Kos The Democratic Keyboard Kingpin

 

Welcome to the newly inaugurated All Things Beautiful!

To those of you who have waited patiently for the last couple of days, thank you, I hope it was worth the wait, and thank you for all the wonderful e-mails of encouragement and offers of technical support, it was much appreciated. To those who have kept everyone occupied in the comment section, thank you, I owe you big time. To those who have written posts for me to publish, thank you so much for the thought, I decided to keep my powder dry. To those of you who have turned down the babes last night, rushing home in eager anticipation to see the result, I guess Markos Moulitsas the Democratic Keyboard Kingpin will be a poor substitute (sorry Roach). To those who have been forced to begin reading 'War and Peace' to keep occupied, the colors will blend in beautifully with the period you find yourself in.

Deep rich velvet 17th Century 'Fortuny fabric' reds and deep burnished golds, was my original idea, and it has been quite a task to achieve it in the modern world of html. The film I had in mind was 'La Reine Margot', and her spectacular wedding dress....

Onto matters at hand so to speak, and the unhappy trio of John Hellemann @ The New York Times Magazine, Joe Lieberman and Markos Moulitsas Zuniger of the Daily Kos, and the controversial editorial published in their latest issue.

As you all know Moulitsas has been receiving some body blows from the disgruntled Blogosphere and MSM lately, most notably the New York Times' David Brooks recently with another side blow this weekend (video courtesy of C&L via Noel Sheppard @ NewsBusters, who spares no punches for the young Moulitsas)

In turn, the Democratic Keyboard Kingpin PR machine has brushed off his critics as unimportant, although he clearly does not like to be at the receiving end of bad press, especially in the middle of his John Kerry non-starter presidential campaign.

So clearly Joe Lieberman's 'Lone Ranger' moment of madness stunt in Connecticut, does not fall in line with the Kos Plan. Hence we have the start of the so called Kos Campaign Domino effect

Markos Moulitsas Zúniga, founder and chief firebrand of the liberal blog Daily Kos, sounded weary in a post after the conclusion of his convention in Las Vegas last month. “I have a few pre-existing media obligations to finish off,” Kos wrote, “then I’m going dark for a while. At least that is the hope. The media glare is not something I crave.”

Well you could have fooled me, what an absolute load of old baloney Moulitsas is dishing to us there, and John Hellemann is right to call him out on it

The temptation to wax incredulous here is nearly irresistible—given that Kos had just appeared on Meet the Press and sat down to chat with Maureen Dowd. But the truth is that his cravings are by now immaterial, since the media’s appetite for all things Kos is apparently insatiable. And so one day we read David Brooks opining in the Times about Kos’s hubris and caprice. The next we read about his feud with The New Republic over various allegations and betrayals. And still the next we read in Newsweek about “his plans to seize control of the Democratic Party.”[...]

Let me say at the outset that, by and large, I regard the ascendancy of the liberal blogosphere—and its opposite number on the right—as a salutary development, both for politics and the media. That the Internet, which has transformed commerce and culture in ways too numerous to list, is in the early stages of transforming politics, too, strikes me as beyond debate. Yet it seems worth noting that, on the left, the rise of the blogosphere has as much to do with the weakness of the Democratic Party as with the intrinsic power of the Web; that Kos isn’t so much seizing power as stepping smartly into a vacuum.

Few liberal bloggers would dispute the notion that the national Democratic Party is a clueless, witless beast, profoundly disconnected from the views of its adherents. As Matt Stoller, an influential blogger at MyDD, wrote about Clinton’s taking on Daou and her decision to support Lamont if he defeats Lieberman, “Senators are completely bewildered by what’s going on ‘out there.’ . . . The move to upgrade their political machinery . . . means two things. One, it means that these politicians are now taking our concerns into account. Two, it means that when they make a political move that cuts against the progressive movement, they expressly know the political consequences.”

The sudden Democratic obeisance to the Netroots fills many in the party’s centrist cadres with despair bordering on panic—for they see the likes of Stoller and Moulitsas as “McGovernites with modems,” in the choice phrase of Marshall Wittman, a Republican apostate now ensconced at the Democratic Leadership Council. More than a few leading GOP lights agree, happily foreseeing the liberal bloggers’ leading the opposition down (okay, further down) the primrose path into lefty irrelevance. As Newt Gingrich put it bluntly in Newsweek, “I think the Republican Party has few allies more effective than the Daily Kos.”

Mark Danziger, otherwise known to us as the Armed Liberal @ Winds Of Change comments for the inimitable Mark Tapscott's Examiner 'Blogger Board'

So when such bloggers as Markos Moulitsas Zúniga, Chris Bowers, Jerome Armstrong and Jane Hamsher preen that they have pushed “Rape Gurney Joe” (Hamsher’s sobriquet) off the island, there’s only one problem: They think they are winning in doing so.

