Is it me, or does the except you've got there sound like it could just as well apply to Rove?

Which may not be a bad thing for our side, BTW.

As you've said many times Kevin, liberals achieved huge parts of their goals and settled down to technocracy because there was nothing left to do. Just what is ideology supposed to accomplish? The Republicans have lots of that, but they don't let things like reality get in their way of destroying the poor, the coloreds and the ability of government by the people.

You want an ideology? How about "reducing risk so that everyone has an equal opportunity to chase their destiny."

I remember Kos bragging about how he never reads actually books, and his taking the time to read Lakoff's slim "Don't Think of an Elephant" was an unusual departure for him.

Do Democrats really want a guy who doesn't read books calling the shots for the liberal wing of the party?

"we should be happy to leave the serious thinking to the think tanks."

You silly, silly man.

I don’t think ideology is at an all time low, I just think the ideology that is currently dominant is so cynical, it’s hard to believe it’s an ideology . . .

How to best describe it? Maybe: "It's our due." or "Stick to principle." I think those quotes are handy . . .

It's not so much that Kos himself is a draw, but that his website has a kick-ass design. I remember the day when it went Scoop, and things have never been the same there since. Others, like Digby over on Hullabaloo are far better writers, but their site sucks from a design standpoint.

Do Democrats really want a guy who doesn't read books calling the shots for the liberal wing of the party?

Why not?

I think any comparison to Karl Rove are wide off the mark, as Kos has not been known to use thuggery, lies, and deceit that are the hallmark of the current Presidential advisor.

"A lie can travel half-way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes"
---Mark Twain

Nah, no need to defend that one.

Now the statement that liberals treat terrorism like a game - now THAT one you might wanna defend.

To a large extent, I think Kos is symbolic of nearly the entire political blogosphere, which tends to be far more a partisan wrecking crew than a genuine force for either progressive or conservative thought.

True. Last night on Eschaton I had the temerity to say the transit workers strike was a terrible thing and I didn't agree with it. I said it was illegal and they didn't have the right to strike. Atrios, personally, instantly accused me of being a "Republican who supported slavery." I was also called a "cock sucker" and asshole. Really wonderful stuff.

It shit that like that makes me want to quit the party and register as an independent. Who the hell are these "progressive" bullies in the Democratic party?

This strikes me as another false dichotomy: ideology vs tactics.

There is ideology inherent in the desire to win because at heart there is still the question "win what"? What constitutes a victory? Unless you are saying that the blogosphere is strictly oppositional, ideology sneaks in. You maybe be decrying unexamined ideology, implicit ideology.

If winning were the only point, Kos would have joined the other side, where winning is easier to accomplish. Why does someone align with a minority that has less chance of winning if winning is the goal? For the challenge of it? I doubt it.

Mrs. Kos does the reading...from what we can grok, it's sort of an Oprah reading list...

Don't rule out the persuasive power of death bed contrition...lee atwater

Markos doesn't read books, he writes them:

https://www.workingforchange.com/Order/index.cfm?OrderFormID=4&mktcode=crashingthegate

"Crashing the Gate. Netroots, Grassroots, and the Rise of People-Powered Politics"

I find dailykos a bit strident at times, but it's a great place to rant and vent.

I think it's the nature of the times. If we survive these times (which sometimes seems unlikely), then the blogosphere is as likely as any other medium to begin developing political and social philosophy.

It isn't exactly news that Kos isn't interested in policy, ideas, anything with any intellectual content whatsoever. If he did care about those things, he might write something interesting or thoughtful at least once in a while. My God, I remember his blog around the election -- nothing but poll stats after poll stats -- mind-numbingly boring stuff, but it all makes sense coming from someone who cares for nothing but "winning."

symbolic of nearly the entire political blogosphere, which tends to be far more a partisan wrecking crew than a genuine force for either progressive or conservative thought.

Sure, if you ignore the way RNC talking points get cycled from RNC headquarters, through the conservative blogs, onward to the conservative talking heads, and then outward into the media to become accepted wisdom. I'd say the InstaNitwit is a substantial force for conservative thought--he helps force that thought into the mainstream media.

If what you really mean is a force for stimulating discussion or debate, one need only look at how, say, NRO can go from warning about the dire consequences of government intrusion embodied in a proposed FCC telephone tax (last week) to proudly proclaiming that Bush has every right to conduct unauthorized and illegal wiretapping on every American (this week). Debate or discussion is not possible with these people, given their astonishing inability to reason.

I don't believe that Kos is as non-ideological as he is portrayed. My take is that he is a realist; he knows we are fighting a ruthless and cunning enemy, and his approach is to use the best tactics at his disposal to simply win some elections, rather than getting caught up in ideological rhetoric. Once we reclaim the Congress, we can rattle on about ideology until we're blue in the face.

Kevin, the quotation that you use continues as follows:

"By his own admission, he just doesn't care about policy. It's here that the correlation between sports and politics breaks down. In sports, as Vince Lombardi is said to have put it, 'Winning isn't everything, it's the only thing.' When the season is over, you hang up your cleats and wait for the next season. But in politics, that's not the case—you have to govern, and if you don't govern well, you won't get reelected. So while tactics and message are crucial, most voters will ultimately demand from politicians ideas that give them a sense of what a party is going to do once in power."

Note that Benjamin does not write that a party needs GOOD policies, or SOUND ideas. He states (accurately) that the party's policies only must "give (voters) a sense of what the party is going to do once in power." That's just another way to say "message" and "tactics." The Bush Administration is living proof that message and tactics trump substance.

In today's America, message IS substance. There is no disconnect and there is no conflict between them, even if we wish there was one.

I have to take issue with the statement that the entire political blogosphere is a partisan wrecking crew.

Kos definitely is a tactician, which the Democrats are in desperate need of having. Atrios is more so as well. But there are plenty of theoreticians in the liberal blogosphere, such as Digby or Billmon or Matt Yglesias. I'm sure there are many more I could mention if I thought longer on the subject.

The "wrecking crew" tends to be the group that gets all of the attention due to the fact that they make the noise and engage on the front lines of the political warfare.

(Note: most right-wing blogs are little more than talking point reflectors, so I don't include them in my comments.)

