to Cato and beyond, were founded to level the playing field rather than solidify a preexisting dominance. Academia, the media, and the political elite were perceived -- rightly enough in most cases -- as being bastions of leftist thought. In the first two of those three, that's still true.
Those poor, repressed Republicans. They need their think tanks to level the vastly unfair playing field. It's not their fault that the media hates them. :*(
At this point, Trevino veers off into a tangent just short of calling Armondo and Kos tin-foil hatters, convinced by their blind loyalty that there's a massive right wing conspiracy , and that they make noise with no chance of positive change.
Trevino does stand up for his true conservative credentials, though, calling down at least a handful of the current administration's many gaffes:
That party -- my party -- has veered dangerously from its core principles. It bears responsibility for a poorly-executed war. It has overseen a tepid economy. It has plunged the finances of the United States into deficit spending that will eventually prove ruinous. It has moved a long, sad way from the ideals of 1994.
And it has crushed the Democratic Party for three election cycles running. Even now, it looks to retain power in the dismal circumstances of George W. Bush's final midterm.
I think, though, in the end he just winds up projecting again. Look at the very last sentences of his review, and tell me what group he's talking about (hint: it's not his):
The only questions are: At what point will they accept responsibility for the state of affairs? And at what point will someone bring some sense to the noise?
That, I think, is a question I have for any number of people. The book review's subjects, however, are not among them.