Now parties have been getting weaker over the last few decades, and there’s a long and interesting discussion to have about that secular trend.

But right now, the interesting question is this one: Why are the leading progressive blogs pushing so hard for something that will objectively set back their ostensible goal — Democratic victory in ’06 and ’08?

When people do that, I tend to assume, not that they are stupid, but that there is another goal that may not be obvious to me.

And in this case, the goal is simple; they want to control the Democratic Party. The fact that a Democratic Party they can control will be a far weaker party hasn’t dawned on them yet. They are arrogant enough to believe that the people who live in flyover country are just ignorant, and that once they see the shining path they will fall in behind their betters. There is an argument to be made for mobilizing the discouraged nonvoters; but the candidates who have actually done that have been populists like Jesse Ventura — people whose politics are significantly different than Hamsher’s.

Ann Althouse dissects with surgeon precision, and is not impressed: "So Kos just wants to be the mechanism by which Democrats obtain power? There's no substantive content, just trust in this party?"

[Many observers point out] that Kos and his allies see themselves not as ideologues but as pragmatists, aspiring players. And, indeed, time and again, Kos has declared that his main interest is in regaining power, by whatever means necessary. In his keynote at his Las Vegas convocation, he declared, “Republicans have failed us because they can’t govern; Democrats have failed us because they can’t get elected.” His mantra on other occasions has been “I’m just all about winning.”

But to understand this Kos madness, one has to 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.

Keep those blood pressure pills close by in these troubled times of war posing as peace, and the never ending onslaught from the left, full of bravado and off the cuff dismissals.

Comments

[Kenny Pierce]

Mark,

The truly funny thing is that you don't intend that to be a compliment.

As a point of curiosity, have you posted any comments yet that make substantive points as opposed to gratuitous name-calling? Alexandra's blog is as much of a salon as it is a blog, and she takes as much pride in the commenting community as she does in the posts and the artwork. And, like any of the...hmm, being an ignorant redneck I actually don't know the correct term so I'll make one up...like any of the salonkeepers of Paris or old Moscow, she is always in search of people who have different points of view and can express them creatively and entertainingly, such as the generally mystifying but always thought-provoking Ghost Dansing. But if your intellectual prowess rises only to the level of childish taunting, then you are quite out of place here. This is a blog for grown-ups.

I'm not telling you to go away. I'm telling you that I think you have possibly misunderstood the nature of this blog. You may well be quite capable of contributing to a challenging and entertaining and free-wheeling adult-level discussion, and you may be behaving childishly at present simply because on so very many blogs childish behavior is precisely what's expected from commentors. If so, then all you have to do is start posting like a grown-up and nobody will hold anything against you and we'll be delighted to have another viewpoint to play with over the Scotch or the coffee or the skim milk or whatever it is each of us sips as he checks in to see who's chimed in since the last time he was here.

But if what you've managed so far is the best you can do then you're not going to last long here.

If I've overlooked worthwhile posts on your part then I humbly apologize and will happily peruse them if you'll tell me where to look.

[Mark Cabal]

"In your next life perhaps you can come back with at least two working neurons in your cranial cavity"

Blessed with a wit as sharp as your photoshop skills, I see. ;)

[Joe]

Wonderful work, Alexandra! You were right, the colors seem brighter, more vivid, and yet the feel and tone are still unmistakably ATB. And of course, one could hardly wish for a more graceful hostess.

Which makes me wonder what motivates those like Mark Cabal, to come to this very sophisticated place to throw their childish tantrums. Do they really expect those here to give any weight to their words, or to have any interest in a possible reciprocal visit to their blogs, when they exhibit this boorish behavior? I simply don't understand them.

At any rate, I wouldn't be surprised to see you win best design in the Weblog Awards this year, Baroness. You've certainly got my vote!

[Jeremayakovka]

While true that wealth and station are no guarantee of character or social contribution, regarding someone whose wits are devoted to upholding this - which combats this - someone else has just misspoken.

Besides, for others, heavy indeed is the head that wears the crown.

[Michael van der Galien]

Mark,

filled with hatred are we?

Look, I feel sad for you that you had a difficult childhood: being beaten up by your drunk father right after he returned from robbing the liquor store. That must have been extremely difficult for you, I suggest therapy.

But, your difficult childhood is not a good reason to insult those who were brought up with love and enough money.

[Alexandra]

Dear Mark,

Thank you for the compliment here and on the other thread just now

Must be nice to be a moneyed little bimbo who can afford the time to write such drivel.

In your next life perhaps you can come back with at least two working neurons in your cranial cavity, and I'll come back as an impoverished bimbo. For the time being though, we are both stuck with what we've got.

