In that same year, 59 percent of Kos readers reported making $60,000 or more, firmly qualifying them as professional.

Either that or 59% of Kos readers like to exaggerate on online surveys (I know I do).

What exactly does "professional" mean to this "journalist"?

Plenty of "blue-collar" people make over $60k (just ask Boeing). And plenty of paper pushers make far less than $60k.

Same goes for (not) college educated.

59% of 63% is 37%; clearly not a majority. I imagine the older readers are more likely to make a lot of money than the younger ones.

Not like you ever have to do any research before you write an article talking shit about someone, right? One might think you were a journalist or something.

It needs saying:

Thank you for honestly, openly discussing corrections and issues that a subject has with an article. This kind of openness is totally refreshing and honorable and should be commended.

On the "professional" front, it's not just income. I've seen the BlogAds breakdowns for a number of sites, and blog readers tend to be both pretty well educated and have fairly high incomes. I think it's pretty safe to say that Kos's readership is heavily professional.

Cody: Talking shit? Did you think Ben's piece was negative? I didn't. In fact, if anything the errors in the piece made Kos seem even more influential than he really is.

"Thank you for honestly, openly discussing corrections and issues that a subject has with an article. This kind of openness is totally refreshing and honorable and should be commended."

I concur. I don't know anyone who has ever had a piece written about them that did not contain factual inaccuracies, and there are rarely corrections.

the Wallace-Wells piece about Kos was just another condescending smear by the think-tank-dependent Beltway dead tree media. Its not unsurprising that many of its major "facts" were complete fictions -- the professional bloviators are scared to death of people like Billmon and Digby who not only can write circles around these clowns, but are able to articulate truths that the Yglesiases and Noahs and Kauses can't concieve because those truths are incompatible with what they hear while downing cocktail weenies.

Its just a shame that Kos, because of his prominence, was the victim of this little smear. Kos himself is not really a threat to these bloviators --- but he is the target because he's such a huge presence.

Talking shit? Did you think Ben's piece was negative? I didn't. In fact, if anything the errors in the piece made Kos seem even more influential than he really is.

Kevin, "Ben's" piece was incredibly condescending, and presented Markos as a complete hypocrite --- someone who claimed to cherish his "outsider" role, but who talks to Harry Reid and Rahm Emmanuel on a regular basis....

Here's a clue. Kos doesn't want to be influential. Kos wants PEOPLE to be influential. Making Kos "appear more influential than he is" is NOT a "positive" portrayal of him.

The fact is that the Democrat Party doesn't want to make a big deal out of the fact that the extreme-left blogs influence their policy.

They know that they are very weak on that front.

Just one ad mentioning DailyKos fundraising for a Democrat and DailyKos' anti-American statements, and that Democrat will be dead in the water.

It's no coincidence that Kos has never had one winning candidate in a general election.

The Kos/DLC feud is a turf-war. The Kos Kidz hate the DLC because the DLC isn't anti-business and anti-war.

The fact is that the Democrat Party is doomed in 2006.

A majority of their party has come out and admitted that they're against victory in Iraq.

It's a shame that the DCCC had to backpedal on the fact that the blogs control the Democrat Party. They know they're on shaky ground, because they're supporting a brainwashed veteran over an anti-American woman in Illinois. (The Cegelis/Duckworth race will display how the left smears people)

The Democratic Party is run by an insane anti-American fringe, which controls the DNC (with Howard Dean), and is controlling other parts of the party.

A "condescending smear"? Get a grip, moron, and quit spouting criticisms you've heard others use in different contexts. It was an okay piece, with relatively innocuous mistakes that were almost immediately corrected. We should be so lucky that this was as bad as journalism gets these days.

If you think something like this is representative of the contemporary problems with "Beltway dead tree media," then you don't have a clue how serious many of them really are. Quit clubbing the good guys over the head just to feel manly.

If you want to know what someone actually does, you can find that out by asking him. If you get information about him from a third party you can check for accuracy by telephoning him before you publish. At least that's what they taught us in journalism school fifty years ago. What (besides makeup and grooming) do they teach there now?

A "condescending smear"? Get a grip, moron, and quit spouting criticisms you've heard others use in different contexts. It was an okay piece, with relatively innocuous mistakes that were almost immediately corrected. We should be so lucky that this was as bad as journalism gets these days.

please troll somewhere else, dickwad. Thank you.

