Daily Kos Is A Mouthpiece For Kerry's Campaign

John Kerry @ the Daily Kos:

There's something that doesn't sit right with me when, on the day Osama Bin Laden resurfaced in a disturbing audio tape, cable television ends up in a game of name calling as a war protester is compared to Osama Bin Laden.

That's reason to be outraged.

No Mr. Kerry what is outrageous and should not sit well with anyone is that the Daily Kos, run by Democratic Consultant Markos Moulitsas, is publishing John Kerry's election speech drafts. (KJLo @ NRO thinks it's a joke!) The same Daily Kos, whose main post today is linked to Atrios'  "Wanker Of The Day" (referring to the Editor of WaPo online). Perhaps the former Democrat nominee for President will contribute to one of those posts next. What I will guarantee you is that somewhere on the same main page at some point will sit both posts. Currently Kerry is sitting above "Shit Eating Collaborator Monkeys".

This is sureal.

But so is this: "But what makes me angry was Kerry and his gang's inability to take advantage of the situation. I may regret saying this later, but fuck it -- they should be lined up and shot. There's no reason they should've lost [...] A Kerry presidency would've been an unmitigated disaster, with a hostile congress, budget woes, the mess in Iraq, etc. Not a good time to be in charge." Daily Kos after the elections in 2004, thank you to Ankle Biting Pundits who just sent me the email. I haven't laughed so much in a very long time. Read the rest it's priceless.

Matt Margolis remembers when John Kerry's campaign de-linked from Daily Kos over the "screw them" incident, and Pat Santy dedicates a poem to the 'Lyin' King'. Stephen Green is unimpressed.

"But it shows just how strange the Democrats have become, that even big-timers like Kerry (who voted for the Iraq war, and by the way served in Vietnam—yes, there’s a reference to that at the end of his first Kos diary) have no problem embedding themselves with the most radical, hard bitten, anti-war, frequently anti-American Bush-haters around. It’s a sad statement on how far the party of FDR and Truman and Scoop Jackson has strayed from its original principles."

Siggy is having fun pulverizing one of my commenters: "Is it any wonder why they can't win an election on ideas?", and Gerard van der Leun @ The American Digest is deciding whether Daily Kos is at our throats or indeed at our knees. With the famously long socialist arm, I wager our [K]ossack tries to do both.

Let us start from the beginning.

The first signs of change relating to the internet blogging came from the Howard Dean campaign. His campaign manager, Joe Trippi, used the Internet and meetup.com and moveon.org to identify and bring together Bush haters from all over the country and raise far more money than anyone expected. Dean rose to the top in the polls and amassed an e-mail list of 600,000 names. When Democratic voters dropped Dean as unelectable and embraced John Kerry as the most readily available instrument to beat George W. Bush, Kerry inherited Dean's Internet constituency. No one expected the Kerry campaign to raise more money than the Bush campaign. But it did, because of the Internet.

The Democratic Internet constituency was and is motivated by one thing more than anything else: hatred of George W. Bush. To see that you only have to take a look at dailykos.com, run by Democratic consultant Markos Moulitsas, which gets 700,000 page views a day--far more than any other political weblog--and which received funding from the Dean campaign (which Moulitsas disclosed). It seethes with hatred of Bush, constantly attacks Republicans, and excoriates Democrats who don't oppose Bush root and branch. When four American contractors were killed in Iraq in April 2004, Daily Kos wrote, "I feel nothing over the death of the mercenaries. They are there to wage war for profit. Screw them." This repulsive comment produced no drop-off in page views. This was what the left Blogosphere wanted. Kos was an early enthusiast for Dean's campaign for Democratic chairman and disparaged other candidates.

Money talks bullshit walks Mr. Moulitsas, huh?

For 12 years, Democratic chairmen were chosen by Bill Clinton. He built a new generation of fundraisers who relished contact with the Clintons. Now the big money comes from the left Blogosphere and Bush-hating billionaires like George Soros. Dean gives them what they want. As Dean says, "I hate the Republicans and everything they stand for." Hate. But Bush hatred was not enough to beat Bush in 2004--while Democratic turnout was up, Republican turnout was up more--and doesn't seem likely to beat Republicans in 2006 and 2008. The left Blogosphere has driven the Democrats into an electoral cul de sac.