[Mark Cabal]

Just read your bio... I was right, you are an overprivileged little princess.

I wonder what you'd be doing if you had to work for a living?

P.S. The new design looks like shit.

[Michael van der Galien]

I was at a party! WooooooooooooHoooooooo!

Haha, take it easy, sit down, take a glass of water... come to think of it, you'll probably wake up with a headache. Advice:
drink a cup of coffee with a spoon of honey in it. It will make the headache go away almost immediately.

BTW: I visited your blog recently and enjoyed it very much. Did you design it yourself? Looks v.e.r.y. cool. That banner is magnificent.

[Michael van der Galien]

Mac,

I understand your point, but if that was the WaPo's objective, they should have done it in a different manner. They should have done it interview style with critical questions or they should have left room for, for instance, Olmert to react or they should have published a critical op-ed piece of their own in response to Haniyeh's fairy tale.

I'm European if there's something we learned 60 - 70 years ago it's that giving idiots a platform does not work appeasing or exposing them. Instead other idiots will use it to their advantage / he'll gain the support of more idiots.

Lastly, the WaPo is a respected newspaper. There is no room for terrorist lies in there! How would you have responded if it wasn't Haniyeh but Osama Bin Laden? Because that's the right comparison.

I wrote a post about it yesterday. My main point is easy to summarize:
the article is full of crap, the WaPo should be ashamed of itself for publishing it. It's disgusting, disgraceful and sickening.

[Jeremayakovka]

mac B,

I haven't read Haniyeh's "op-ed", but I recommend any transcript or footage you can find of BBC journalist Tim Sebastian of the appropriately named show "Hardtalk." A couple of years ago he put direct questions to top Hamas figures. His subjects give us enough rope to hang them with (although the West keeps playing cat's cradle with it....).

For example, with Azzam al-Tamimi:

TIM SEBASTIAN: And for that, continuing violence – that's what Hamas and your friends in Hamas speaks for?

DR AZZAM AL-TAMIMI: We don't call it 'violence'. We call it 'legitimate struggle'; we call it 'jihad' ...

TIM SEBASTIAN: Well it doesn't matter what you call it. It's still murder isn't it?

DR AZZAM AL-TAMIMI: You see the problem is that you're starting the story right from the end. Begin from the beginning. The beginning is when we, the Palestinians were removed from our land ...

TIM SEBASTIAN: But let's deal with the act. The act is murder isn't it?

DR AZZAM AL-TAMIMI: It's not murder.

TIM SEBASTIAN: You can call it 'struggle' but it's murder, isn't it?

And so on.

Then there's his interview with "freakazoid" (per LGF) Mahmoud Zahar.

[Joe]

Wonderful work, Alexandra! You were right, the colors seem brighter, more vivid, and yet the feel and tone are still unmistakably ATB. And of course, one could hardly wish for a more graceful hostess.

Which makes me wonder what motivates those like Mark Cabal, to come to this very sophisticated place to throw their childish tantrums. Do they really expect those here to give any weight to their words, or to have any interest in a possible reciprocal visit to their blogs, when they exhibit this boorish behavior? I simply don't understand them.

At any rate, I wouldn't be surprised to see you win best design in the Weblog Awards this year, Baroness. You've certainly got my vote!

[Jeremayakovka]

While true that wealth and station are no guarantee of character or social contribution, regarding someone whose wits are devoted to upholding this - which combats this - someone else has just misspoken.

Besides, for others, heavy indeed is the head that wears the crown.

[Michael van der Galien]

Mark,

filled with hatred are we?

Look, I feel sad for you that you had a difficult childhood: being beaten up by your drunk father right after he returned from robbing the liquor store. That must have been extremely difficult for you, I suggest therapy.

But, your difficult childhood is not a good reason to insult those who were brought up with love and enough money.

[Alexandra]

Dear Mark,

Thank you for the compliment here and on the other thread just now

Must be nice to be a moneyed little bimbo who can afford the time to write such drivel.

In your next life perhaps you can come back with at least two working neurons in your cranal cavity, and I'll come back as an impoverished bimbo. For the time being though, we are both stuck with what we've got.

[Mark Cabal]

Just read your bio... I was right, you are an overprivileged little princess.

I wonder what you'd be doing if you had to work for a living?

P.S. The new design looks like shit.

[Michael van der Galien]

I was at a party! WooooooooooooHoooooooo!

Haha, take it easy, sit down, take a glass of water... come to think of it, you'll probably wake up with a headache. Advice:
drink a cup of coffee with a spoon of honey in it. It will make the headache go away almost immediately.

BTW: I visited your blog recently and enjoyed it very much. Did you design it yourself? Looks v.e.r.y. cool. That banner is magnificent.