Drum, he was talking shit. In the typical "I-am -a real journalist who reports the facts and the blogs are all wackos waaa waaa no one reads my work anymore" sense. If he wanted to do a story about kos, why didn't he get in touch directly rather than relying on crap second hand info? Not like they were monumental errors, but it reeked of the divide between 'real' writers and bloggers

Ruppert, I'll take the party supposedly controlled by blogs over the party controlled by the Dobsons and AFA any fuckin day of the week.

But keep talking about how 'dems lose'. It makes you look like a real winner. Why is every whitebread con so fixated on winning? I mean, sure Republicans can win elections, but they absolutely suck at governing.

I guess for those kids who got picked last to be on the sports team in high school. it's more important to win than to actually be effective at what you have one.

Karl Rove wore a fuckin tie to high school for gods sake, what does that tell you? No dates in high school for Karl. So he wanted to win, win, win. Winning is everything!

If you want to know what someone actually does, you can find that out by asking him. If you get information about him from a third party you can check for accuracy by telephoning him before you publish.

of course that is what you would do....unless you were playing "gotcha" journalism.

"Ben" didn't give two shits about the truth about Kos. He obviously never asked Markos about these "weekly conversations" with Democratic bigwigs that he made such a big deal about in his article.

Anyone who has followed Kos for any time knows that he is not comfortable being some kind of "leader" of a movement -- and that is precisely what he was presented as. But Kos became popular first because his own voice expressed the frustrations of hundreds of thousands of thinking progressives -- and he went one step further, and with the diaries gave those people their own voices.

But Wallace-Wells wanted to present Kos as a hypocrite; a "mover and shaker" who falsely wore the mantle of "a man of the people."

Maybe to people like Kevin, who aspire to be big shots, presenting Kos as influential is a positive thing. But Markos isn't Kevin -- Markos isn't for sale, and won't trade his independence for greater visibility by become someone's "official" blogger.

I like Kos and I like the WaMo, though neither are probably among the top five sites I visit. I am glad to have read the article, and I appreciate the follow-up corrections. I did read Kos's take on the matter too. There's some good stuff in the article, worth talking about. I for one think Kos is perfectly okay not being a wonk, and he is very effective in what he does, regardless of recent Dem success, or lack thereof.

What I don't really get is all the mistakes. I understand it is difficult to be 100% accurate with every fact in a long piece. But the considerable number of misstatements just blows away your credibility, and if you're going to write fact-based journalism, your credibility is all you got. I realize that the general state of reporting in this country is dismal to begin with, so you're in good company. But instead of provoking discussion about Kos, the blogosphere, the Dem party, wonkery, partisanship, and so much more, the article has generated a lot of talk about sloppy reporting and has cast doubt on WaMo and what we read hear every day. That's too bad.

Ruppert, I'll take the party supposedly controlled by blogs over the party controlled by the Dobsons and AFA any fuckin day of the week.

Christianity does have a pretty big foothold in the Republican party. That's because our party is tolerant of religion, unlike the atheistic Democrat Party.

When it comes down to it, the extreme-leftist blogs do more harm to America in a day than Dobson and the AFA could do in a million years.

But keep talking about how 'dems lose'. It makes you look like a real winner. Why is every whitebread con so fixated on winning? I mean, sure Republicans can win elections, but they absolutely suck at governing.

Under Republican governing, the government has shunk, 50 million people have been liberated, and numerous reforms have been made into law.

In fact, President Bush's approval rating is at 50%

The one thing that would make the Republicans more effective is the end of all filibusters. The fact that a minority can overrule a majority is anti-democratic.

And if you're not in politics to win, then you're just scenary.

Over the last 25 years, America has been changed from a bleak nation of weakness to a bright nation of faith and strength. The economy today is at it's best in almost two decades.

Tolerant of religion???

Bwahahahahahaaaaaaaaaaaa, oh Gary, buddy, stop, you are killing me!

As long as everyone prays to the blue eyed Nordic Christ, right? God loves rich white amuricans and hates fags and muzzzlims! Amen! Batter up!

Oh thanks, gary, thanks for the laughter!!! You are the best parody troll ever to hit WM.

In fact, President Bush's approval rating is at 50%

Merry Christmas. I suggest you bask in the glow of utterly mediocre satisfaction among the public while you can. In the year to come, you're likely to find this time a very generous one among Americans, and he's probably near the peak of his approval. Bad news is a-comin' and it ain't gonna be pretty.

But his still an arrogant little asshole who is bereft of ideology, right??

All right, Gary, just listen. Everything is going to be fine. You're very high right now. You will probably be that way for about five more hours. Try taking some vitamin B complex, vitamin C complex. If you have a beer, go ahead and drink it. Just remember you're a living organism on this planet. And you're very safe. You've taken a heavy drug. Relax, stay inside and listen to some music, OK? Do you have any Allman Brothers?

