BLANK on the front page.
Daily Kos is not the Chicago Tribune. It is not The New York Times. It is not The Los Angeles Times. It is not the Eye on the World.
Well, it is sometimes, just not on the front page.
Kos is not a reporter. Kos is not a pundit. Kos has a soapbox (an incredible one), but he is not a preacher. Kos is not a cult leader--despite the wishes of some in the traditional media to pin that label on him. He might have a stalker or two (don't know), but he does not, a far as I can tell, have hordes of worshippers.
Kos is just "this guy, you know?" Kos runs an amazing website. Kos is determined to get Democrats elected. I once read he likes baseball. For all I know, Kos may make a bad cup of coffee, obliterate Wang Chung songs, and have a messy desk. But I'm not sure.
The traditional press is trying to anoint Kos Blog King and Leader of the Cult of Blog, and I'm beginning to wonder if some on here are falling for this press designation.
It's so interesting how we put our influential people on pedestals and somehow, magically, their opinions become so important that we need to know where they stand on everything.
Yeah, it was so enlightening hearing Tom Cruise's take on psychiatry.
I have seen it so many times on this site. Why isn't Kos covering blank? Blank is important. Blank needs to be front-paged. Kos needs to address blank or he's a coward, bigot, asshole, hater of women's rights, etc...etc...etc...
I have a lot of blanks I'd like to see covered, but not necessarily by Kos or by Daily Kos. Not what I came here for.
I come to Daily Kos for the whole experience. I don't come for Kos. I've never quite understood those who do. I like the distance Kos keeps from this community that he admits is bigger than him and cringe when he becomes enmeshed in petty meta-doings. He's got a handle on politics and some terrific ideas for moving the Democratic party forward. But, other than that, he's just this guy, you know?
Kos has stated for the record why he is not covering the I/P/L situation on the front page. So what's the problem? (Rhetorical question. Because I'm probably just going to slam the FAQs down and point out that there are numerous other websites to fulfill your needs.)
Why do some of the denizens of Kossackland feel so put out that Kos has not rendered his opinion on the current events of the Middle East? What could Kos possibly have to say that hasn't been said in the diaries?
Is it fear?
He doesn't have a degree in Middle Eastern affairs that I'm aware of. It's not a subject in which he appears to have much of interest. Maybe he realizes that the topic is not one he feels he can approach with any degree of expertise and thus anything he could add to the discussion would be superfluous. (I can get down with that.) Maybe he doesn't have the passion or knowledge. (That too.) It's not like there are not countless diaries burning up the servers on the topic of the Middle East written with passion and knowledge (or not, in some notable cases).
Maybe there is some truth in this cult thing for some small percentage of Kossacks:
"We cannot go on, Master Kos, until our eyes have been blessed with reading your thoughts on the subject of Isreal and Lebanon. We care not that you either know not or care not to impart your vaunted views, for we need to know how we should feel. We are lost without your guiding text, oh Bloggy One."
Or,
"We know how we feel but want you to validate these feelings by agreeing with us. If you do not agree with us we shall have you trolled into oblivion for you are no true leader. (You have to post a comment first, Master.) And thus we shall render upon this site GBCW diaries in such astounding numbers that all the servers shall be flushed down the tubes of the internets and we shall call it ,"Implosion"."
Or maybe, just maybe, Master Kos read the FAQ and saw that it was good.
This is a Democratic blog, a partisan blog. One that recognizes that Democrats run from left to right on the ideological spectrum, and yet we're all still in this fight together. We happily embrace centrists like NDN's Simon Rosenberg and Howard Dean, conservatives like Martin Frost and Brad Carson, and liberals like John Kerry and Barack Obama. Liberal? Yeah, we're around here and we're proud. But it's not a liberal blog. It's a Democratic blog with one goal in mind: electoral victory. And since we haven't gotten any of that from the current crew, we're one more thing: a reform blog. The battle for the party is not an ideological battle. It's one between establishment and anti-establishment factions. And as I've said a million times, the status quo is untenable.
Others should read the FAQ and decide upon whose blogalter they wish to worship if the tenets of Daily Kos prove to be too restrictive for their needs.
But take away these words: Master Kos doth not dictate the subject that his followers must write about in the diaries. He doth not assign topics. He is the Master! His followers should not question his reasons, nor dictate his text. (Oh man. Channeling Lieberman for a moment there. Brrrr.)
And if you're not his followers, why do you care so much about what he writes or does not write about? (Rhetorical. Life's too short to debate personal eccentricities. See: FAQ, other websites.)
So, what should Kos be writing about that he hasn't written about why he's not writing about it, er...?