[Michael van der Galien]

Mac,

I understand your point, but if that was the WaPo's objective, they should have done it in a different manner. They should have done it interview style with critical questions or they should have left room for, for instance, Olmert to react or they should have published a critical op-ed piece of their own in response to Haniyeh's fairy tale.

I'm European if there's something we learned 60 - 70 years ago it's that giving idiots a platform does not work appeasing or exposing them. Instead other idiots will use it to their advantage / he'll gain the support of more idiots.

Lastly, the WaPo is a respected newspaper. There is no room for terrorist lies in there! How would you have responded if it wasn't Haniyeh but Osama Bin Laden? Because that's the right comparison.

I wrote a post about it yesterday. My main point is easy to summarize:
the article is full of crap, the WaPo should be ashamed of itself for publishing it. It's disgusting, disgraceful and sickening.

[Jeremayakovka]

mac B,

I haven't read Haniyeh's "op-ed", but I recommend any transcript or footage you can find of BBC journalist Tim Sebastian of the appropriately named show "Hardtalk." A couple of years ago he put direct questions to top Hamas figures. His subjects give us enough rope to hang them with (although the West keeps playing cat's cradle with it....).

For example, with Azzam al-Tamimi:

TIM SEBASTIAN: And for that, continuing violence – that's what Hamas and your friends in Hamas speaks for?

DR AZZAM AL-TAMIMI: We don't call it 'violence'. We call it 'legitimate struggle'; we call it 'jihad' ...

TIM SEBASTIAN: Well it doesn't matter what you call it. It's still murder isn't it?

DR AZZAM AL-TAMIMI: You see the problem is that you're starting the story right from the end. Begin from the beginning. The beginning is when we, the Palestinians were removed from our land ...

TIM SEBASTIAN: But let's deal with the act. The act is murder isn't it?

DR AZZAM AL-TAMIMI: It's not murder.

TIM SEBASTIAN: You can call it 'struggle' but it's murder, isn't it?

And so on.

Then there's his interview with "freakazoid" (per LGF) Mahmoud Zahar.

[olivia clemens]

*applause*

I think your essay was just as brilliant as those you wrote on the old color scheme.

You just ooze talent.

[Liquid]

Oh and where o where is Liquid?

;)

Posted by: Michael van der Galien | Tuesday, July 11, 2006 at 07:46 PM

-------------

I was at a party! WooooooooooooHoooooooo!

[The Ugly American]

WOW!

I always loved the look of your blog Alexandra, but WOW!

[Patty]

Like the changes... After you state it there isn't much left to say.
You tell it girl!!!!

[Ghost Dansing]

That's a very Liberal political philosophy you are demonstrating Alexandra.

A guy named Pekic chronicled the emergence of national-socialism and the
events of the Second World War as presented in letters written by Konrad
Rutkowski.

"Rutkowski, a German professor teaching at the University of
Heidelberg, served during the Second World War as a Gestapo officer.
Rutkowski letters were addressed to Hilmar Wagner, an equally learned colleague
and professor. These letters contained observations regarding the
demise of national-socialism and at the same time testified to the gradual
delusion of Rutkowski as a witness and victim of a corrosive totalitarian ideology.

While presenting the ideology of national socialism as the fruition of
intellectual pursuit of Western civilization, Pekic decried the travesty and
perils of dictatorial forms of government past and present:

“I did not have national-socialism solely in mind when I wrote about the phenomenon of totalitarian consciousness that gave birth to ideology and to processes of their reciprocal recreation."

In the course of the 1970s, when the novel was written, national-socialism as an ideology was, historically speaking, dead, except in the minds of the survivors and in the propaganda of the regime whose totalitarian ideology boasted the solution of the human question.”

Pekic inferred that he had the ruling dictatorial regime of his native country in mind when referring to the dangers of totalitarian ideology in proclaiming propagandist slogans of righteousness and the unmitigated happiness of its population.

Comparing the situation in his native country during the 1980s with earlier
times, Pekic discerned a pervasive sense of apathy and a feeling of disinterestedness in defining possible choices.

After some forty years of life in a police state, even the enlightened people with liberal democratic orientation expressed doubts about the inherent values of any political system.

Such doubts, to Pekic's mind, showed an alarming estrangement and lack of
knowledge and information.

The citizens at large eventually became accustomed to conducting their lives encumbered by various limitations that infringed on their civil rights and liberties.

Pretending that some justice existed for all, regardless of their social status and political perspectives, people had unwillingly accepted the philosophy of mimetic survival..."

Voice from the Darkness:
Borislav Pekić’s The Years the Locusts Devoured
Jelena Milojković-Djurić
Texas A&M University

mi·met·ic ( P ) Pronunciation Key (m-mtk, m-)
adj.
Relating to, characteristic of, or exhibiting mimicry.

