SCENES FROM A CRACK-UP
Macomber, Shawn
W 2 6 T H E A M E R I C A N S P E C T A T O R O C T O B E R 2 0 0 7 Scenes From a rack-Up The DailyKos crowd convened in Chicago as the second coming of the Democratic National...
...Call them the Sevenand-a-Half Minutes of Fame Players...
...This rhetoric is nothing new...
...Hey, if Democratic presidential candidates are groveling,whyshouldn'ttheever-weakeningheadsof Big Labor...
...every human...
...Hoffa and Teamsters," Richardson said...
...You're a Netroots candidate...
...adorn truck sides, but so too does the disclaimer, "Private Carrier Not for Hire...
...IRONICALLY, THE SHRILLNESS OF A YEAR AGO hasmostly been replaced with a general air of ill-defined discontent...
...And most improbably, considering the conS C E N E S F R O M A C R A C K - U P 2 8 T H E A M E R I C A N S P E C T A T O R O C T O B E R 2 0 0 7 KosWorldisaplacewhereHillary Clintonhasonlyjustbeguntopull aheadofDennisKucinich--she'sup to6percent!--andJohnEdwardsis theprohibitivefavoriteforthe Democraticnomination...
...Siddarth (the kid George Allen called "macaca"), Mike Stark (the man roughed up by Allen campaign staffers), and Lane Hudson (the leaker of Mark Foley's naughty e-mails...
...So where was the disconnect...
...Get up and say "Amen...
...It sounds like a spectacularly unserious endeavor, but during the Q&A session a woman bemoaned the travesty of her and husband's inability to quit their jobs and become fulltime bloggers because the "social safety net is in tatters...
...Only Media Matters' "Annoy Fox News" stickers feel more retro...
...The Service Employees International Union clearly learned the lesson of YearlyKos 2006...
...Yawn...
...The YearlyKos program this year included a painting ofbloggersonalongelectronicbridgeinhardhats.It's so noble, so gritty, so...
...Hoffa--like the candidates, panelists, and the myriad interest group representatives--was looking for a ticket to KosWorld, whatever the price...
...O C T O B E R 2 0 0 7 T H E A M E R I C A N S P E C T A T O R 2 9 Apanelistimploredprogressivesto remember,"FDRwasn'tFDRwhen hewaselected.Theyhadtokeep pushinghimfurtherandfurtherand furtherandfurther...
...Last year its reps were focused on describing the tough physical conditions of service employees...
...vibe of the 2006 convention...
...Evenbiggercheers...
...Betrayal...
...Big cheers...
...School Board Pollutes Classroom With Censorship...
...Indeed, during forums many still give their Kos ID number before their name, adding to the clubhouse atmosphere...
...Today, your views--once framed by the powers that be as naive and out of touch--are now shared by a majority of Americans...
...an omnipresent full-color Draft Gore postcard exclaimed--while the guy manning the Richardson for President booth was like an apparition: Unseen, un-heard, sensed only by individuals touched with the abilitytoconnectwithdeadcandidacies.Faded"Dean forAmerica"T-shirtswereoutnumberedonlybytheir newer "Impeach Bush" counterparts...
...Free hamburgers, hot dogs, and drinks abound...
...Well, you're doing somethingrightwhenyoumaketheirlifeuncomfortable...
...Gore/Obama '08" stickers fly off a table like hotcakes--"You already know who the perfect candidate is--now do something about it...
...The default position for Kossacks who in victory cannolongerdefinetheirownpurposeistoreturnto theramparts.Inpart,thismeansputtingtheenemies they just celebrated vanquishing on life support...
...The crowd is particularly excited about the candidacy of a Kossack named Ron Shepston, whose DailyKos handle, CanYouBeAngryAndStillDream...
...Scenes From a rack-Up The DailyKos crowd convened in Chicago as the second coming of Democratic National Convention...
...aKossackonthe pressrisernexttomesnickeredasGravel spokeaboutthenationalinitiative...
...NotlongaftertheconferenceInTheseTimesquotedthepanel'smoderatorNathanNewmanthusly,"The labormovementactuallytookYearlyKosveryseriously, contributing money to help subsidize costs and sendingtopleaderstoattendthesessions....Iknowthat the labor leaders were a bit frustrated that their interestintheblogospherewasnotreciprocated...
...LakeMichiganopenedupasabackdrop.Sloganssuch as "The Rights Which Labor Has Won, Labor Must Fight to Protect...
