It was Election Day 2002, in a mid-afternoon Daily Kos front-page post Early numbers, that billmon made his first appearance:
We know (or at least can reasonably assume) three things:
- The Republicans are bad mouthing the exit polls, according to Rich Lowry.
- The networks, which saw the GOP gaining in the final days, are bad mouthing the exit polls, according to Josh Marshall.
- Said exit polls APPEAR to be showing surprising Dem strength.
So either the exit polls really are screwed up (always a possibility) or this election isn't going according to the Media Whores' script, and the Dems are in for a good, maybe a very good night.
Like the journalistic hacks say: It remains to be seen.
Posted by billmon at November 5, 2002 02:21 PM
As it turned out, the exit polls really were screwed up. But Billmon wasn't, as evidenced by his many 2002 comments, all of which are linked to over the jump.
Billmon has his own Wikipedia entry that gives information about his career as a blogger, with some useful and some dead links, but gives no details of his time on Daily Kos, simply saying he was "one of the earliest participants," a description that is inadequate on many levels.
When he wrote his first comment in that election day in 2002, Daily Kos was little more than five months old, and living through its first general election. Billmon followed it by thirty more as the day and week progressed and the election results and election aftershocks became clear, and continued commenting beyond that. He was an excellent writer, and was frequently asked, in his early commenting days, why he didn't have his own blog. Five months after his first appearance in the comments, and three months after his first guest post, he finally succumbed and started the Whiskey Bar. As he announced in his final front-page post on Daily Kos, Last Words:
P.S. I'm also happy to announce that my own blog is now online at www.billmon.org. The only thing you'll find there right now is a "watch this space" blurb. There's still lots of work to be done, but I hope to be posting there soon, like maybe tomorrow. So please stop by.
This final post is a meaty one on the Bush Doctrine of being able to "strike at will at any perceived threat, anywhere in the world."
There's an archive site of the Whiskey Bar that has a voluminous set of posts from Billmon's run as a blogger. It calls itself "The Unofficial Archive," though why "Unofficial" is anyone's guess, as is who has set up the site. It has no search capability and no way to take you to individual posts; it lands you on the second-to-last available post, a retrospective of Billmon's Iraq posts in the first year of his blog. The original first and second posts are no longer available; the archive starts with the third, The Day After. The zipped archive available from a completely separate source is also missing the first and second posts, but has 2853 posts total; the highest numbered is 2970 there, as it is on the extant web site. (Note that it is not unusual for numbers to be skipped; the old Daily Kos site has hundreds of skipped numbers.) Searching the Wayback Machine for www.billmon.org fails when I try it; I suspect that, Wikipedia to the contrary, the Whiskey Bar is not archived there.
As was true with Steve Gilliard, whom I profiled last month, the vast majority of billmon's comments on Daily Kos were made in the days before Scoop, when Movable Type software ran the blog. This site was archived in place, but there are no search capabilities in the archive, and comments are displayed in a separate window. There isn't a way to externally link to a particular comment in the thread, only to the entire thread itself. One purpose of this diary is to make a start on linking to all the comment threads containing at least one comment from billmon.
Although billmon opened his own blog, he still sometimes commented on Daily Kos. I was surprised to discover that billmon set up an account under the current Daily Kos using Scoop, and more surprised to discover that he made 27 comments here even after he'd shut down the Whiskey Bar. Many Kossacks welcomed him back in spring 2007, including several front-pagers, and hinted that they wished he'd return to blogging; he never responded to those direct hints.
In one of those Strange Coincidences that I've learned to smile over, the last of those 27 comments, made over a three-week period in 2007, was published exactly one year ago today: This is like that scene in The Exorcist. Here's a search link to see all 104 of billmon's comments using search. He only wrote three comments in October 2003 after signing up for his Scoop account, then nothing until August 2005, and another 74 comments from then through mid-December of 2006.
Below, I've listed the linked diary titles (all written by Markos) for all posts that billmon commented on, and then a link to the comment thread with the number of comments billmon made in it. For Open Threads, I haven't bothered to link to the diary, just the comment thread. Note that billmon could be sloppy with his signature: while usually billmon, it was sometimes billmo, or (rarely) billm. If you search the comment thread using your browser's search, I advise using "billm" as your search string.