To a large extent, I think Kos is symbolic of nearly the entire political blogosphere, which tends to be far more a partisan wrecking crew than a genuine force for either progressive or conservative thought.

Sadly, most Americans still get their "news" and "information" from the television and local newspaper. As we really smart people know, those are probably the two sources least likely to "get it right." With the demise of the WaPo and NYT over the last decade, you can't even count on the "national" newspapers to "get it right." Sadly, today you're just as likely to get a scoop or good reporting from the USA Today as you are the WaPo or NYT.

Most Americans do not read blogs. Most Americans don't even know what a blog is. For better or worse, there are no "gatekeepers" for Internet "news sources" and blogs. Most blogs are partisan crap or just not worth the bandwidth they occupy. So, I think it's a a stretch calling Kos and others "wrecking crews." Most Americans don't care about politics or even government to begin with - often can't tell you who their representatives in Congress are. They're even less likely to know who Kos or Goldberg or Atrios or Assrocket are. With few exceptions, blogging is most intramural mental masturbation with next to know implication for national or local politics. To date, blogs have had little success in pushing issues ignored by the MSM.

I also agree that Kos comes across as "win at all cost." That's readily apparent in the fixation with polls and even races for governors, an elected position that usually has few national implications.

My take is that he is a realist; he knows we are fighting a ruthless and cunning enemy, and his approach is to use the best tactics at his disposal to simply win some elections, rather than getting caught up in ideological rhetoric.

Since when is posting polls culled from the internet on his blog "tactics"? He's not really doing anything special aside from getting a whole bunch of pissed off liberals together to take swipes at the DLC and other perceived enemies. I guess you could make the case that he's raising money but where are the victories that DKos can truly claim credit for?

It seems like they jump on the bandwagon and claim credit for taking the govenorships in Montana and Virginia. But they didn't really do much groundwork because most of his readers live in blue regions like LA, SF, NY and Chicago.

Isn't DKos something like 0 for 15 on the candidates they support?

I'm not convinced Kos is as much of a force as he claims to be.

Another thought about Kos--

Whatever one thinks of his blog, he has set a remarkable example. Markos has shown that a young guy can sit in his apartment in Berkeley with a laptop and make a real difference in this world. He gets upward of 500,000 hits a day, he has legions of smart diarists posting their own thoughts, and he can raise money. He has created a powerhouse model for bottoms-up democracy, and I hope it is scaring the shit out of the GOP and the DLC.

Kos definitely is a tactician, which the Democrats are in desperate need of having.

No, the last thing the Democrats need is more people worrying about tactics and polls.

Every American knows the Republicans stand for three things: lower taxes, strong military and "family values."

The Democrats don't have a platform or stand for anything except "get elected." Kos is contributing to that.

Nancy -

Just because two things are not completely 100% come-hell-or-high-water independent doesn't mean that there's a "false dichotomy".

Even better: is the distinction between cordate and renate a "false dichotomy"?

I WOULDN'T TAKE THAT LYING DOWN KEVIN, YOU CARE ALOT LESS ABOUT POLICY THEN KOS DOES.

I say we all e-mail these foold and let them know Kevin is even LESS policy oriented and knows pretty much nothing compared to Kos.

Ohh by the way Kevin, have you bothered to look up the Aldrich Ames story on Clintons' warrantless earches of even his house, based all on the President national security powers.....Ahh, not interested huh, I didn't think so...more Koolaid???

I think Kevin is right. For all the huffing and puffing the right does about small government, they actually love it (as do the American people). Sure, some of them have made some attempts at cutting SS, but they expanded Medicare in a huge way. For them it is just about what TYPE of government they want (a corrupt one it seems to me). The size just does not matter outside of a few Grover Norquist/Steve Moore types. The only ideological fight recently has been Iraq and even then you have a lot of liberal hawks who supported the war.

On the left, where socialism was once a social dream of the left often discussed over a glass of champagne, there has been a real acceptance of capitalism. Mike Harrington's treatise on a resurgent socialism is just plain dead, even within most of the left. Yes, universal health care is still a major goal, but it will be the panic ridden right (in the form of big business) that will eventually push that through.

So now we scream at each other about things so trivial, it boggles the mind to think about it; the culture wars. The so-called war on Christmas, the Terry Schiavvo affair, etc. The ONLY real piece to this is the debate on abortion.

I guess there are some real things to discuss from an idealogical point of view, but in a real way, the left and right are actually in close agreement (or at least tolerating) the situation we currently have (much of which was made in liberal land).

Every American knows the Republicans stand for three things: lower taxes, strong military and "family values."

How do Americans know this holy trinity of political talking points? It must be brought to the public some way. How?

Ideology is different from policy. I'll suggest that it most often takes non-ideological thinking to make good policy, and that ideological policy will have a good outcome only by chance.

The non-ideological portion of the blogosphere has been the first exposure I've ever had to policy discussions that go beyond sound bites and NPR handwringing.

Just look at the recent bashing of Bush over the war on Terror. Most of it details how Bush's policies have been effective political weapons, but ineffective, and even counterproductive weapons against terrorists. Even the ideological "Liberty or death" uproar over the latest constitutional crisis has at it's roots the very practical, learned the hard way policy of limited executive power.

Crowd Goes Wild,

Your dismissive attitude towards Kos reveals that you haven't spent enought time on that site. There is a tremendous amount of useful information and nuts-and-bolts material that is helpful to anyone interested in electoral politics. While you are pissing and moaning, Kos is laying the foundation for a progressive revolution.

The lack of ideology is appropriate for a true conservativism. We don't have any plans for a grand utopia; we just want to stop Republicans from ruining the country.

When one party wants to set the house on fire in order to deal with a rodent problem, the other party is allowed to oppose arson without coming up with alternative methods to deal with the rats.

its enough to oppose Republicans.

"I'm honestly not sure what I think of that. Maybe it's just the nature of the medium, and we should be happy to leave the serious thinking to the think tanks. At the same time, I have a feeling that it's also a reflection of something that's been obscured by the ever shriller noise machines on both sides: the death of ideology."