Of or relating to an imitation; imitative.
Using imitative means of representation: a mimetic dance.

Or, as in "Republican's mimetic dedication to Freedom"

[Brian]

Michael mentioned what happened recently on Protein Wisdom, another blog that I frequent (there are about five total that I consider worth visiting, ATB being one of them).

The incident with Deb Frisch is indicative of the behavior one can expect from liberal bloggers and their communities, but I do think Jeff feeds their behavior, helping to escalate the nastiness of disturbed trolls into a full-fledged brouhaha. Jeff's strength is also his greatest weakness: his humor and snarkiness is used against him like a bludgeon. He pushes the Left's buttons so well that they turn him into a subject of obsession, and then when they write about him, he responds again with yet more button-pushing. It's funny, until it becomes ugly.

I have never seen that on this site, and don't expect that I ever will, because of the differences of the proprietors.

I'm going to be visiting The Moderate Voice to check it out. Thanks Michael.

[mac Brachman]

Correction to my previous post: in the next-to-last sentence, I of course meant to write "deploring the plight of the poor, put-upon Palestinians," not "deploring the poor, put-upon Palestinians." The bien pensants reserve their deploring to Jews and Israel, for daring to survive and to fight islamofascist aggression and all its allies...

Sincerely, Mac Brachman

[mac Brachman]

To jess1dering; you're welcome; and to "liquid": thanks for providing the website for internet haganah. You can also read about it in the July/Aug '06 issue of The Atlantic Monthly (which should now call itself The Atlantic 10 Times a Year because it publishes "double issues" at mid-summer and at Christmas/New Year). Internet Haganah I highly recommend; updated 2-3 x/week, it monitors the movements of jihadists/islamofascists on the world wide web as the latter attempt to hatch their schemes and carry out their murderous plots. It's run on a shoe string by A. Aaron Weisburd, Jewish and New York-born and -raised, but now based in Carbondale, IL (home of Southern Illinois University). I'm also Jewish and Illinois-based, but not in Carbondale (Chicago metro area in my case). Weisburd established the site post-9/11, when he became extremely angry that islamofascists were able to murder innocent people by the thousands in his hometown. IH has been credited with bringing down some of the jihadist websites and with helping to bring some of the perps to justice whose actions have gone beyond mere web nuisancing (is that a verb?) to outright evil acts in the "real" world...

Anyway, I was wondering what people thought of Haniyeh's op-ed article in the Washington Post today (Tues. 7/11). He is the "prime minister of the Palestinian National Authority," as identified by the biographical blurb at the bottom of the column, i.e., Hamas's chief govt. spokesman. The article takes Israel to task for the latter's recent military action in Gaza and admonishes Israel to "obey the rule of law" or words to that effect. Many bloggers were angry at the Post for running the article, but I was glad they did. Here we have the final absurdity of the islamofascists, elected to "represent" the Palestinian nation but refusing (in violation of the 1947 UN partition agreement) to recognize Israel's right to exist, refusing to engage in anything vaguely resembling lawful, peaceful, or dialoguing protest of Israel or negotiation with Israel, and whining when they're punished for their repeated aggression and attacks on Israeli civilians. Is this a new definition of chutzpah or what? But we know the leftists, intellectuals, and UN mandarins whom the bien pensants (NY Times editorial page editors, for example) will ignore the hypocrisy and continue with their sob-sister articles/editorials deploring the poor, put-upon Palestinians. We live in a world where sociopathy is richly rewarded; the more outrageous, the more lavish the rewards...

Sincerely, Mac Brachman

[Michael van der Galien]

Oh and where o where is Liquid?

;)

[Michael van der Galien]

Yeah where are Byron and Marshall?

[Alexandra]

Look at Ghost Dansing. He comes to visit all the time. He is polite, he has important things to say, we debate him we disagree with him, but he is always welcome and we love having him here TO disagree with and discuss. I don't care if I disagree with him, I like having him around and he adds to the discussion, and the quality of the discourse.

I am probably the one person who misses David Byron and Joseph Marshall, 'cos they were fun to disagree with. We have not seen them for a while....I like having polite intelligent people around with a different opinion. I see ATB very much take the lead in civilized debate.

[Michael van der Galien]

You know, great example:

- banning Brian was completely wack. completely out of line.

- that woman, Frisch, however, what she said at Goldstein's blog, threatening to do something to his kid, etc.: that means banning as far as I'm concerned.

[Michael van der Galien]

Alexandra,

As I said, when I started blogging I would disagree with you about that, but nowadays... pff... we work so hard at creating a blog, something we call our own, something we use to share opinion with the world, to talk to and debate with others and then morons come to that place we work so hard to create and they try to ruin it... Like you said, I would kick someone out of my house, thus also from my blog.