November 5:
• Early numbers has two comments
• Had to gag vote for Davis has one comment
• Congrats to Republicans has one short comment
November 6:
• Open Thread: The Day After has one comment
• Some more early (and scattered) thoughts has six comments
November 7:
• Open Thread has three comments
• Lott sweats payback from Senate Dems has eleven comments
• Open Thread II has three comments
November 8:
• Miller to stay Dem has five comments
• GOP control bad news for environment has one comment
• A new tag for the Democratic Party has one comment.
November 10:
• Page offers advice to Dems has one comment
November 11:
• California is Dems new Fortress of Solitude has two comments
• Electoral Vote Calculator has four commenst
November 12:
• GOP won, so why is Dow heading south? has one comment
November 13:
• Open Thread has one comment
November 14:
• Dissing the contenders has one comment
November 25:
• Open Thread: Cattle Call 2004 has seven comments
November 27:
• Open thread has eight comments
• Cattle Call 2004: 11/27 has one comment
November 28:
• Open Thread: Thanksgiving edition has one comment
December 2:
• Veterans against the war has one comment
December 3:
• The John DiIulio saga has one comment
December 6:
• Bush purges economic team has one comment
December 7:
• Operation 'Pie in the Face': Dems sweep LA has three comments
December 9:
• Open Thread has one comment
• Daschle names new Senate campaign team has two comments
• Tax dodger named Treasury Sec has four comments
• Judge dismisses GAO suit against Cheney has five comments
• Go with Snow has two comments
• Daschle gives Lott a pass has two comments
December 10:
• Open Thread has four comments
• Cattle Call 2004: 12/10 has three comments
• Americans hijack Iraq weapons doc has one comment
December 11:
• Open Thread has two comments
• ACLU membership soars has one comment
• Harkin wants to be top liberal has two comments
• Get off Lott's back! has five comments
• GOP momentum hits brick wall has three comments
December 12:
• Lott will not step down has one comment
• The evidence against Lott mounts has four comments
• If Lott resigns, then what? has two comments
• Canada moves to decriminalize drugs has two comments
• Lott was a racist in college has eight comments
December 13:
• Open thread has four comments
• The Trent Lott Republicans has ten comments
• Run-around Congress, endorse discrimination has two comments
• Another apology, still refuses to resign has six comments
• Open Thread: waxing philosophical has four comments
December 14:
• What Lott stands for; 'blackmailing' Bush has seven comments
December 15:
• Gore is not running for president has two comments
• GOP battle lines forming has two comments
December 16:
• Open thread has five comments
• GOP wants to shift tax burden has seven comments
• Nickles voting record has twelve comments
• Reading assignment has three comments
• The rules for MS special elections has six comments
December 17:
• Open thread has four comments
• If Lott resigns, then who? has two comments
• MyDD's election post-mortem has seven comments
December 18:
• Open thread has twelve comments
• Battle lines in Senate GOP caucus forming has five comments
• SD GOP busted for fraud has one comment
• Heading out to see Lord of the Rings has three comments
December 19:
• Open thread has six comments
• Reward for ID of Eli Lilly bandit has one comment
• Murkowski leans toward his daughter has two comments
• Chafee, Fitzgerald oppose Lott has three comments
• Committee chairs may want to keep Lott around has four comments
• Frist's record has one comment
Note that the Committee chairs diary is effectively by billmon: it's one of the first comments front-paged by kos, and came from the comment section of the Chafee, Fitzgerald diary. It began:
Well, Turd Blossom/Boy Genius just pushed another tall stack of chips (in the form of Bill Frist) into the center of the table. i don't know if he really thinks he's holding a winning hand, or if he thinks he can bluff Lott into folding. A little of both, I suspect.
The problem for TB/BG is that Lott may have already grabbed the high cards when he threatened to resign from the Senate and return to Mississippi to contemplate the collected works of Jefferson Davis.
Now Shrub can shrug his shoulders and say "what, me worry?" about that, but the Senate Commmittee chairs are likely to see things in a slightly different light: a 50-50 split means a nasty dragout fight over the organizing resolution (which was already looking vicious).
This provoked an immediate response in the comments from Markos in the comments:
Jesus Christ, Billmon. When are you starting your own weblog? I'm using this last post on the homepage.