And now we have a new entity called Thug-In-Chief Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, lets see what you do with him Mr. Kerry, I mean Mr. Moulitsas. Oh I forgot there is nothing for you to do, you are not in charge, you will simply stay gripping the sidelines for dear life, making ad hominem attacks on the decisions of the Administration. There is no need to provide answers, just keep posing the questions, and writing speeches on Daily Kos.

And of course continue the serious sucking up (in the post scriptum):

I want you all to know that I’m reading your many comments. My wife Teresa reads blogs passionately, and I follow blogs too, and I’m glad I can be a part of this – and frankly I’m not worried about taking some slings and arrows along the way. I’ve faced worse! So keep the comments coming -- good, bad, hopefully not indifferent.

Why is it that sloppy thinking always follows the left path? Here is the copyright warning on the Daily Kos blog: "Site content may be used for any purpose without explicit permission unless otherwise specified." Mr. Kerry the sky is the limit for the would be Pulitzer prize neo-con bloggers, your pearls of wisdom will be strewn all over the Blogosphere just as you had intended.

Some sanity to calm the nerves, and a very good laugh. Just kidding, but do read Joe Katzman's great post, and Gerard Vanderleun's not to be missed translation of the Bin Laden campaign speech.

Do you suppose there are any Democrats honest enough to be embarrassed that Osama bin Laden has enthusiastically adopted their campaign themes?

Unless they wish to argue that bin Laden and the anti-war progressive left have come to these conclusions and rhetorical formulations independently -- in which case, why is it out of bounds to note that al Qaeda and the liberal left seem to be on the same side in this ideological culture war?

Keep those blood pressure pills close by in these troubled times of war posing as peace, you'll need them.

Linked @ Dean's World, Right Wing Nation, Vital Perspective, Wizbang, Stop The ACLU, Mudville Gazette, Point Five, Basil's Blog,

Comments

[Josh]

"how much money should we spend on defense?
is $600 billion really enough?"

So I guess there is no figure small enough to give to the troops that dems won't whine about. Are there any anti-war peace creeps who would like to recall the exact figure in today's money WW2 cost this country? 600 billion would be a drop in the bucket to pay for that war and probably wouldn't cover more than a half hour's worth of the Normandy invasion.

[Brian Bonner]

That Kos article was hysterical! Thanks!

[XTeacher]

Kos Kidz,

No matter how much you wish for it, the U.S. will never become the sort of totalitarian hell on earth where a sorceror-president is in complete control of all aspects of life (coal mine safety, hurricanes, education [despite GWB and Teddy's NCLB], etc.). I'm sorry if you found out about Mommy's imperfections too early in life, but don't take it out on the rest of us -- get therapy. Turning the U.S. into a Stalinist hell is a poor substitute for the attention you so obviously lacked and were screaming for as a little moonbat whelp.

Yup, it's Bush's fault that OBL has not been captured -- this is a simple matter of law enforcement rather than war, isn't it? If we were to capture OBL, it will all be over and you will be able to sleep peacefully in your little beds because the bogeyman has been caught. How hard is it, after all, to find a needle in a stack of needles?

I am grateful that you have so marginalized yourselves that what you say matters as much as what the mosquito says before I swat it.

[Darrell]

Do you know why the French sit around cafes, drinking wine, smoking cigarettes, and contemplating suicide? They occasionally listen to themselves. I suggest that you wacky Kos Kidz do the same. Refrain from reading your own comments, though. That would violate the McCain torture protocols.

I'm so glad that the NSA is data mining right now. It's almost worth reading "military industrial complex" once again.