S.i.m.p.l.e.

That being said, there are of course clear lines. For instance, Brian was banned for absolutely nothing. completely ridiculous.
However; when people come and insult, threaten, curse, andsoforth, that's when they cross the line. disagreeing is fine, questioning is fine, challenging is fine, but combining it with insults, curses and threats is anything but fine.

[Ghost Dansing]

It is good Kos is getting some flak. Like all in the blogosphere, he takes himself way too seriously...and his job of criticizing Republicans is WAY too easy.

It seems to me that we’ve seen enough evidence over the years that the capitalist system is not going to be destroyed by an outside challenger like communism—it will be destroyed by its own internal greed.

Greed is the greatest danger as we develop an increasingly winner-take-all system. And voices like The Wall Street Journal’s editorial page encourage this mentality by insisting that any form of regulation is bad. But for whom?

It is so discouraging to watch this country become less and less fair—“justice for all” seems like an embarrassingly archaic tag. Republicans have rigged the “lottery of life” in this country in ways we don’t even know about yet. The new bankruptcy law is unfair, and the new college loan rules are worse. The system has been stacked so that large corporations have an inside track over small businesses in getting government contracts. We won’t see the full consequences of this mean and careless legislation for years, but it starting to affect us already.

Let's say insurgent attacks in Iraq were to decline from about 90 a day in the last few months to 70 a day in the next few. Well, now.

That's almost a 25 percent decrease. Never mind that it's just a retreat back to the number of daily attacks in 2004, or that it's still 70 attacks a day more than in 2003, before the American occupation, or that the civilian kill rate, which has been increasing exponentially to about 50 per day, is unrelated to the number of insurgent attacks (government-backed death squads, anyone?).

When things go catastrophically wrong on your watch, you have all sorts of options to make the slightest improvement look like vindication for your policies, however catastrophic they remain.

We're used to this Republican administration playing a crooked game in Iraq. Get ready to see the method applied on the federal budget deficit.

On Friday, the Congressional Budget Office announced that tax receipts this year are running $206 billion ahead of last year. On Saturday, President Bush in his radio address credited his tax cuts for the economy's strengths. "So," he said, "I will continue to work with Congress to make that tax relief permanent." On Sunday, The New York Times gave the "unexpectedly steep rise in tax revenues" lead-story treatment.

White House officially announced that the deficit in 2006 will decline to $300 billion, from its all-time high of $412 billion two years ago. The deficit will fall despite the $120 billion-a-year "war on terror" and spending related to Hurricane Katrina.

Leaking boasts, the White House is already claiming victory for Bush's serial tax cuts and chattering as if a central tenet of supply-side economics (cutting taxes increases tax revenue) was more gospel than voodoo.

But while increasing tax revenue is better news than we've been used to, it's next-to-irrelevant news when you look past the administration's short history of itself -- or even when you look closer at some of its own numbers.

[Alexandra]

Brian,

Let me try to answer this question to the best of my ability. I have never really sat down and thought about it, so my answer may be a little incoherent.

I blog because I really enjoy it. I love to write, I love images and most of all I love political discourse. Now I consider ATB my home. When I switch on the computer and go into my comment section it's like going into my drawing room. I sit down, I listen to people and I want to continue feeling comfortable in my own home. If someone comes in who is crass, starts shouting and knocking furniture around the room and generally being unpleasant, it makes me feel uncomfortable, and I generally give a warning to that effect. If a person is completely out of order and has obviously walked into my house wanting to insult me or any of my readers, who I feel equally protective over I will simply delete their comment, which is my way of saying I do not appreciate or tolerate this behavior. I do not ban unless the person is either a) really rude, or b) quite obviously repeatedly here to simply disrupt and make nasty comments, constantly criticize every single solitary thing I do and how I do it (in that instance I simply assume that person should go and visit someone else's home and stop constantly insulting me in mine), or c) if I feel the person has an agenda of their own which they are here to promote, and if I don't play ball and more importantly if I call them out on that agenda, they get shirty with me.

I have banned 2 people in one year of blogging, and I do not include any obvious trolls that come when I am featured by the left and simply come to disrupt and be rude and obnoxious.

The first was a commenter who openly said he would come and troll my site after reading comments I made at Glenn Greenwald's blog. When he first came, I tolerated him for a long time, despite sometimes quite obnoxious comments, even though he also used different posting names, which I consider rude. If you come to my house, you don't pretend to be someone else each time you visit. Then he would slowly start accusing me of things, like pretending a painting attribution was purposely attributed to the wrong museum and that sort of thing, or purposely watching out and commenting only on mistakes all the time. I still tolerated it, and simply changed his posting name to the original one he used, sending him a clear message whose house he was in. He finally got banned after quite a long time, when he stepped up the insults, I guess to see how far he could go. Invariably one day I woke up, saw the final comment where he overstepped the line, asking me whether I enjoyed sitting on the flag. He was then finally banned.