Well, there is one ideological idea behind Markos': that the Democratic party should be more than an ad-hoc coalition of single-issue groups, and that progressives reliance on single-issue groups to advance their agenda is a dead end. Maybe that's not an ideology so much as identifying the lack and need for an ideology.

But if you draw an analogy with the UK Labour Party, there wasn't different between New Labour and Old Labour save for message discipline and committment to stay unified to defeat the Tories.

I noticed Markos' name on the Monthly cover when I found it in my mailbox last night. I've had a few thoughts about it.

1) I agree with David W. that Scoop has a lot to do with Kos' success. I think it would be interesting to see what would happen if a mid-major blog, a Digby or a Political Animal or a Firedoglake, went the same way.

2) I find myself reading DailyKos a lot less than I did a year ago, mostly because of the lack of insight and analysis.

3) I think Wallace-Wells left out the one major ideological point that applies to most of the lefty blogsphere, Kos included: the willingness to accept Dems who are more conservative on social and cultural issues such as abortion and gun control, contrasted with a deep disgust for Dems who are more 'conservative' on what are basically corporate-whoring issues such as bankruptcy 'reform', class action 'reform', and free-trade pacts which seem to benefit the rich while costing the jobs of average Americans.

It may not be the most significant point in the world, but it IS ideological, and it is important. And it's what fuels Kos' dislike of the DLC, because much of that stuff seems to emanate from that shop. Plus they seem to be a source of a lot of Dem-bashing, particularly on Iraq and national security isses - and I'm not talking about honest debate and disagreement, which is good, but simply crapping all over those they don't feel are 'strong' enough.

4) I think Wallace-Wells made good use of drawing an analogy to Bill James. I think he could have taken it further: James, and Krugman, and many bloggers, feel that they see more precisely because they're not spending their time talking with the players, managers, coaches, GMs, and other baseball insiders (in James' case), or the pols, consultants, Congressional staffers, pundits, and other Beltway insiders (in Krugman's and bloggers' cases).

And this comes back to point #3: from out here, you can see that supporting Bankruptcy Deform isn't going to gain you any votes on the right to compensate for the votes it loses you on the left, and that a Democratic Party that's home to people who support bills like this blurs the brand.

Because if there's one thing you need a Democratic Party for, it's to keep the big guys from screwing the little guys. And it doesn't take too many Bidens, Liebermans, etc. to give the GOP 'bipartisan' cover to their corporate-whoring. And then you don't have a brand, because enough Dems are looking no better than the Republicans on pocketbook issues.

While you are pissing and moaning, Kos is laying the foundation for a progressive revolution.

Sounds great but I've been hearing that bullshit on the blogs for five years. Where is it?

Tactic? DailyKos?

What tactics? Markos hardly posts and when he does it is something borrowed from Think Progress or some other blog.

If it wasn't for others composing great diaries for free while Kos get paid for it there would be no reason to visit DKos.

It shit that like that makes me want to quit the party and register as an independent. Who the hell are these "progressive" bullies in the Democratic party?

Well, using the argument that the strike is illegal is somewhat weak. The Taylor Law is actually pretty atrocious; what are public employee unions supposed to use for leverage, harsh language? I do wish that Atrios commenters had addressed your points rather than stooping to ad hominem abusive attacks (at least at first :-)), but there's also a strong cadre of, yes, progressives who are tired of both parties deciding to be anti-labor. So look into the details of the strike, the last-minute demands for tripled pension contributions and the like. If you still say, "So what? It's illegal, and it inconveniences others," then you should go ahead and switch to independent, or Republican. But I suspect that both you and the Atrios folks were just giving your "kneejerk" reactions to the issue.

Now, Kos definitely has some issues with not thinking through certain issues, too. This has come out on choice, and on the promotion of "Fighting Dems" at all costs, even if their platform isn't particularly in keeping with the Democratic Party. Does this perceived pragmatism, or alternatively, willingness to jettison principles, increase or decrease his effectiveness? Note that the perception is important. The Republican Party, the party of fiscal responsibility and distrust for federal powers, has become the opposite, while successfully pretending that it hasn't. I'm not saying that Kos is actually a "sellout," just that on issues such as choice he can be painted as one.

Bill in Portland Maine is my favorite, anyway, since Meteor Blades left.

And whether you love Kos or hate Kos, the author of an article about Kos that didn't verify the facts with Kos is just an idiot - or a republican.

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/12/22/16121/850

Kevin, note your post below about terrorism, the EPA, and chemical sites. I think that is an example of ideology being alive and well and entrenched into the partisan politics of the Republican Party.

I well remember the 1970s when the EPA was formed. A large segment of the business community was dead set against it. The problems were so obvious, and he problems so obviously crossed municipal and state lines (polluted rivers, oceans, and air don’t care about such boundaries) that even Richard Nixon could see that there was a strong role for the federal government to play.

However, a large segment of the business world resisted ANY kind of regulation, anytime, anywhere. This became an ideological position, a belief, if you will. That belief is so entrenched into the conservative wing of the Republican Party that it is not even questioned. EPA = BAD. Government regulation = BAD.

They are so ideological about it that it interferes with rational thought, even when terrorism is involved. If for some reason the military could do the monitoring, then it would be more acceptable to them. The military is about the only part of government the right-wing ideologues accept.

Kos serves a valuable purpose. If all liberal bloggers were like Kos we'd have a problem, but it's important to look at individual bloggers as part of a balanced blog diet, as it were. And on that front we're doing pretty well: just among the top liberal bloggers we've got a big-time strategist (Kos), a big-time thinker (Drum), a Glenn Reynolds-style roundup guy (Atrios), a crusader (Avarosis), and one ring to rule them all (Marshall). To me that looks like a pretty decent recipe for a movement.

To criticize Kos for not being particularly interested in policy is like criticizing the lungs for not being interested in pumping blood.

That piece is a senseless hit on Kos. The author seems to expect Kos to be everything to everyone. What a croc.