[democracy or fascism?]

republicans:
how much money should we spend on defense?

is $600 billion really enough?

can the liberals be properly monitored and controlled
and the civil leaders and activists intimidated
and foreign countries invaded
and extra-legal torture trips taken
and gigantic no bid contracts given

for such a paltry sum?

is there any extra money in education, in health, in job creation or development programs, that we can transfer to the military industrial complex?

bin laden is very rich, you know.

do we have enough nuclear weapons?

don't we have to keep constructing more, in case some end up in the hands of the terrorists because there's too goddamned many out there to begin with? shouldn't we keep producing nukes just so our nuclear bomb industry doesn't have to take the hit? shouldn't we start using nuclear bombs on countries that pose a threat to us, like iraq? couldn't we just nuke the entire thing? (after we got our boys out, of course)

also, is 9 trillion dollars really a high enough debt ceiling? shouldn't we just make the debt ceiling infinate, so the feds can just print as much money as we need even though our economy is shot to shit and our major industries are going bankrupt and job creation hasn't matched population growth in 5 years? shouldn't we just count on the chinese continuing to buy dollars and suburbs continuing to sprout up and real estate values continuing to climb 5-10% forever? can't we just believe in those things happening and ignore the people calling for a balanced budget?

[dfx]

Actually, this is the interesting link at Dkos today. It shows just how effectively Bush has prosecuted the Global War on Terror. Basically, incidents of global terrorism are consistently on the rise. And we still haven't found OBL, the figurehead of the 9/11 attacks. You're doing a heckuva job, Bushie.

And what is the deal with the long-term memory loss displayed by the Right wing Blogosphere. Go take a look at bin Laden's messages from the late 90's. He attacked President Clinton with as much gusto as any other commentator from Fox News. Remember when bin Laden told the mothers of American soldiers to oppose Clinton? Remember when bin Laden said the name of Bill Clinton provoked disgust and revulsion? Gosh, it almost seems like bin Laden just wants to lash out at whatever party is sitting in the White House and will use any language necessary to drive a wedge between the parties.

And let's not forget that it isn't uncommon for bin Laden to list his grievances to lay the groundwork of a truce. This isn't something new. I wouldn't exactly accept it as a sign of weakness. Oh wait, I guess I would if I was as misinformed as the readers of this blog.

[The Ugly American]

Well I am a Democrat and GWB was the first Republican Presidential Candidate I ever voted for. I voted for Gore in 2000 and The Govenator before the 04 election.

People like Ghost Dancer can always come up with a long list of charges, and constitutional violations allegedly committed by President Bush. What they fail to do is ever list any specific event that violated their rights or anyone they personally know.

Anyone hear of any cases pending where someone’s constitutional rights were violated due to the war against Islamofascism?......

Nope.

Every time I think the Democratic Party has hit bottom it sinks even further.

[AnonymousDrivel]

RE: DarkSyde (Saturday, January 21, 2006 at 07:27 PM)
...the best thing you could come up with to tell your readers about was: Hey look folks, John Kerry is posting on the Daily Kos! Quick, hide under your beds! Not that we don't appreciate the traffic, but that just seems a bit out of whack, you know?

I don't know about anyone else but I'm dreaming (admittedly on my bed and not under it) Kerry runs again. An ever-widening margin of GOP supremacy may wake the Democratic party up enough to provide a relevant platform that would enhance our democracy and strengthen these United States. Unlikely, but hey, one can dream.

[Screejay]

Nice talking posts DarkSyde, I liked how you fit the "Culture of Corruption" in there.

In one sentence you say "because a group of nomadic lunatics got lucky with a few boxcutters once"

Yet then say "Osama bin Laden and Aymen Zawari, are gloating at us and promising to attack again on TAPE"

So what is it? Should we be scared or think that to quote you that they "got lucky", therefore we will not be attacked again?

Do you think it would be a good idea to accept OBL's "Truce"?

You want the Gov to protect you from natural disasters, but any measure at national security is destroying your civil rights. Please.

I like KOS because I have to ponder if there is enough tinfoil to go around there.

Sleep safe, better men and women then you are making sure you can.

Cheers

[DarkSyde]

Let's see ... Bush bungled the Katrina response both directly and because he appointed an idiot crony to safeguard the citizenry, his primary campaign advisors is an admitted hi security risk, blew a hole in the deficit that would make any democrat blush, attacked Iraq on a false premise, bungled the capture of Osama bin Laden and later remarked that the man who killed 3000 people on 9 11 isn't all that important, ordered spying on God only knows how many Americans without a warrant, and argues we should give up our most cherished morals in favor of torture, secret GUlags, and authoritarian policies because a group of nomadic lunatics got lucky with a few boxcutters once...