December 20:
• Open thread has two comments
• 100s of middle eastern men arrested has one comment
• Lott's paparazzi has one comment
December 23:
• Open thread has one comment
• Troops feel the pinch has one comment
December 25:
• Open thread has one comment
December 26:
• Open Thread has one comment
• Lott is sticking around for this? has one comment
• Much ado about nothing has three comments
In that last "Much ado" diary, there's a cryptic comment from Kos:
Billmon, can you email me please? I have something to ask you.
kos@dailykos.com
Posted by Kos at December 27, 2002 10:28 AM
I can't guarantee this is true, but I'll bet that this request (and the question that prompted it) led to the announcement of January 3rd, as chronicled below. Remember, billmon was strictly pseudonymous; a posted comment was Markos's only way of getting in touch with him.
December 27:
• Open Thread has six comments
• US can't be bothered with North Korea has five comments
• 800 thousands lose job benefits has two comments
• Retailers suffer worst holidays in 30 years has four comments
December 29:
• Open Thread has two comments
December 30:
• Southern anti-Americanism has sixteen comments
• US helped build the Saddam monster has one comment
January 3:
• Open Thread has one comment
In the next post, Introducing the first dKos guest contributors, Markos announced that he was inviting billmon and Steve Soto to be guest bloggers for the next couple of weeks. Later that day, billmon's career as a front-pager/guest blogger started with The Shape of Things to Come, a post that began:
Ok, Billmon here, subbing for the chronically overworked Kos. A couple of days ago Kos gave you his predictions for the coming year. But I'm going to go him one better and give you the real thing. So, without further ado, here is my "future history" of the year 2003:
Jan. 10 Battered but unbowed, Trent Lott resigns from the U.S. Senate to become ambassador to the impoverished African nation of Chad.
Jan. 15 U.S. forces invade the tiny European principality of Lichtenstein, which the Pentagon announces will be entirely paved over and used as a runway in the pending war with Iraq. At the White House, spokesman Ari Fleischer insists Lichtenstein will be "our last territorial demand in Europe."
Jan. 24 The artist formerly known as the artist formerly known as Prince stuns the entertainment world when he announces that he is, in fact, former Clinton aide Sid Blumenthal. In a possibly related development, on-line blogger Atrios changes the name of his web site to "Purple Rain."
What happened next? Well, that's for part 2, whenever I get around to writing it. There were three more months of Billmon, and many Daily Kos front-page articles, before he opened the Whiskey Bar.
As always, corrections and pointers to missing information are most welcome. The contents of this diary will find its way into the dKosopedia in the near future. The Steve Gilliard information is already there, and has been expanded since its original Top Comments publication, though there's still much more to be added.
~~~~~
With all those excellent billmon comments, we're on our mettle tonight, and I'm happy to say we have a few top ones tonight that were emailed to the TopComments mailbox. If you saw any great comments that are not mentioned here—and there were nearly twenty-nine thousand comments to examine—please do link to them in your own comments below. The address of that mailbox:
TopComments AT gmail DOT com
(change " AT " to "@" and " DOT " to ".")
Anyone can submit deserving comments to our address—the direct link to a comment is available from that comment's date/time—as long as they arrive by 9:30pm Eastern Time. Please always include your Daily Kos user name in the body of your message, so we can credit you properly. Both link and username are important.
be the change you seek submitted the following nomination:
plainbrown1 writes My pain is different than your pain... in pmb's diary Debate Flag Woman Admits Obama Hatred.
From tecampbell:
Eternal Hope's reply to a Trollish comment in TC is classic...and promptly followed by scardanelli's perfect response.
A nomination sent by citizenx:
jeepdad has compiled the pre-transcript of the interview between George Stephanopoulos and John McCain this coming Sunday.
Timroff writes:
In the snarkfest of comments following my diary describing the perils of publicly supporting Barack Obama, bubbanomics took the prize with this comment.
A group from sardonyx, today's diarist:
In a thread started by lcork that posits a much better Democratic debate if Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert were the moderators, a proposal is made that Dennis Miller should be added for "balance." RabidNation takes pungent exception.
In mcjoan's front-page diary Privacy, Bush Style, in which it is revealed that DHS head Michael Chertoff believes that everyone's fingerprints are "hardly personal data," Dave the Wave notes that while your DNA would also be public, DHS does have limits to what information they'll accumulate. I also liked mcjoan's point about invoking the Thurmond Rule for all remaining Bush administration nominations and legislation.
In last night's diary Dowd: And Now, Some Lies About Obama's Elitism by mastrwik, irishwitch says to [color me an elitist, then], given Dowd's "definition" of elitist people.