BTW, the clock on this server is off by a noticeable amount...

there you go again Kevin with your 'there is no real, meaningful difference between the parties' meme. It is one of the most F'ed-up and consistently so, things you do. Is it possible that you are really that blind or is it just laziness? Can you really be so willfully delusional to think that the massively pervasive undermining of American principles and what the US stood for would have occurred had not the republicans obtained power? Can you not understand that the seeming lurch to plutocracy/creeping fascism under the bushcriminal regime is the logical outcome of the tactics and objectives of the Reagan era. Perhaps you are a little too close to the trees to see the forest.

Kos is all about winning?!

Look at his record, he's the 1962 Mets, or 2005 Temple University Football, of the blogosphere.

I'm sure Republicans love having winners like that calling the shots on the other side.

Kos? Screw im.

> than a genuine force for either progressive or
> conservative thought.

Can you give me some examples where thought, either progressive or conservative, has accomplished or even been involved in anything since the death of HilliaryCare? Which was - what - 1992? And please: some examples of thought in action since November 2000.

The Radicals are ruled by Rove and Norquist, whose goals are domination and nilhism. Having good tacticians on your side in a fight like that, as opposed to deep thinkers, might be a good thing no?

Cranky

What Kos has done is remarkable. He has created an open source marketplace for comments, plans, and ideas. I don't particularly care what his own ideology is because what he has done has set up a place where I can comment on issues that others raise adn raise issues myself that others cna comment on, if they wish.

One remarkable example is the mass collaboration on an energy policy that Jerome a Paris and Meteor Blades and others have been working on. Another is Alpha Geek's great disaster planning series.

Kos may care about politics more than policy but he has made it possible for thousands of us to meet and talk together. That's the real point.

Kos may care about politics more than policy but he has made it possible for thousands of us to meet and talk together.

Where's the beef?

Markos may run DailyKos, and he posts on it, but so do a lot of people... people who do think about the core issues at stake. You may or may not agree that it's great progressive thought, but it is progressive thought, and the DailyKos site is providing a forum for them. Just a couple examples... there are many more where these came from.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/10/2/19118/2431

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/11/29/123721/08

Even kos himself gets into the act.

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/6/13/124929/317

"Partisan"? How many partisan sites can you think of with such a wide range of opinions? There are Republicans there as well as Green Party members. There are annoying people, and there are smart thoughtful people. It's chaotic, and I love reading the stuff there.

The problem with Kos being just a tactician -- and that's largely an accurate description -- is that purely tactical politics, that is, seeking powerful for a particular group over others, is inherently ideologically conservative.

You can't be a useful liberal tactician (or, more importantly, strategist, which we desperately need) without also having a deep concern and enthusiasm for liberal ideology, because liberalism isn't about one group gaining power over others, indeed, its directly opposed to it. Liberalism is about, largely, spreading power, where tactical politics is inherently -- no matter which faction it is for -- about concentrating it in a faction.

Kos is a Democratic partisan tactician, and a very competent one.

That being said, his site has great utility for those interested in progressive ideology, since he isn't the only person that writes there, and there are quite a few interesting, and more ideologically engaged, diarists and commentors there.

Kos isn't the ideal leader of the movement -- but he's not the leader of the progressive movement. There is a danger from partisan tacticians without ideological sophistication being too influential in the party (one which is, in fact, already very much visible -- and exacerbated by the fact that they are often clumsy tacticians -- in practice, and Kos has little to do with it), but the solution to that is for more of the ideological voices to speak up and get involved in the debate.

I don't know why some think that it is such a big problem that Kos is just a tactician, even if that is indeed the case.

It's like saying that Neil Armstrong was just an astronaut on the Apollo mission.

A party needs all sorts of people: ideologs, tacticians, strategists, water carriers, and yes even friendly critics and disdainers like Kevin. Only a superhuman can be all of those in one package.

But though he can match Michael Moore for shrillness ...

Michael Moore is not "shrill".

Why do the "sensible liberals" at Washington Monthly consistently embrace right-wing Republican characterizations, charicatures, frames and talking points?

Such as the notion that anyone who outspokenly criticizes Bush or dares to tell the hideous truth about the Bush administration is "shrill"?

Every American knows the Republicans stand for three things: lower taxes, strong military and "family values."

You may have noticed that everyone "knows" these things despite the fact that the Republicans have shifted the tax burden away from the super-rich to the middle and lower classes, they have repeatedly voted against health and disability benefits for our fighting men and women, and you needed to put "quotation marks" around family values because you couldn't bring yourself to type it otherwise in the face of a budget that just slashed family-friendly programs like student loans, school lunches, and Medicaid.

People "know" those things about the GOP because of MESSAGE and TACTICS. Because of Frank Luntz, Rush Limbaugh, Karl Rove, and others. The underlying policies are nearly meaningless, as has been proven for the last five years.

Kevin, that's an unfair and unreflective post. To say Kos has no interest in policy is to beg the question "why is he running a liberal blog?"

There are many political operatives more interested in winning than in principle, operatives who were born Democrat or Republican and stayed that way, or who changed sides when the grass was greener. But the leading liberal bloggers, Kos included, are not among them.

Atrios is a crusader and a source of news. He wants to win, sure, but he wants to win because he values the triumph of right over wrong. John Aravosis at Americablog is much in the same mold. Digby wants to win as much as anyone, though he's more of an analyst than a Paul Revere type, but once again, he seeks victory for principle. And the list goes on.

Perhaps you have spent too much time with political operatives on both the right and left who are corrupted by partisanship. And perhaps the fact that many of these liberal bloggers are somewhat to the left of you and often more harsh in rhetoric makes it easier for you to jump to the wrong conclusion. But this post did not well not serve either your party or, much more important, the truth.

What a silly article. Daily Kos is an open blog. There are at least fifty new articles on that site every day. Some are about policy, some are about wanker journalists, some about wanker Republicans. So. . . Kevin, where's your new energy bill?

The great thing about the Dailykos is its organization. Lots and lots of smart diaries and a steady flow of front page stories. He has recruited a bunch of folks to post those front page stories. They keep the information fresh. The diaries give the reader access to a lot of small or obscure stories. Often I find myself a day or two ahead of the curve after skimming the diaries.

Many blogs are organized from the top down, newspaper sytle. Why not, most successful bloggers are successful newspaper people. Many are translating the model they know to the internet. Kos has organized his from the middle up and down. For whatever reason every progressive likes to think he or she is a pundit. That separates progressives/liberals from conservatives.