Whole lotta of huffing about nothing really. The main points are still correct, good job.

Ken Mehlman is Jewish and the head of the RNC. Other Jewish Republicans include Norm Coleman, Arlen Specter, and Eric Cantor.

The fact is that Democrats only pay attention to people with religious faith when they have elections to win.

Democrats don't legislate as our lord Jesus Christ would legislate. They support the murder of young children (though their support of Abortion). They support repressive and bloated government. They refuse to allow people with faith to help others (by opposing faith-based charities). They hold an extremist view of the first amendment which says that kids can't pray in school and they can't say "Under God" in their schools.

(In fact, the Supreme Court has no grounds to tell a public school what they can and can't do in their policy, as school policy is not law, like the state and federal law. The Engel decision is blatantly absurd.)

The economy today is at it's best in almost two decades.

I had missed that one. I think you mean "its" instead of "it's," and by "best" you must mean "I don't know shit and I'm damn proud of it."

And in further corrections, The Washington Monthly is actually the New Jersey Monthly and my name is Wallace Wells-Benjamin.

You wouldn't know much about the economy if you relied on the liberal media. They're refusing to publicize how much our economy has surged recently. After the Clinton recession, we're back on the path of prosperity and success.

"Other Jewish Republicans include Norm Coleman, Arlen Specter, and Eric Cantor."

The same Arlen Specter who almost got KO'ed by a Club-For-Growth primary challenge? The same Arlen Specter who had to crawl before they'd give him his chairmanship?

Yeah, he gets a lot of mainstream acceptance within the party.

Some Repub flack just claimed that the economy is the best it's been in two decades!

Next, they'll claim that there really were weapons of mass destruction!!

What lies will the Repubs try next?

Repub lying is rampant.

The Repub Gary is still at it.

Deficits have ballooned under Bush's bad economics and the economy is clearly in worse shape.

Notice that the lie about the economy being so great is not backed up by any facts. None.

What lies will the Repubs bleat next?

> Clinton recession

You mean when all that tax money got stolen away from its rightful corporate owners, and the federal deficit dropped away to about nothing, right?

Remember, a good recession only strands the poor and young on the mudflats, it sucks the big fish off into the deep dark water.

The commenters flying off the handle over this fairly innocuous piece need to get a grip. If you think this is a smear piece, I have few RNC press releases for you to read. There were some errors, and not everything mentioned was pure Kos praise, but what's the big deal? Not everything written about bloggers must be done in a hagiographic style, and errors are inevitable. Those alleging that the errors were in fact intentional and intended to damage Kos are beyond help.

Maybe there were more errors than usual in this piece. I don't know. But the author is clearly interested in correcting the record publicly, and it appears these were simply honest mistakes. Stop defending Kos from any real or perceived criticism as if he were some sort of god. He is not, and even if he were, you are not his spokesperson.

--A long-time reader of Kos and over 100 other blogs, and the author of two political blogs.

On the "professional" front, it's not just income. I've seen the BlogAds breakdowns for a number of sites, and blog readers tend to be both pretty well educated and have fairly high incomes. I think it's pretty safe to say that Kos's readership is heavily professional.

Might be safe to say, and it might be wrong.

In this family, both of us are "educated", if by that you mean one or more degrees each. And if $60K is somehow a lot of money, I guess we're professinal.

Odd that neither of us works a professional job.

Maybe you're talking out of you ass; you could still be right. But you hvae noting but your well educated ass to back it up.

Ben:

Good show on the corrections. I think there was a lot that was off with the piece, but clearly the question is largely a subjective one.

I agree with Kevin that the intent was not negative, though there clearly are some negative aspects to it.

In any event, at the least, an article on Markos was long overdue and you certainly opened up the discussion.

Happy holidays.

Armando at dailykos.

Actually all the fuss about Markos is funny. Pretty sure about 90% of site users couldn't give a shit about what Markos thinks. Its all about scoop and ratings and diaries and recommending. The user is empowered, the dialogue by the frontpage IS IRRELEVANT really. And, who is kidding who, the insiders talk to Markos because of cha ching! Its all a game, and Markos is just an astute guy with ambition.

Most bloggers who get the slightest mention outside of the blogging world, are very appreciative for the publicity and increased visibility such exposure brings to their blog.

Interesting, enough, Kos doesn't seem to be any interested in wider fame and fortune, but only wants to get the facts squared away.

This is very unusual.

Still, on the whole, The North Coast Curmudgeon admires one who is more interested in accuracy than self promotion.