The GOP leadership is under investigation, the lobbying scandal is looming, the Culture of Corruption is getting ploughed with a ne wone damn near everyday ...

Osama bin Laden and Aymen Zawari, are gloating at us and promising to attack again on TAPE, Zarqawari remains in Iraq setting off IEDs and killing US service people, terroist attacks are way up over the last three years, Iraq is a godawful mess and now a training center for Al Qaeda with 17,000 US servive people maimed or killed and expected to cost a trillion dollars all for the privilege of being caught between a fundamentalist Shiite government beholden to Iran and an equally maniacal Sunni minority beholden to Wahhabism ...

Man it's an amazing list of failures isn't it? If it were happening to another country, one I didn't like, it'd be hilarious. Sadly, because it is my homeland, it's a tragedy. And it's becuase of that tragedy and the above list of astounding incompetence that I left what was once a rspectable party, the GOP, just two years ago.

But what I don't understand ... With all that going on, the best thing you could come up with to tell your readers about was: Hey look folks, John Kerry is posting on the Daily Kos! Quick, hide under your beds! Not that we don't appreciate the traffic, but that just seems a bit out of whack, you know?

[sigmund, carl and alfred]

The pipsqueak as poet. Still unable to perform.

[AnonymousDrivel]

RE: "...ass" and "...values"

Al-Zawahri, is that you?

[Nahanni]

Ahh...I see the members of the latest crisis cult have shown up here.

I find it rather interesting that one of them has the handle of "Ghost Dansing"-the Ghost Dancers were another crisis cult.

One you should take a lesson from.

The 1960's era is over. They have been for a long time but the final nail was driven into it's coffin on September 11th, 2001. That era, like the Buffalo (or Bison depending on which term you prefer) is NEVER coming back. The world has changed. And you members of the crisis cults are doomed to die for you can not cope with nor adapt to the changes that have occured. You seem to think (like the Ghost Dancers did) that if you worship your "heroes" such as Jane Fonda and John Kerry and hold protest rallies complete with the old tired 1968 rhetoric, chants and arrogance that the era of peace, love, dove will come back. Denial is the largest river in the Fools Paradise you live in.

Ain't gonna happen for that era and all it entails is as dead as old dad's hatband. Your next big clue will be seeing video of that mushroom cloud over Israel or a European city that your heros the "America is the Great Satan" Iranian islamists have lobbed.

[george w bush's conservative values]

republicans
do yourself and your country a favor
take the constitution
and burn it
erase it from the history books
tell them that our law here
was always based on
the ten commandments
and business as usual
'if those ain't good enough for you
you must be a jew
-that or a commie
-or some immigrant.'
so tell them the truth:
the america you want
is home of the
obedient
obese
and obtuse

[party of lincoln my ass]

republicans republicans
$600 billion a year on defense
still not enough
everybody's scared
the terrists
the islamofascists
nookyaler wmd's
all alone in iraq
impotent on iran
unloved in afghanistan
they all hate us
for our christmas and freedom
they want to steal christmas
and freedom
too late--
republicans already got 'em
poor american schmucks
living off equity
manufacturing nothing
ignorant, vulnerable
and voting republican

[Paul of York]

"But what makes me angry was Kerry and his gang's inability to take advantage of the situation. I may regret saying this later, but fuck it -- they should be lined up and shot. There's no reason they should've lost..."

Gee, this could be Uday complaining about his soccer team and a poor showing. Or Saddam himself speaking of a few underlings and their familes.

[Kenny Pierce]

But Kos was right -- the degree of incompetence it required for the Dems to fail to beat Bush, continues to stagger me. If there has been a worse-run campaign in the history of American national politics, I don't know what it would be.