Kos's ideology isn't the reason I have the DailyKos on my list of favorite sites. It is his organization.

BTW, Kos has an "errata" posted over at the dailykos site.

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/12/22/16121/850

Kos and his web site are the epitome of what the Daily Show pegged as the Democratic Party problem in campaign 2004. They gathered 15 different people representing the diversity of the party and came away with 15 different #1 issues. The beauty of the party as encompassing a wide range of view points is its fatal flaw in a one issue (the terrorists! the terrorists! they're here, they're there, they're everywhere!!!)campaign.
The republicans stayed on message (and it is about the message as someone earlier said) and just kept hammering that one point.
What's pathetic about it is that the administration has only the message. It is not a plan nor a policy for actually running anything. Look at the fact that even the logistics in Iraq have been flawed because Rumsfeld insisted on the DoD running the show instead of leaving the military to do its job.

Fuck kos.

Scoop is great but that self-important asshole ex-Republican vomits text, plays crap piano, and only bothers to stop and think after getting slammed by a journalistic 2x4. He and his legions of self-righteous blaring hypertensive worshippers couldn't diplomatically communicate their way out of a wet paper bag. He'll probably write some post correcting the name of his highschool sweetheart in the WaMo article. Like anyone gives a fuck.

Just doing my part to get you that world record comment thread for Chrismas ! : ) How we doing so far?

I'm a dKos addict, but it's not just because I want to hear what Markos has to say. It's a community blog w/ many great writers. Some are more interested in tactics, some in ideology, most a bit of both. That's part of what makes it interesting.

Kevin Drum wrote: "To a large extent, I think Kos is symbolic of nearly the entire political blogosphere, which tends to be far more a partisan wrecking crew than a genuine force for either progressive or conservative thought."

As usual, I'm late to this discussion, and -- in the middle of the work day -- can't take time to read all these comments. But THIS statement actually ticks me off. Generally, I'm usually in fair agreement with Kevin, but this is just SO off base, as least as relates to the liberal side of Blogistan.

I hardly ever read Daily Kos, because it seems to lack substance at times ... and I get tired of wading past so many "open threads." I don't dislike him, and often pick up things he's said. But, obviously, others like him a whole lot more than I do.

But, if analysis and serious thought is what you want (with or without much tactical thinking on the side), you can read Digby at Hullabaloo; Billmon at Whiskey Bar; Publius at Legal Fiction; Michael Berube; frequently Steve Clemons at Washington Note; the brilliant Mark Schmitt at The Decembrist; Brad DeLong weighs in now and again, as well. You can find wonderful analysis about extremist groups from David Neiwert at Orcinus. Matthew Yglesias often provides insightful commentary.

ALL of these bloggers, and a small army of others as well, routinely go far beyond mere concern with tactical issues. Of course, if you are defining "theoreticians" in some unusually academic or refined way -- where a Billmon or Neiwert don't make the cut -- then I suppose you're right. But, then, when I look at many of the "conservative manifestos" written over the past 30-40 years, by alleged "wise men" of the right, what I'm usually impressed with is how profoundly shallow they are. THEY apparently set the bar remarkably low, so that out-and-out racism ("The Bell Curve") and pathetially simplistic arguments about law and society (anything written by Robert Bork in his entire life) are held aloft as examples of the conservative "idea machine." By THAT standard, Kos is a veritable deep-thinker!

But by any normal standard, we on the left do -- in fact -- have a boatload of bloggers working day and night providing a rich bounty of new ideas and new thinking for Democrats and the left generally. Not just tactical advice, but detailed analysis and plenty of new ideas.

Kos is a Democratic partisan tactician, and a very competent one. Posted by: cmdicely

Define "competent" with regards to being a partisan political tactician. He was batting about .153 after the last election.

I sense that liberal "tacticians" either give the general public too much credit for understanding the subtlties of most issues facing voters or they aren't smart enough to dumb the issues down the way the Rethugs do so well to appeal to the heart and not the head, which for most Americans is filled with a sickeningly viscous mixture of, among other things, "reality TV," NASCAR, hip-hop music, "Christianity," saw dust, and Big Macs.

He has created a powerhouse model for bottoms-up democracy, and I hope it is scaring the shit out of the GOP and the DLC.

What I think and hope.

cdj: Kevin set the two in opposition, not me. I am saying ideologist/tactician can be coextensive. I think we are agreeing.

This is what has troubled me about Kos, and kept me at arm's length from the Deaniac-dominated netroots. Yes there are diaries about policy and substance (as opposed to just partisan political pornography) at kos every day, but the ethos of the place is more about winning (which is in part why it is the most dynamic community blog for Democrats). As someone who does care about policy, and the proverbial great society, I worry about what happens when the people this crowd supports actually get into office. One shouldn't underestimate the importance of small donations to our political culture (which is chiefly a Deaniac innovation), and their targeting of the Washington elite is pitch perfect, but there was a disturbing willingness on the part of Kos and Armando to countenance the bankruptcy bill (for instance), which leads you to wonder what else the leadership (and they are a kind of leadership, despite their protestations) will countenance. There are some hopeful signs that what began in partisan wrath could become a revolutionary movement grounded in distinctly American ideals (a kind of left-libertarian, Jeffersonian-Paine hybrid), with an abiding concern for basic republican values - liberty, humanity, and constitutionality - but that will mean turning the sword on even self-described liberal Democrats in Congress who don't live up to those values.

There's no such thing as ideology. It's merely another form of advertising, now, and rarely connects with the policy realities of the side it supports. The blogsphere took off because people who think for a living were sick of the pap served up as "news." As time went on we realized just how vast the advertising machinery was, saw the bill for what they were trying to sell us, and said "no fucking way."

The wrecking crew response you note is our reaction to having to wade through obvious bullshit and its sad, sad dupes every day, knowing that they're overwhelming us with the sheer number of repetitions, outlets, and idiots. The content is meaningless, the talking heads have been bought, the looting is almost over, and the costs are staggering so yeah: wrecking is the only rational response to a pile of rubble.
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This is pitiful kossites. Drum called your bitch out.