I think it’s critically important to always be as accurate and truthful as possible, especially if we are going to fang the other side for not being truthful and accurate.

However, the left has to get over the practice of flooding people with 6 and 7 pages of single spaced agonizingly detailed and boring position papers.

On thing to learn from the right is to simplify and distill complex issues down to bumper sticker phrases.

People don’t care about the details.

Blogs like the Daily Kos can do this well.

BTW: The North Coast Curmudgeon is 61 years old, retired from a career in law enforcement and not young or rich.

Holy cow, the dingbats are foaming at the mouth over this more than Markos, the guy the piece was written abouut is.

I agree with Kevin that the intent was not negative, though there clearly are some negative aspects to it.

armando, are you saying that a central thesis of the piece was not "Kos is a hypocrite?"

because if you review the corrections that Kos made, its pretty obvious that virtually all the major errors were in one direction --- presenting Kos as a Democratic Party "insider" when he does his best to maintain his independence.

the sheer quantity of errors --- and the dependence upon outside sources for "facts" that he never checked with Markos -- strongly suggests that there was an agenda at work here, and that "Ben" was practicing "gotcha" journalism.

*************

If you think this is a smear piece, I have few RNC press releases for you to read.

trust me, the GOP noise machine will be using this article to portray Markos as a hypocrite, just as Wallace-Wells intended....

Holy cow, the dingbats are foaming at the mouth over this more than Markos, the guy the piece was written abouut is.

because Markos is a gracious guy -- and he doesn't have to foam at the mouth to prove how "ben" smeared him, all he needs to do is write his VERY long correction of the piece...

I think you fundamentally misread Kos and his blog movement. He was in the right place at the right time, during the Dean/blog explosion, and as others have said filled a void that the party was deaf to. Happenstance does not a leader make, and I believe Kos when he says he's not out for big influence. I do think he has more power than he knows what to do with, but DC certainly doesn't care any more than it has to.

You really don't get the DLC thing, and should just let it go. Suffice it to say that the DLC 2003 attacks on Dean and the base of the party are at the root of our counterattck back at them as a one-hit wonder that is killing the party. Most of this was in the pre-scoop Kos that you probably never read.

BTW...wanna see what a snake this Wallace-Wells guy is...

Here is one of his "corrections":

My story states that Moulitsas speaks frequently and regularly with DCCC Chair Rahm Emmanuel and Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid. In fact, he speaks regularly with their staffs, never with Emmanuel, and only very occasionally with Reid.

contrast that with what Kos wrote...

I've never talked to Rahm. I've never met him. The DCCC had a couple of blogger conference calls in which Rahm participated but I didn't join in. So perhaps the confusion is based on this. But in that case, that "access" would be no greater than that given to other bloggers. And in any case I don't think those conference calls happen every three weeks.

I've actually talked to Harry a couple of times for a few seconds. Considering Reid's war room has a netroots guy, I do communicate with his office regularly, but in no different manner than any reporter who covers politics as a beat. Reporters talk to the communications director, I talk to the guy who answers my emails.

notice the difference. "Ben" still tries to make it seem like Markos has long discussions with Harry Reid, when in fact Kos has only spoken to Reid "a couple of times for a few seconds". Rather than simply admitting he was dead wrong, "Ben" tries to minimize his error by exaggerating the significance of what can be little more than the exchange of pleasantries.

And the fact that Kos may (or may not) email or phone the DCCC and get answers is morphed by 'Ben' into "speaks regularly with [Rahm Emmanuel's] staff."

That isn't an "honest" correction -- its an attempt to minimize an egregious error.

An internal poll on DailyKos suggests that something like 67% of the readers are over 35. That is a far different picture than that sugggested in the WaMo piece.

Paul:

I don't think so.

First, it is not kos' ambition, I don't think, to perpetually be an outsider sniping at the Party hierarchy. Indeed, it seems to me that kos enjoys nothing more than being able to praise the Party leadership for doing what he esteems is the right thing.

So, I don't see where actually having folks heed your advice, even if it is not directly communicated, could make someone a hypocrite. If he praised them for doing something he disagreed with I could see it. But it seems to me that Ben's thesis was that the Party was listening to kos' advice and following in some measure. Personally, I think that is much less true than Ben intimates.

In fact, I personally disagree with Markos on a number of issues, both on political tactics and ideology. Including some of his attacks on the DLC (obviously not all of them.)

Second, I don't think Ben thinks having influence with the Party leadership is negative, and neither do I by the way. So that part clearly is not intended to be negative.