The second was another blogger, whose agenda became clear to me when he got his first warning when I deleted a link to his post after he purposefully kept disrupting a serious discussion in the thread by repeatedly posting comments to say "Look at me read me why is no one discussing my link" clearly not interested in the discussion or what my readers were talking to each other about but his own agenda. I did not link to him again, and next time he came back his agenda was identical. It was all about promoting his topics, not interested in anything else. No bad language involved but this is the comment that got him banned:

Well, then, for depicting the carnage that Napolean caused (in this painting) (and also for dressing invasive president up as Napolean), I commend you. I am kind of intrigued now that it is revealed that you dressed Bush up as the greatest butcher of the 19th century. Perhaps we should pay as much attention to your paintings as we do your writing.

No big deal there nothing obscene, simply bitchy, and designed to insult. And you know what, sometimes one feels why would I want that person back in my home. No thanks. I don't need to feel uncomfortable in my own drawing room.

So there you have it, no idea whether that makes any sense, but you know as I said I really enjoy doing what I do, and why should I make myself feel uncomfortable in my own environment which I have worked so hard to create. I love discourse, all opinions are welcome, and that will never change, but then neither will my upbringing, and what I consider to be rude or not, or my acute sense of smell for hidden agendas.

As for the comments you made on C&L, it is truly outrageous to get banned, but then again it's the old agenda syndrome. It's an unbeatable motive.

[Michael van der Galien]

Alexandra:

Interesting Brian, this is what basically got you banned:

But it seems very clear that John Amato, Jane Hamsher, Steve Gilliard, et al are part of a larger group that is most definitely taking its orders from King Kos. He says lay low and keep it quiet....and you obey. As such, every time I bring up the subject, my IP address is banned. No use of profanity by me, no hostile approach, just a simple request for a post about the subject.

Look when Kos asked for radio silence EVERYONE complied. Now you bring up the subject, and they DO NOT want it discussed, period. They have all tried to deny playing a part in this compliance, but it is too painfully obvious.

Exactly what I think of it. He was asking questions they didn't want to answer. He tried it once, was mostly ignored, tried it again (in other words: didn't give up that easily) and was banned.

A sad but extremely obvious sign of the mentality ruling in those places.

(we both know how certain people treated you over at you know where for, you know, not agreeing with the majority opinion ;))

[Michael van der Galien]

Brian,

Thanks! I scrolled down at C&L and also found this comment of ya:

Same can be said of any number of posts you rant about here.

When Ben Domenech's plagiarism came out, forcing his resignation from the WaPo blog and his entry into obscurity, this blog and others like it were all over the guy like white on rice. Conservative bloggers took the issue head-on, and the response was pretty much something like: "If this is true, it doesn't look good". They didn't close ranks on the guy and give the silent treatment in a brazen show of brown nosing, lock step approval.

With this Kos issue, much larger than anything Domenech was involved in, the is no consideration of the issue, no discussion, no evaluation or response to the arguments put forth by TNR. No, the response is: block IP addresses of commenters like me, or tell them it's none of their business, or just propagate the silemce....mum's the word. Just like ol' Kossy told you to do.

You're all showing your true colors as sycophants, hypocrites, and phonies. I mean, seriously, what trouble would it to be to do a post on the subject, in place of some ridiculous comment from Geraldo Rivera (as if THAT has a big impact on your life!), and take the issue on directly? Not nested within some fake memorial to Hamsher's mom's passing, but directly.

Is it in you, or is it more comforting and profitable to go with Kos' party line? Are you phonies, or the real deal? This is one heckuva test..

Funny enough, you were critical but didn't use any profanity, while another person says and I quote "f you" if I remember correctly, to you.

If you didn't post other comments after this (and I have no reason to doubt your words), that was highly insulting to them, their decision to ban you really is completely and utterly ridiculous. You were testing them, so to speak, but to ban people over this is way out of line.

If they banned you for this, they really banned you because they simply didn't want a commenter who disagreed with them and who exposed their hypocrisy regarding the Kos matter. It's too freaking sad for words to be honest.

On the other hand, how dare you disagree with the kossacks! ;-)

Like Alexandra said, purely a 'business decision'. Seemingly others there don't like to, you know, actually debate about subjects, they only want to rant and agree with eachother.

It's a sad thing.

Anyway, here at ATB you're always allowed to disagree, so ...comment here more often ;)

I'm - myself - also a blogger at The Moderate Voice: feel free to check it out, you're allowed to disagree there as well.