What part of "Kos is all about tactics", "we should be happy to leave the serious thinking to the think tanks", and "Kos looks french" didn't you understand?

Kos, to my way of thinking, understands that most Americans agree with the Democrats on the big issues, and yet they still vote for Republicans because of the GOP's tactics, their marketing, their demonizing of the opposition, etc.

What I get from Kos is that the Democrats are playing by the Marquess of Queesbury rules in a knife fight. So all the policy discussions in the world are simply acedemic if you don't use the tactics needed to win elections . . .

Back when my beard wasn't grey, I thought that ideology had a lot to do with success.

We always thought that "doing the right thing will get us to the top." We were right (or left) and the other guys were wrong.

As a dyed in the wool liberal Democrat, it was rather insightful to have the opportunity to study with a true master at the tactical pol - Lee Atwater. As a undergraduate at the University of South Carolina in the mid-70s, Lee was a graduate assistant, while also working to define Bush I as a candidate for president. He lost to Reagan, but was absorbed into Reagan's WH.

Lee and I became friends. In addition to national stuff he was doing with Bush I, he was also dabbling in local and state stuff, as was I.

We had a running bet - fifth of Scotch to the victor. Each of us bought our share of Scotch.

Lee had a very basic tenet - tactics will beat ideology any day of the week.

Having been a child of the 60s and 70s, we all had to go from the idealism that we could overcome, we could make world peace, simply by wishing it to be so.

Kos is alot like Lee was. Let others worry about the ideology, while I design the strategy, the tactics to take over.

There is a great line in the movie "Power" starring Richard Gere that came out in the 80s. The candidate asked a very basic question: "What about the ideas that got me here, such as tax cuts, feeding the poor, educating the ignorant...?"

Gere, the tactician, responded very succinctly, and accurately: "After you get in office, I don't give a flying fuck what you do. But first, I have to get you there. So shut up and do what I say."

You've got to get there in order to accomplish the ideological stuff that you envision. If you're sitting on the sidelines, you're only talking good, not doing anything about it.

"we should be happy to leave the serious thinking to the think tanks."

All thinking that goes on in think tanks is useless gaming. In the real political world the crescendo of a thousand pressure groups pushing like hell for their own selfish thing somehow gets whittled down into a manageable plop which finally gets excreted onto the public. Democracy in action, folks. It's always been terribly messy and always will be. A good tactician is worth ten thinkers like me.

To a large extent, I think Kos is symbolic of nearly the entire political blogosphere, which tends to be far more a partisan wrecking crew than a genuine force for either progressive or conservative thought.

It's like our court system. There is always a counsel for hte prosecution, and one for the defense too.

I basically look at current discourse as one long, unending, corrosive OJ trial. While many, many issues are shades of grey and can be argued from both sides, there are plenty of issues that are open and shut cases and yet there are people arguing both sides with the full vehemence of the righteous. When a repub defends the indefensible, it calls into question everything else. Ditto for the dems.

"Liberals will be back in power some day."

No. They won't. Not if Bush and Rove and DeLay have their way. And don't count them out. They are not done by a long shot. If the Democrats do not win big and soon, they will cement a permanent majority, kept in power by a combination of gerrymandering, church-state alliances, control of the press, unlimited big-business money flowing into political campaigns, and straight-up corruption. All the honest prosecutors in the country will not be able to stop them. We have to win an election.

We are the point that, unless the Democrats take back at least one house or the presidency soon, democracy in the US is over. Kos understands this. Kevin doesn't.

Oh for god's sake, is this anything but a bit of pathetic special pleading by Kevin, and demand to have his relevance recognized at the expense of dailykos as an active community. Ideology/thoughtfulness/ideas aren't something that some people "get" to do or parties "need to do". Political parties need to win in order to have space to implment ideas. Voters have ideas that they wish to see implemented. Kos and dailykos are working on bringing voters, activists, and ideas people together not separating them out. They are looking at creating novel ways to bring influence to bear on those in power. What is the problem here? Since kos will never "call the shots" in a democratic party this whole discussion strikes me as absolutely mindbogglingly stupid.

aimai/a dailkos member interested in winning politically to implement big liberal ideas.

liberals will be back in power someday

Well, as someone who never thought he would say this, I hope so.

Every now and then, the blog pushback pays off. [listen to her drone on - see how long it takes to NOT be a idiot?]

And every now and then, the presstitutes push back on the push back, and wind up looking like the idiots they are.

And so it goes.
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I don't read DailyKos because of the childish, sexist nature of much of the commentary. If I wanted to wade in a sewer there are plenty of them online.

The idea that has been presented there frequently is that we have to sell our ideals to win. Choice, gay rights, environmental concerns are all secondary to getting a Democrat, any Democrat, into office. What is the point of winning if we abandon everything we believe to get there?

It isn't ideology versus marketing; that's a false dichotomy. If Democrats can't understand that the politics of demagogy and opportunism (one is practiced more by one party, and vice versa), the beholdenness of our political elites to corporate and public employee union special interests, and the apparatus of the American Empire (with or without the imprimatur of the UN and EU) are jeapordizing constitutional governance, the rule of law, and in some fundamental sense the very existence of this republic there is little hope not only for the party, but for the country.

Unless the New New Democrats ground themselves in this understanding, and basic American values - liberty, humanity, constitutionality, federalism and republicanism (as I suggested above a blend of Jefferson and Paine) - the only purpose of the Democratic netroots is some combination of a political parlor game, and a Machiavellian power grab. "Ideology" (which is often just shorthand for 1970s-era liberalism) died with the 1970s. And the Marketing Industrial Complex of the 1990s Democrats must also be burned to the ground for the good of the party, and country.

I don't visit there often because the poll-centric content and comments generally bore me, but the best idea I've seen from Daily Kos is getting early money to marginal candidates where even one win in the list would be a major upset.

I'd like to see the list's focus to be more on state candidates, but money raising on blogs at the federal level seems to be about the only viable approach at this time.

What is the point of winning if we abandon everything we believe to get there?

Have you ever won anything?

What's the point of having sex if you have to lose your virginity to have fun?

I think Roger Keeling is right that there are a number of bloggers who represent an "intellectual" strain in the blogosophere.