The only piece that might seem to point to hypocrisy is kos' attitude towards the DLC, because, contrary to popular belief, kos is NOT an extreme liberal. He is pretty Centrist.

But that is because Ben misunderstands kos' objections to the DLC. It is tactical - the DLC is still beholden to the idea of hitting some mythical sweet spot for "values voters" and "security voters", and it is a question of Party loyalty and discipline - like Lieberman, the DLC seems dedicated to ripping Dems, as opposed to critiquing the GOP. (I note for the record daily kos' generally kind words for perhaps the most Conservative Dem in the Senate, Ben Nelson - it's the Nebraska thing).

So, my take is that Ben doesn't get Markos and doesn't get daily kos, the site. But I really would not ascribe ill motives to him. I think you mistake what was wrong with Ben's perspective if you do.

At some point, Dems have to ask themselves if KOS is an asset or a liability.

He gets alot of attention, his blog gets alot of hits - but does that mean he is good for the Democratic Party?

Gary Ruppert:

Christianity does have a pretty big foothold in the Republican party. That's because our party is tolerant of religion, unlike the atheistic Democrat Party.

Speaking as a born-again Christian, that's an out-and-out falsehood, and you are bearing false witness.

The Republican Party is 'tolerant' of a particular kind of religion - that kind of religion that reaches certain political conclusions, most of which have very little to do with Christian belief or mission.

I've come to different conclusions, and I know how welcome I'm not in the sorts of churches whose members form the backbone of today's GOP.

Under Republican governing, the government has shunk, 50 million people have been liberated, and numerous reforms have been made into law.

As measured by actual spending, government's bigger than ever. (One more lie on your part.) The 25 million of Iraq have only been liberated in the sense of "out of the frying pan, into the fire." The occupation, civil war, and civil disorder in Iraq are killing more people than Saddam did. And 'reform' in Washington is one of those meaningless words.

They refuse to allow people with faith to help others (by opposing faith-based charities). They hold an extremist view of the first amendment which says that kids can't pray in school and they can't say "Under God" in their schools.

Yet more lies. Did you guys burn the Ninth Commandment, Gary?

The Dems don't oppose faith-based charities. They're opposed to certain forms of government entanglement with such charities, given the opportunity it gives the government for picking and choosing which faith it will favor the most.

And Democrats agree that kids can pray or say "under God" in schools at any time they're free to say what they want. What we Dems are opposed to is government telling kids what religious beliefs they should espouse.

And why would a Christian be for government doing that? Unless, of course, their faith wasn't about Christ, but was actually a misplaced tribalism that was really about winning victories for one's particular tribe, and they felt that their tribe/faith would be the winner, with the help of government.

And if you're not in politics to win, then you're just scenary.

And if you're in Christianity to win, then you've either chosen the wrong faith, or are perverting it to your own ends. One thing Christianity is not about is winning.

Democrats don't legislate as our lord Jesus Christ would legislate.

"Who knows the mind of the Lord? Who has been his counsellor?" I'd always interpreted this Scripture as a rhetorical question, with the answer clearly being "no one." But apparently I've been wrong all these years, and the correct answer is "Gary Ruppert."

Just a note -- I'm too lazy to look back and see which idiot said it: It's very true that NONE of the Kos Dozen won a race in 2004.

However, if you're going to mention that, fairness requires you mention the Kos Dozen were chosen [i]specifically[/i] because they were long-shot races that were unfunded because they weren't considered winnable.

Two of the Kos Dozen came suprisingly close to winning, and because of Kos' program, Tom Delay had to drop a few million to hold his seat -- the first time he's actually bothered campaigning in close to a decade.

Mr. Ruppert,

Whatever meds you are taking are the wrong ones. Put down the pill bottle(s) and call your doctor; let him know he got the prescription(s) wrong & ask him to correct his mistake immediately.

Don`t wait till tomorrow to call him.

"Politics is just high school with guns and more money" - Frank Zappa

I am required to ask question: this correction, it is voluntary? Or, it like correction from leader of oblast about politburo? I ask, is all.

-- Katrina Coverage

RT....Damn good retort at 9:33!

Thanks for stepping up to address your critics. But when making a correction, please be sure it's correct:

63 percent of the readers in that year were 40 years of age or younger. It's possible that more than 13 percent of those were in the age range of 36 to 40

Fight innumeracy -- this is wrong.

You mean to say possible that more than 13 percent of ALL READERS were... 36 to 40. (In fact, it's very likely they were since that is smack in the middle of the curve.)

It would be about 20% of the "under 40s" (that is, .13/.63). Please correct the correction before it hits the print edition!