There has been at least one even more incompetently-run campaign in American state-level politics: the campaign of Clayton Williams, who ran his Texas gubernatorial campaign against Ann Richards in a manner that can only be described as "like a true Aggie," and managed to lose against Richards, an even weaker candidate in Texas than Bush was in Florida. So unattractive was Richards as a candidate, that Williams only narrowly lost even after reminiscing happily about college days when he and his A&M buddies would head to Mexico and "get serviced," and then at a campout with a bunch of reporters -- that is, at an event specifically designed as a campaign performance -- ad-libbed the line, "Bad weather's like gettin' raped: 's long as it's inev'table, ya might as well lie back an' enJOY it." Even the massive double-digit lead Williams had in the polls couldn't survive that one-two punch. (I vividly remember staring at the television in awe when the news of that ad-lib broke, and thinking, "He did NOT just say that...there is no WAY he just said that...my God, what an Aggie.")

[Alexandra]

This is the best one though: Daily Kos wanted Kerry shot, after he lost the elections in '04. I have not laughed so much in I don't know how long:

But what makes me angry was Kerry and his gang's inability to take advantage of the situation. I may regret saying this later, but fuck it -- they should be lined up and shot. There's no reason they should've lost...

[Screejay]

The highlight of OBL's offer of "Truce" is how much it sounds like the Democrats talking points. The only thing I missed was a "Culture of Corruption" comment.

I read some of the comments on KOS after Kerry's post and I found that they either
A) Praised him for joining the site and told him he was robbed in the election (I gave up counting the Diebold rants) and to filibuster the Alito vote.
B) Criticized him harshly for losing to an "Idiot", not challenging the elections, and that they would never waste their vote on him again.

Ghost Dansing - "Maybe this ineffective Republican administration could make an argument that it's worth bending the Constitution into a balloon elephant if we were getting Osama's area code and smashing his connections."

Do you think they used electronic surveillance in the strike in Pakistan against the AQ leadership?

[Darrell]

I expect to see Osama as the new DNC chairman...maybe a spot on the faculty of Columbia or UC Berkley. "Chickenhawk," cried the fake Native American activist...You wacky Kos-Kidz! The hypocrisy of the Left knows no bounds, indeed.

If you haven't already done so, check our Dr. Sanity's whole home page. Lot's of realted items, said so much better than I can ever say. Just like Alexandra does everday!

[Publius Rendezvous]

Great Post!

Hypocrisy and disengenuous rhetoric know no bounds with the former Democratic Party.

[Paul of York]

There's that old Kerry double entendre again, "I've faced worse" which could mean political or, well you know, that other thing.
The left simply consist of a huge group who feel this country should be made up of people who follow one line and do as they're told. They feel however, that rule will not apply to them and they will each have a favored position.
Any who fail to follow their rules will be dealt with swiftly and with severe punishment, as they are prone to do now and would do more if they could. People who would live under their leadership have only to look at North Korea or Cuba to see the paradise waiting.
And news to many of them, they will not all be among the privledged. Many will be starving wirh us or in a large common pit of rotting flesh and bones.

[weekenderman]

Whatever, Ghost. You're forgetting that UBL indicated the desire for a "truce" in his latest rant -- an indication, in my opinion, that we're winning the war on terror. You're ignoring the fact that we've not had a terrorist attack on American soil since 9/11 -- another indication that things are moving in the right direction.

It's Osama and his liberal friends in the U.S. who are hiding in rat holes these days, while freedom marches on in Afghanistan and Iraq. Thanks to President Bush.

[Ghost Dansing]

The incompetent rhetoric of the reigning CHIKENHAUKS.

Maybe this ineffective Republican administration could make an argument that it's worth bending the Constitution into a balloon elephant if we were getting Osama's area code and smashing his connections. We don't even bother to raise the terror alarm anymore when the Qaeda mass murderer releases a tape.

Dubya has always seemed less compelled to capture Osama than to use him as a pretext for invading Iraq and as a political selling point.

Rove, coming out of his "please don't indict me" closet, tried to chase away the taint of the Abramoff scandal with a new round of terror-mongering for 2006:

"We need a commander in chief and a Congress who understand the nature of the threat and the gravity of this moment. President Bush and the Republican Party do. Unfortunately the same cannot be said for many Democrats."

Unfortunately, despite the tough chickenhawk rhetoric, we're expecting to see Osama on his own globally televised late night show any day now. Maybe Dubya and Dick could be his guests.