But this doesn't really get at the nerve of the problem, I think, because the true center of gravity in the blogosphere is and must be measured in terms of popularity and money.

THAT is why Kos, and DailyKos, are so important: he has, I gather, by a good distance, the greatest number of readers, and the most effective apparatus to campaign to raise money for candidates.

Now, please forgive me for sounding off here, but this has been on my mind.

I personally find it usually depressing to read DailyKos, simply because of the amount of hysterical din the place seems to generate. Atrios tends to suffer from the same problem. I have to admit, there are days when I say to myself, My God, if these are liberals, can I be something else?

I suspect even Kos is sometimes, maybe often, embarrassed by his diarists and commenters, because I understand he's more or less shut down some of the crazier conspiracy theorizing.

My view has always been that the true and best friend of progressivism is truth itself. How do I square that attitude with the nutcases on DailyKos pushing still another loopy idea, in my eyes only more bizzarro than, say, Creationism?

And it is certainly true that what is offensive in DailyKos is not ideological extremism of any kind. You don't find crazy tree-huggers or PC-Nazis or Animal Rights fanatics or you-name-it dominating the discussion -- they are actually pretty rare to find. What you DO find is any number of people who seem willing to believe ANYTHING bad about the Republicans no matter how absurd on its face it may be.

Now, I don't have any particular problem with hatred, least of all against most Republican politicians, who have conducted entire their lives to richly deserve it. But I do have a problem with the kind of stupidity and blindness such hatred seems to induce in a lot of people, and especially in the people who show up in such copious numbers at DailyKos.

Yes, yes, I know the right wing blogosphere is a million times worse. But I don't hang with them, don't plan to hang with them, and am happy to let them be the shitty little people they are. But I want to be friends with Democrats and liberals, and DailyKos is pretty demoralizing for that end.

God knows I have no idea how to deal with this problem. Maybe I simply have to recalibrate my expectations of humanity. But I DO know I don't want to have to read a diary entitled HUGE!! DIEBOLD USED TIME TRAVEL TO STEAL ELECTION IN OHIO UTILIZING CHIPS INSIDE BUSH'S DEBATE "BULGE"!!

On Election Day last fall, I was doing GOTV calls for a county judge candidate (Rensselaer County in upstate NY) up until 8:30.

Knowing that the polls closed earlier in NJ and VA, I insisted that we log on to dKos and see how those races were going, in the hopes that a good Democratic night would be contagious.

There, on the front page, were the NJ and VA results. And our judge candidate won by 14 points in a Republican county.

Kos has argued that the Democrats should be the party of people who work for a living. dKos is a site for Democrats who want to win.

There's plenty of policy stuff there (gmoke's reference to the energy series is especially apt), but the essence of the site is that we need to do everything we can to win back the country from the Worst President Ever and the DeLay/Frist Congress.

If Republicans and loser Democrats don't like that, well, tough.

I stopped reading Kos when he cheered the May compromise that allowed the three wingnuts onto the bench. He not only approved of the Democrats throwing away their opportunity to filibuster obviously bad choices, but failed to see that by surrendering once again, he was encouraging Bush to continue to pack the court. The result: Roberts joined the court practically unopposed, Alito is approved by a two to one margin, and the Democrats have failed to win key battles over the budget, the Patriot Act (another bad compromise) and other important legislative battles.

Kos is popular, but so is losing to Republicans -- they go hand-in-hand.

franklyO,

Very good posting! And very amusing finish!!

Atrios suggests that political wonkery is sort of pointless these days given the modern Republican Party's well documented lack of interest in serious policy.

Yes, by God, if the Republicans deprioritize something, Democrats must too. Its a race to the bottom. Except that, of course, the Republican goal doing what it takes to protect a status quo elite minority and their hold on power, so abandoning everything else for that goal is rational for them.

Our goal is not promote some faction at the expense of all else, so it doesn't serve our goal for us to adopt that as our strategy. Strategy must be guided by the goal it seeks to achieve. Electoral victory for a party is not the right end to be sought (it is an important instrumental means to a policy end.)

Yes, by God, if the Republicans deprioritize something, Democrats must too. Its a race to the bottom. Posted by: cmdicely

No. The race is over. The Republicans won pulling away about 8 years ago.

I wrote a piece on Tacitus recently self-styled as "A Mission Statement for Democrats." In the piece, I posited that a crucial difference between the parties these days is that the Republicans are locked into a small-government ideology(/theology), while Democrats are flexible enough to look for non-ideological solutions:

We don't differentiate ourselves from the other Party by wanting [goals delineated earlier in the piece]. We differentiate ourselves by dedicating ourselves to enlightenment: to light. Enlightened evokes both the Enlightenment, i.e., the birth of an age of knowledge, and spiritual enlightenment, a renewed age of faith. In other words, we act in faith and in touch with the divine, but only with the fullest education and understanding we can bring to bear on problems. We do not demand that God provide answers to us in our ignorance, but search for answers with all the faculties that have been provided to us, believing that God helps those who help themselves. We reject the idea that it was some act of divine deceit that gave us brains that can study and come to understand the manifest evidence of scientific nature. We, therefore, trust nature, logic, and God, but our willingness to find scientific answers to questions means that we place little trust in ideology.

We believe that government can help achieve goals, especially enlightened government. And we believe in the power of human wisdom, as expressed at the ballot box, to shape government into the proper tool of society. Government should be neither too large nor too small; it should not regulate too much nor too little; it should not interfere with our lives nor be unavailable when needed; instead, it should be the right size, regulate the right amount, and be a support for us in our hour of need. With science, computerization, data collection, and an endless thirst for knowledge and willingness to experiment, we can discover what kind of government works best and create it.

I thought of that when I read Kevin's piece, and my first reaction was to think that, since Kevin is writing from the Democratic side of the spectrum, perhaps he thinks that ideology has died because it doesn't live for those he works and communes with most. After all, it's pretty clear that there was little ideology driving the Clinton Presidency other than a dedication to getting it right, and it's just as clear that the Clintonites are firmly at the helm of the modern Democratic Party.