(The argument actually works more in your favor, I believe, although when you consider that the youngest readers are college-age, then to think that 1 in 5 of the 20-to-40-year olds are in the 36-to-40 range is still eminently plausible -- in fact, almost certain.)

One more correction.

The article states that:

In June 2003, after television cameras caught a cheering, thousand-strong mob in Fallujah dragging the charred, dismembered bodies of American contractors through the streets, Moulitsas linked to the reports and said of the contractors: “I feel nothing… Screw them.”

That incident occurred on March 31, 2004.

I'd like to re-iterate something Armando said, because it bears repeating. Although the article is not a "hit piece", it does fundamentally misunderstand Markos the blogger and DailyKos the blog. Markos himself has stated it quite plainly: he does not want to become a power broker within the Democratic Party hierarchy. What he wants to do (for himself and dKos) is form part of a Democratic version of the Republican Noise Machine, because that's one of the things the Dems really need.

Wow. I'd love to see all of these people in the same room together. Kos is a divisive issue.

I would like to comment that I think its a little ridiculous to suggest that Wallace-Wells should have just asked Kos for whatever information he wanted. Isn't that what Judy Miller was doing?

Nice work RT. I actually copied your statement down in my Vault of Effective Argumentation™

Where is the secret plan to destroy the DLC?

Thomas Kalinowski writes:
"it does fundamentally misunderstand Markos the blogger and DailyKos the blog. Markos himself has stated it quite plainly: he does not want to become a power broker within the Democratic Party hierarchy. What he wants to do (for himself and dKos) is form part of a Democratic version of the Republican Noise Machine, because that's one of the things the Dems really need."

I'm looking at page 20 of my issue of the Monthly and seeing almost a verbatim quote of what Kalinowski says is missing from the article.

Maybe Wallace-Wells buried the lead but that point is clearly in the article.

Dear Kevin,

Since you know Kos ... I want you to think of him and who you know him to be. Then, think of the reporter who just wrote a piece in which he decribed a blogger in more detail than a hidden CIA agent ... walking the streets, background info on his life abroad, physical description complete with ticks ... and then tell me he didn't waste a shit-load of my reading time on someone who i was truly interested in LEARNING about. Tell me the article was more informative than it was fluffy and subjective (with most negative linguistics).

The reporter evidently spent a day with his subject and wrote about as well as what's-his-name directed and cast The Aviator.

I have never met Kos, yet I am certain that the article i read, as a whole, deserves a D+. It was mis-leading (hispanic club? glorious description of the LBJ room?), lacked authenticity (he looks like a frog? Never blinks?), and the whole 'american dream/silicon dot.com failure' stuff I found to be pure filler and completely irrelevant to the point. He did not get his story and instead as allowed to write and post a bullshit Time Magazine piece. What's the word ... disengenuous (sp?) i dunno.

Interestingly, the reporter mentions Kos talking for 20 minutes at a time, too bad he didn't take a notepad instead of wishing for a 'bucket'? What do we use buckets for? Now tell me again this was not a slightly negative illustration of a man trying to share his thoughts.

What the reporter did take was the concept of 'winning' (wow, that's new, alert Turner and Trump), an affinity for sport (ooo!, wake-up everyone), and turned it into a friggin' manifesto. My god man, you must see that! C'mon, we've all read the New York Times: title first, content formed to match.

Seriously, re-read the article and think again. THEN factor in nature of our medium and ask yourself why this reporter would not seriously confirm (and re-confirm) his sources regarding such a supposedly highly-revered website KNOWING how precise we are online.

I smell poo. You?

I am not an expert on blogs or journalism. My impression of Kos is that he is a pretty gutsy fellow. Something which the Dems could use right now...No?

I have quibbles with these corrections as well, and tend to believe Kos. But I don't care. I appreciate your willingness to address the issues he raised directly and forthrightly. And ftm his straightforward discussion of them; there was no rancor that I saw in his posts making these corrections.

It takes courage and commitment to the truth to stand up and say that one might have been wrong about something. I applaud your commitment to getting it right.

WTF kossites?

Who the hell thinks they're so fucking important that they get upset about this type of trivia. Ben got mislead by a staffer and kos wouldn't get back to his email. Maybe kos should just make it a policy of not allowing biographical pieces if he get's upset about trivia like the fact the he was leader of a latino graduate group and not a latino undergraduate group. What difference does it make if the median kossite is 35 or 39? If ya'll knew anything about anything you'd find errors all over the NYT -- not to mention your top 10 diaries.