Auntie Neo Kawn has excellent advice (and hugs) in AntKat's diary I'm losing my job and I'm bitter as Hell! Also, madmommy says that kos needs a liberal job-networking site, and CA Libertarian offers some job-networking advice.
Mike Stagg points out that Democrats ask the wrong question first of their candidates, one of many excellent comments he makes in his own diary NOLA, corruption, and a second chance. This is one of twelve diaries posted over the past two days in the NOLA/Gulf Blogathon, and you owe it to yourself to check out the entire series.
BeninSC tells a happy story to Carnacki.
No Top Comments diary would be complete without that day's top mojo—those comments which have received the highest number of recommendations from Daily Kos users like you. Today's is supplied by sardonyx, using his own revision of cskendrick's mojo-to-Excel magic.
First, Top Mojo excluding search-identifiable tip jars, first diary comments, Cheers and Jeers, and Mojo Friday comments:
1) Yes, yes, I'm a woman. But, seriously, Hillary... by Melody Townsel — 232
2) Rachel scares the hell out of the gasbags by Dallasdoc — 171
3) My first thought after reading by DJShay — 144
4) Video: Edwards on the Colbert Report by NCDem Amy — 143
5) Lol! just found out he even dated Hillary Clinton by Joeytj — 143
6) Mika should take lessons by MadRuth — 133
7) I'll say it again by lcork — 127
8) EDWARDS TOO!!! by okayokayokay — 112
9) My husband's had by zic — 108
10) teary eye warning by scooter in brooklyn — 105
11) Mika: Alan Colmes in a dress by Dallasdoc — 101
12) She's not dumb... by bubbalie 517 — 101
13) My first time doing this.. by Joeytj — 100
14) I still don't know by GregMitch — 100
15) I've Been Looking For One Of These 24/7 by webranding — 98
16) Logo placement is everything. by 8ackgr0und N015e — 94
17) bawahahahahahahahaa by Statusquomustgo — 92
18) She can't possibly think that's a good idea by Muzikal203 — 91
19) Wow by jenontheshore — 85
20) It's exciting by nwodtuhs — 83
21) It starts at home by Phil N DeBlanc — 83
22) reich on Cooonan by lmenshevik — 83
23) George, maybe you can ask him these questions by The Bagof Health and Politics — 83
24) Screw the flag pin by Jeff Y — 81
25) congrats Greg by peace voter — 79
26) The old pump is enshrined by Deoliver47 — 78
27) one of my favorite lines, btw by peace voter — 77
28) Good God, by ratador — 75
29) This is why by Sun dog — 74
30) Olbermann has called... by dehydratedcracker — 73
Top Mojo with No Exclusions:
1) tips for not wearing flag pins by Deoliver47 — 815
2) Tips for Influence! by DJShay — 660
3) Tips by turneresq — 459
4) Tip Jar for a non-flag pin wearer by John Campanelli — 440
5) Tips? by astral66 — 420
6) Whatever the magic formula is, Rachel, by bwintx — 375
7) Tip Jar by Oreo — 346
8) tips by dday — 338
9) Tips for Unity by kubla000 — 239
10) Yes, yes, I'm a woman. But, seriously, Hillary... by Melody Townsel — 235
11) Tips to Barack Obama's Good Friday's! by Hope08 — 231
12) oops . . . by nyceve — 199
13) One undersized former Clitonite bashes Obama... by Aqualad08 — 184
14) Rachel scares the hell out of the gasbags by Dallasdoc — 171
15) That HUGE Obama on the screen by casperr — 162
16) Mojo Mug by TexDem — 161
17) My first thought after reading by DJShay — 144
18) Lol! just found out he even dated Hillary Clinton by Joeytj — 143
19) Video: Edwards on the Colbert Report by NCDem Amy — 143
20) The Lounge is open by TexDem — 141
21) More Mojo by TexDem — 136
22) Mika should take lessons by MadRuth — 133
23) Another perfect day in paradise here by donnamarie — 132
24) heh by TexDem — 128
25) Heh by Ex Con — 128
26) I'll say it again by lcork — 127
27) Heh. by DelicateMonster — 125
28) Heh by TexDem — 124
29) Heh by martydd — 124
30) I ate ham biscuit by DelicateMonster — 123
© sardonyx; all rights reserved
All quotes are the property of the original authors or the websites that held them