But then I had a second thought that perhaps Kevin was right, or at least he is right if the Bush wing's control of the GOP is as firm as the Clinton wing's control of Democrats. Where's the "small government" philosophy in GWB's free-spending no-child-left-behind, new-Medicare-entitlement, man-on-Mars, rebuild-the-Gulf-Coast, enforce-Democracy-in-the-Middle-East style of running the country?

I guess the only thing for sure is that we're all exaggerating things a little: both sides are at least influenced by ideology even though winning seems to be the primary governing philosophy for each. Maybe both sides are just becoming ever-more-slightly-differentiated centrist populist parties, and maybe that's what mass-media-driven democracy is all about.

Any thoughts?

I stopped reading Kos about the time he started insulting the people who objected to the sexy ads he was accepting for his site.

He seems to have an authoritarian streak in him, and it shows up especially with women's issues.

It turned me right off of Kos.

The posters on his site are grammar Nazis with whom you can't argue about the smallest issue, for fear of being banned as a troll. The site itself swings from the middle of the road to extreme left wing. Not exactly my cup of tea.

Blogs naturally lend themselves to strategy since strategy follows the daily news cycle and its constant movement, whereas policy is more-or-less detached from the moment. Although plenty of bloggers obviously do relate the two subjects, they're distinct.

"Liberals will be back in power one day"? Tell that to Diebold.

I wrote a piece on Tacitus recently self-styled as "A Mission Statement for Democrats." In the piece, I posited that a crucial difference between the parties these days is that the Republicans are locked into a small-government ideology(/theology), while Democrats are flexible enough to look for non-ideological solution

The very idea is incoherent. Problems and solutions exist only in reference to beliefs about what constitutes good or bad -- i.e., ideology -- so a "non-ideological solution" is an oxymoron. Your explanation indulges in the fantasy that what government "works best" is something that can objectively defined and is, again, independent of ideology. What "works best", though, can only be determined in reference to what you believe government should do -- again, ideology.

What "works best", though, can only be determined in reference to what you believe government should do -- again, ideology.

Certainly at some point our dispute here is dependent on definitions. But as I pointed out in the linked piece, I think there are certain social goals such as security and prosperity that are pretty much universally desired. And what I "believe government should do" is whatever is the best thing to achieve those goals, so long as that achievement outweighs destructive side-effects.

I don't believe, and in my opinion most adherents of the Democratic Party don't believe, is that step one should be determining in a theoretical way what government should look like and what kinds of actions government should engage in, and step two should be seeing what a government that looks like and does the right things can do for society. Rather, there's just one step, and that step is fashioning a rational and productive government that helps society as much as it can without endangering civil liberties or losing the legitimacy it gains from the consent of the governed.

Where's the beef?

Stirling Newberry and bondad provide regular, consistent, and thoughtful analysis of economic news and developments. they often post several times in any given week.

Jerome a Paris regularly provides in-depth analysis of alternative energy technologies.

DarkSyde's Science Friday series is also wonderful and informative, though not always politically relevant.

daily kos ain't just about kos. in fact, very little of it is about kos anymore. it's about the diarists and what they contribute.

Good god, if political parties actually started to care about principle, they'd start looking like libertarians! And how nerdy would that be?

ideological purity is reserved for the folks that sit on the bench and bitch about what's happening that doesn't go their way.

tactical strength results in being able to do something with the ideology

Kevin,

I have always thought that you sought on your blog to encourage thoughtful debate not just partisan cheerleading. Don't give up now.

But as I pointed out in the linked piece, I think there are certain social goals such as security and prosperity that are pretty much universally desired.

Not really, though it appears that way through the magic of equivocation if you use broad enough descriptions so that different people will take the terms to mean different things.

And what I "believe government should do" is whatever is the best thing to achieve those goals, so long as that achievement outweighs destructive side-effects.

And what constitutes "destructive side-effects" and whether the good done outweighs those is, again, unanswerable without reference to ideology.

I don't believe, and in my opinion most adherents of the Democratic Party don't believe, is that step one should be determining in a theoretical way what government should look like and what kinds of actions government should engage in, and step two should be seeing what a government that looks like and does the right things can do for society.

Perhaps not. Then again, I don't think even most people who aren't deluded into thinking that they have somehow transcended ideology think that. I think, for instance, that step one should largely be deciding what government should do for society, and step two should be determining what a government that does that looks like.

Rather, there's just one step, and that step is fashioning a rational and productive government that helps society as much as it can without endangering civil liberties or losing the legitimacy it gains from the consent of the governed.

There is a whole lot of ideology packed into that statement, and even more needed to unpack (e.g.) the "helps", "civil liberties", "legitimacy", and "consent of the governed" so that you can actually use it as anything like a practical guide.

How you can think that this is somehow not ideological is beyond me.

Kevin, if you want to be a thinker, please explain your repeated posts using small news articles to paint entire RED states as backwards hicks and rascists....THEN COMPARE THAT TO THE CENSUS DATA SHOWING PEOPLE FROM BLUE STATES ARE FLOCKING TO THE RED STATES.

Apparently there is something they know, that you just don't get.

Given that being a member of the reality based community pretty much means you're a Democrat, and that the Repubs have gone over a cliff of the Bush personality cult--and if this FISA business doens't prove that to you, you're hopeless--I'd say that, for the moment, Democratic partisanship is enough. At this point, I'd vote for Hagel, but given the fact that his statements (which get far less attention that Joe Lieberman's far less coherent pronouncement against his own party--wonder why) tend to be passionate circumlocutions pronouncing the nudity of the Emperor, I somehow don't think I'll ever have to bite that bullet.
This just occured to me: Can Hagel be the new McCain? The liberal's and the MSM's favorite conservative? Probably not, he doesn't seem to have the same sense of humor that seduced the boys on the bus.

Good god, if political parties actually started to care about principle, they'd start looking like libertarians! And how nerdy would that be? Posted by: Shelby

Oh that's a laugh. Libertarians stand for nothing, and certainly couldn't give a shit about their fellow man.

After reading Kos's response, it is reasonable to call Benjie the Wallace-Wells a f**king liar. Thank you very much.

It's a sign of the times. The level of the discourse. Winston Churchill could be here today farting Yankee Doodle Dandy an