As for slant/opinion/underlying meme/etc. -- what happened to the first ammendment. You're free to fight back against the perceived misjustice by posting endless "boycott WaMo" diaries or organizing a google bomb to associate the word nincompoop with Benjamin Wallace-Wells.

Click here to give this comment a zero.

I think this whole story magnifies an underlying issue: writers have to write stories, and lots of times they are much less informed about a subject they are covering than millions of people who may be intimate with said subject. The mistakes this guy made really are not that big a deal, and he was pretty up front about the fact that he did make some mistakes, etc. It just shows that you have to take everything you read with a grain of salt really - you have to read critically, and you have to read multiple sources.

Is this rupert for real? America tolerant of faith? Who's? Where? Bush@50%. This trolls hogging the good stuff.

I would be very much interested to know how the Kos Dozen would do now.

Posted by: Gary Ruppert on December 23, 2005 at 7:47 PM | PERMALINK

We're not interested in your RNC lies and defemations.
Get behind me Satan.

> Kevin:
> Talking shit? Did you think Ben's piece
> was negative? I didn't.

From True Blue Majority:

You are personally described with a whole host of snarky adjectives: irascible, touchy, shrill (twice), idiosyncratic, withering, high-strung, petty, self-assured, flailing, difficult, etc. Even if some of these things are true, and you voluntarily describe yourself as an asshole, and you personally think it is an asset for a political tactician to be an asshole, these are not the words journalists usually use to describe people whose power they respect, at least not without qualifiers. Difficult, but effective, for example. "no literary pretensions"? Please--you're a better writer than this guy. Withering? Only if you can't keep up, pal. "Too" self-assured? It ain't bragging when you can back it up.

I didn't even go into the emasculating physical description: high-pitched voice (read: feminine), rounded face (read: feminine), and 5'6" (you get the idea).

> The mistakes this guy made really are
> not that big a deal,

I understand your point Anthony. The problem is that essentially all the mistakes the author made fell into Radical Rovian frames. I will take him at his word that the mistakes were not deliberate, but could they perhaps have been influenced by the memes generated and pumped by certain Washington entities? From out here in flyover country it looks that way.

Cranky

> nd a review of my notes shows that the quote was
> what my source said. When I emailed him this
> morning for clarification, the source said that
> while he had "brainstormed" with Markos, a
> different blogger had made the recruiting calls.

After thinking about it over breakfast, I have to think this is a key point. This wasn't a mistake; this was getting played. Why was this done? What were the motivations? Those are questions the author needs to dig into.

Cranky

First, it is not kos' ambition, I don't think, to perpetually be an outsider sniping at the Party hierarchy. Indeed, it seems to me that kos enjoys nothing more than being able to praise the Party leadership for doing what he esteems is the right thing.

Armando, I did not mean to imply that Kos wanted to be a gadfly either. Its not about "ego" for Kos -- and being a gadfly is as much an expression of ego as being a leader.

So, I don't see where actually having folks heed your advice, even if it is not directly communicated, could make someone a hypocrite. If he praised them for doing something he disagreed with I could see it. But it seems to me that Ben's thesis was that the Party was listening to kos' advice and following in some measure.

Having other people heed your advice does not make Kos a hypocrite -- it was the way that Kos was consistently presented---as someone who was a DCCC/DNC insider --- that made him appear to be a hypocrite.

I think that Wallace-Wells was, in essence, projecting -- he simply assumed that Kos had been seduced by the power and fame that had accrued to his blog, and didn't bother to check facts that were consistent with that thesis.

It may not have been a conscious smear, but it was a smear nontheless -- it was conventional beltway groupthink that assumed that the egomania of Washington insiders was a universal trait, and that someone like Kos had to be seduced by his influence.

Kos didn't freak out because he's been through this kind of "liberal" smear before (remember Zephyr Teachout?) and learned a few lessons from that episode.

Finally, I think that Wallace-Wells deliberately perpetuated the smear about Kos's reactions to the mercenaries who were killed in Fallujah. Wallace-Wells describes them as "contractors", as if they were there building school-houses. They weren't, they were private soldiers, and Kos' outburst was motivated by his identification as a former member of the military whose personnel were being paid far less than these mercenaries, and being required to serve in a war zone without proper armor. Kos has explained this over and over again, and I have a difficult time believing that he didn't explain it to Wallace-Wells too. But Wallace-Wells leaves that key information out, buying into the GOP noise machine meme of Kos as arrogant ["(When I asked Moulitsas recently how he felt about the episode, his mouth stretched into a smile: “Vindicated,” he said. The media has recently begun to question the role of American contractors in Iraq, he pointed out, which was the point all along. This is how a liberal noise machine, freed from the don't-shatter-the-porcelain decorum, might work.)"]