Banning in general: when I just started blogging I always thought I would never ban people. The last weeks or so, I must say that that has changed. We bloggers are spending a lot of time and energy into blogging. When someone reacts, constantly insulting you, not adding anything to the debate, on a daily basis... lets just say it's extremely frustrating. To yourself ánd to the other commenters / readers.

[Alexandra]

Interesting Brian, this is what basically got you banned:

But it seems very clear that John Amato, Jane Hamsher, Steve Gilliard, et al are part of a larger group that is most definitely taking its orders from King Kos. He says lay low and keep it quiet....and you obey. As such, every time I bring up the subject, my IP address is banned. No use of profanity by me, no hostile approach, just a simple request for a post about the subject.

Look when Kos asked for radio silence EVERYONE complied. Now you bring up the subject, and they DO NOT want it discussed, period. They have all tried to deny playing a part in this compliance, but it is too painfully obvious.

[Brian]

My comments at FDL are gone, and I'm still banned.

Alexandra, have you ever banned anyone, and if so, what's your criteria? I can understand bloggers wanting to control the tone and narrative of their blogs and comments by selectively deleting comments, but banning visitors? Seems extreme to me, but I'm not running a blog.

[Brian]

I went back and found the comment I made at Crooks & Liars. Reading it back a couple weeks after the fact, I was poking them a little bit, but I wasn't profane. You be the judge, but it was after this comment that I got the ban. I had posted earlier on a different post on C&L, but was asked to take the subject to an open thread, which is the one I've linked to. "Dogtown" is the name I use sometimes on left-leaning blogs (a cover I'm now blowing forever - oh well).

http://www.haloscan.com/comments/crooks/8822/#1170651

[Brian]

Let me see if I can find the one at FDL. It'll take some digging. We're going back a couple weeks.

[Randy]

I always love visiting your blog. Thank you for this post as well. I am always astonished at the KOS-affect. It's infotainment at it's worst and most powerful.

[Michael van der Galien]

Alexandra, I agree. If Brian's account is correct, it definitely was a business decision: not wanting to make people feel uncomfortable by, you know, making opposing opinions be heard.

Indeed, Alexandra, at ATB discussion is a priority and always valued (as long as everyone is keeping it civil). One of the main reasons why I love ATB (and because of Liquid of course ;))

[Alexandra]

Brian,

That is quite incredible. Do you think that perhaps the open threads are such that they feel more comfortable amongst their own, and this is what gives them these huge numbers in an echo chamber? As soon as you have an opposing opinion it brakes the cosiness of the safety net.

I must say though I am shocked that all three should ban almost automatically. It really must be to do with making sure their readers are in some sort of comfort zone, and feel relaxed. Again, these seem more like business decisions, with the goal to amass liberal readership. Discussion does not seem to be a priority, which is the case with ATB.

[Jeremayakovka]

Very good photoshop image. ATB was pretty in pink, but red is richer. Thank you for the darker text color. Congrats on joing NewsBusters. Gravitas vobiscum.

I don't get why Ed's in a pickle over Lieberman's new party choice. Just win, Joe.

I think a lot of us have Kos in our critical sights....

[Michael van der Galien]

Brian:

If they banned you for just asking, it's really sad. Have a link to your comment?

[Brian]

Love the new site, Alexandra. I'm a daily reader, first time commenter.

I have been observing the Kosola story ever since it "broke" in the NYT and TNR. I visited several blogs, among them Crooks & Liars and Firedog Lake (Hamsher's blog), and used open thread posts to politely ask what their take was on the story. My IP was immediately banned at all sites. Such is the openness we can expect from our friends in the political opposition.

I will not be surprised if the following question is asked repeatedly amongst the talking heads in the days after the election: "So, is it reasonable to say that the far left, led by Kos, bears responsibility for this devastating loss for the Democrats, and is it a harbinger for the presidential election?"

The Kossacks are ideologically blinded, and so puffed up by their perceived power, they are unable to see that they are a liability for their party.

[Michael Hinton]

Not only did you do it, but you went into hyperdrive and slammed Safari until it behaved. You, Alexandra are this week's heroine. And a gearhead to boot.

Michael

[Alexandra]

Thanks guys! Not without a few 'holding your breath' hours where the whole site was rendering half of the old colors and half of the new only in Safari and Netscape. Phew, fixed now....I need a stiff drink!

[Liquid]

Alexandra,
You didn't let us down! Who else would have made us feel like they have rolled out the "red carpet" every time we visited? I am waiting for the paparazzi to jump out! No kidding I love it!It's lush and rich...very much like your content here!

You did good Girly!

[Matt]

Beautifully done, Alexandra.

[Obi's Sister]

Love the new look! Deeply rich - Burgundy & Gold have always been my favorites!