INDCJournal: More on the Kossacks

July 17, 2005

More on the Kossacks

Posted by Bill

Last week I outlined the general reasons why, despite its immense traffic numbers, the Daily Kos is a politically ineffective site that merely serves to poison the internet with nasty discourse. On the same wavelength, Dean Barnett of the Daily Standard supplies a more thorough analysis:

Theories abound for why the Daily Kos has left the right-wing blogosphere so far in the dust. One plausible explanation is that the Daily Kos has engendered a tremendous sense of community amongst it audience/contributors. While conservative blogs remain for the most part virtual op-ed columns (with the notable exception of Charles Johnson's Little Green Footballs), the Daily Kos has become a virtual family which allows readers to write their own blogs-within-the-blog (called diaries) and to engage in limitless amounts of commenting. Whatever the reason, there is nothing like the Daily Kos on the web--it is a phenomenon and the unquestioned leader of the blogs.
IN THEORY, THIS SHOULD BE A POSITIVE DEVELOPMENT for Democrats. The Daily Kos should provide the party's most devoted adherents with a constructive outlet for their energy; indeed it does. The site has raised bundles of money for Democratic politicians and its patrons certainly have a surfeit of passion that they're willing to bring to any political conversation.
...

While Moulitsas recognizes that the left-wing blogosphere is a world unto itself, if establishment Democrats have any awareness of that fact they have yet to betray it. Where Trudeau feels bloggers are a bunch of shut-in half-wits, the Democratic party seems to be under the impression that bloggers are an enormous, important constituency--and that it must go to whatever lengths necessary to win the hearts and minds of this virtual community.

THIS SEEMS LIKE A MAJOR MISCALCULATION, because the politics of the left-wing blogs are far out of the American mainstream. Where most of the 120 million Americans who voted in the last election bear a benign indifference to political matters, the left half of the blogosphere seethes with hatred for George W. Bush and his supporters. What's more, the blogs take numerous positions that would strike all but the most passionate Democratic partisans as patently preposterous. For example, several of the left-wing blogs recently ran an advertisement that referred to West Virginia Senator and former Ku Klux Klan Kleagle Robert Byrd as an "American Hero."

Also, the level of discourse on the Daily Kos and other prominent liberal blogs is not something that would be attractive to the majority of the American public. The writings are often obscene and usually relentlessly hostile and negative. Crude personal attacks, whether aimed at right-wing bloggers or politicians, are the order of the day.

A typical example came on July 4 in response to a humorous piece by the internet satirist "Iowahawk", which purported to be written by Abu Masab Al- Zarqawi and was titled, "Stop Questioning My Patriotism." This relatively benign and (and extremely funny) essay elicited the following response from regular Kos contributor "Armando:" "Fucking pricks. You goosestepping McCarthyites. Now go cry to momma. You yellow-bellied elephants."

And yet mainstream Democratic politicians are desperately trying to ingratiate themselves with Kos and his audience. A Who's Who of top tier Democrats have written "diaries" for the site, including Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, Barbara Boxer, and Ted Kennedy. The above listed politicians, and their less mainstream colleagues (think the John Conyers/Louise Slaughter variety), are constantly romancing the Kossacks.

More ominously--and more to the party's detriment--its leaders have adopted the blog's hysterically shrill style as their own. For instance, Ted Kennedy's diary for the Daily Kos adamantly demanded "accountability" for Iraq. When you've entered a realm where Ted Kennedy is a straight-faced champion of accountability, you know for sure you're in "a different world."

Talk about hitting the nail on the head.

Read the whole thing.

Posted by Bill at July 17, 2005 08:50 AM | TrackBack (1)

Comments

I think dKos's traffic is vastly overstated. Look at the sitemeter logs-- about a third of the referrals are from dailykos.com. Sounds like the way it's set up, it does lots of double-counting.

Posted by: John Tabin at July 17, 2005 12:19 PM

I wonder if Craig is going to bust in here and tell us all the reasons that we're wrong and that Markos is really a nice guy and that we're just evil conservatives who are immune to the facts, and it's the left that offers the best alternatives to national defense.

One thing that particularly drove me out of the Left: Marx predicted that centralizing all power to the state would create a classless utopia. Whoops. Liberals told us that massive aid and housing programs would preserve poor families. Whoops. Ralph Nader told us there was no substantive difference between Al Gore and George Bush. Huh. Noam Chomsky told us that our invasion of Afghanistan would create famine and millions would die. Robert Fisk told us that Bagdhad would be a smoking heap of ashes.

For being the reality based community, the left has a 150+ year track record of being catastrophically wrong.

Posted by: BadLiberal at July 17, 2005 01:00 PM

"Theories abound for why the Daily Kos has left the right-wing blogosphere so far in the dust."

-it has?

"One plausible explanation is that the Daily Kos has engendered a tremendous sense of community amongst its audience/contributors. While conservative blogs remain for the most part virtual op-ed columns (with the notable exception of Charles Johnson's Little Green Footballs), the Daily Kos has become a virtual family"

-if your family is a ghoulish socialist experiment, well, yes, then.

traffic counters are amazingly inefficient, and what counts are initial hits, not re-hits.

...on the other hand, one grenade could get 'em all.

Posted by: Glenn Bowen at July 17, 2005 05:12 PM

Bill, what concerns me is that there's a kind of Gresham's Law involved. As Kos's numbers, power, and influence rises do the fortunes of the whole left blogosphere rise? I don't think that's what I'm seeing.

Posted by: Dave Schuler at July 17, 2005 06:17 PM

Just one question before you censor this post in typical GOP craveness... Does it always take a democrat to win wars in this country?

Win record:

DEM: WWI, WWII, Kosovo
REP: Gulf War

Loss record:

DEM: None
REP: Vietnam (some shared responsibility, but ended under republican retreat), Korea, Iraq? (yet to be seen)

For a bunch of chickenhawks, you all have a pretty lousy record.

Posted by: Vote Hillary 2008 at July 19, 2005 04:01 PM

Have you guys polled on the use of the word shrill? Is it really that effective? Can't you just let one person use it? I've read left and right wing blogs, they're shrillness is equal.

Posted by: Evil at July 19, 2005 04:46 PM