I'm not a fan of DailyKos but I have to agree, this was a smear piece by Wallace-Wells, endorsed by Drum in comments. Very disappointing.

"The dogs bark, but the caravan passes on." . . . Kos has built an online community that will outlast a few slanted articles and scores of snarky reader comments.

The mistakes in the article are mainly standard media hype - he makes Kos sound more important than he really is to make the article sound more important than it really is.

Anyway, I didn't realize that Kos had groupies. Pretty funny.

I just want to express my gratitude for the writer's readiness to admit error and make corrections without a whisper of self-justification. I have seen too much partisanship, too many people who argue rather than discuss. Admitting error has become my touchstone of integrity, a standard which most people fail, but this writer meets.

A lot of people don't seem to know the difference between a "smear piece" and something that's simply skewed one way or another -- which describes most journalism. Here's an indicatorm though: smear pieces don't get corrected.

Oh, and it's nice to finally hear how great our economy is doing. If only the librul media would tell us the truth instead of obscuring the wisdom and great success of our poor, defenseless president! If only his people could exert some influence over the management of Fox, CNN, the Wall Street Jornal, and the New York Times!

> A lot of people don't seem to know the difference
> between a "smear piece" and something that's
> simply skewed one way or another

As I said, the problem is that the skewing here follows the lines of the classic Radical Rovian frames. Perhaps that simply indicates that even journalists working for centerist publications in DC have been captured by the Radical framing; I dunno. But the issue must be addressed.

Also, is it actually a fact that the author of the Kos article got his start at the Dartmouth Review? If so that should be disclosed.

Cranky

I would like to comment that I think its a little ridiculous to suggest that Wallace-Wells should have just asked Kos for whatever information he wanted. Isn't that what Judy Miller was doing?

If you believe Kos can be equated with Ahmed Chalabi then your comment might make sense. But Miller's stories were supposedly not about Chalabi, but about the truth of the situation in Iraq. Had Wallace-Wells interviewed Kos as his main source he would then have been obliged to do what Miller did not: check with other sources (like Emmanuel, Reid, etc.) to verify the accuracy of Moulitsas' statements. Since W-W used third party sources he was obliged to check with Kos to verify the accuracy oftheir statements. Is that so hard to understand?

i'm over 35 and make less than 60
i try to hit dKos everyday @ least once

joke:
what phrase has UU never heard in his life ??
"Thank you for being honest with us."

It's good to see corrections, but it would've been more honest to include the poll Markos put on the site, asking his readers how old they were. Out of 12,699 votes, only 26% of those were aged 35 and under. In fact, this percentage is smaller than the percentage of readers over 50 years of age (29%).

Using a survey that is a year old isn't really indicative of what dKos' readership is like, as the site has grown exponentially in a year.

Kos's own online poll showed that his readers' median age is 45. There was a huge response -- people are interested and want to know. I'm 58 and am damned if I can get my daughters (24 and 28) interested.

You used some extremely offensive language in describing Kos's personal appearance. There was no point to that and it tended to diminish the entire project.

One of your central political points about the centrality of wonkiness is brain-dead and was well dispatched by Atrios and Digby.
.

Since we're such wonks here at the Washington Monthly, I took a closer look at Kos's numbers -- go to the story, but drill in to get the actual number of respondents in each five year bracket.

12,702 respondents total with an even distribution in the four brackets between 36 and 55, averaging about 340 respondents per year and assuming further that there are actually about 340 in each year because of data smoothness (following me here Ben?).

Accumulate those numbers and you see the median falls between 41 and 46 and then interpolate to see that it's between 43 and 44, closer to 44. Like I say, assuming smoothness here and quite reasonably so considering the equal size of all brackets in the vicinity.
.

i gotta go with the "thanks for the corrections" crowd. and especially thanks for doing it so quickly.

Kos must die - long live Kos

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My question is why these numerous factual errors were not caught and corrected before publication? Could the piece not have been sent to Markos for review prior to being posted?

Is rigorous fact-checking another institution swept aside by the Miller/Woodward school of, ahem, "journalism"?

Maybe it is time for a ethics seminar on writing about bloggers.

The part that bothered me about this piece was about the contractors.

Kos clearly apologized after he wrote it -and it appeared in the comments to another article and not as a main post.

I didn't read that in the story.

I am a pretty regular ready of Kos and this was the first I heard about a secret plan to destroy the DLC...