...There'ssomethingtobesaid for fear...
...Theprogramsynopsis intones, "Let's get over it...
...These buzzing worker bees had arrived at the "Online Messaging: What Works and WhatDoesn'tFlyOnline"workshopand,afterashort PowerPoint presentation, had been split into groups to compose an Action Alert based on the lessons Jeff Lucas and Dean Nielsen of Progressive Majority had just imparted...
...livingwage,health care, getting out of Iraq...
...THE THREE TRACTOR-TRAILER TRUCKS were parked on the massive concrete terrace of Chicago's McCormick Place convention center in such a way as to form a mini-amphitheater...
...Scornedandridiculed,whennotdownrightignored, youcontinuedtospeaktoeachother,"Moulitsassaid in his keynote speech...
...During "Framing the Debate," a panelist implored progressives to remember,"FDRwasn'tFDRwhenhewaselected.Theyhad to keep pushing him further and further and further and further...
...Let's start a union/Calling 3 0 T H E A M E R I C A N S P E C T A T O R O C T O B E R 2 0 0 7 S C E N E S F R O M A C R A C K - U P "Therewerenocomputers.Therewere noblogs.TherewasnoInternet.Butwe wereagenuineforcejournalistically, socially,andpolitically...
...I look around this room and I kind of think what my friends of color say all the time, which is, `When did the progressive movement become so white?'" a former organizer of Puff Daddy's Vote or Die campaign sniffed, as if broad appeal were somehow nefarious...
...Themeetingonlybecamemoresurrealasaclearly miffed young woman complained about the focus on political bloggers...
...That'sprettybroad,"someoneintheaudience shot back...
...A lot of you don't know anybody in the labor movement," Jimmy Hoffa told Kossacks...
...A popular panel,"ThreePeopleWhoHelpedChangeCongress," featured S.R...
...If you behave yourself it might be one of you here...
...Oh, universal health care not wiretaps, a joke about George W. Bush, and a dig at Bill O'Reilly who just so doesn't get it...
...They don't like you out there because you make their life uncomfortable...
...There was no Internet...
...We can't start the program until everyone moves over here," he says, but even when they come closer he isn't satisfied...
...the subject line of one potential email read, comparing An Inconvenient Truth to Huckleberry Finn and Catcher in the Rye...
...The Washington Post story on YearlyKos 2007 is headlined "`Net Roots' Event Becomes Democrats' Other National Convention...
...He motions for a lackey to straighten the blue and yellow fabric draping hung along the podium platform...
...During the Q&A session following Barbara Boxer's speech at YearlyKos 2006 in Las Vegas, a young woman complainedtotheCaliforniasenatorabouthow"convenient" some in Congress found it to think of Kossacks as "extremists...
...Loudspeakers blare the opening strains of AC/DC's "Back in Black...
...Hence, Hamsher noted one of her site's bloggers--"a shrink"--had intervened in the Firedoglake comments thread to talk distraught progressives "off the roof," and thus the request that Hamsher share her professional pal's methods...
...she said...
...Saint Jimmy Carter has blogged on the site...
...they'll go out of business...
...Low ID numbers indicating a longtime mem-berofthefive-year-oldsitefrequentlyspurapplause...
...is apparently supposed to be inspirational rather than embarrassing...
...W 2 6 T H E A M E R I C A N S P E C T A T O R O C T O B E R 2 0 0 7 Scenes From a rack-Up The DailyKos crowd convened in Chicago as the second coming of the Democratic National Convention...
...There is people power in a blogger's union...
...wall calendars...
...So we were generating a reality by our journalism...
...energy, the environment...
...Generating reality...
...They've gone from behaving like awkward kissing cousins to impassioned newlyweds.Lastyearnotmorethan35peopleshowedupto the"LaborandPower"panel.Whenoneofthespeakers asked the crowd who among them was involved with a union, virtually every hand shot up...
...He turned out to be a real crowd pleaser...
...This is what they want...
...Hoffa continued...
...Every day in my classroom 30 students sit downandexpecttohearthetruth,butnowtheschool board is telling me I cannot provide it to them," a young lady read aloud to the groups...
...NOT SO LONG AGO, PROGRESSIVE BLOGGERS relished their outsider role as "citizen journalists" driven by passion, not cash...
...Despite the Republicans' recent midterm election reversal of fortune, forlorn talk of Democratic victors stabbing "the netroots" in the back has paradoxicallyreplacedtheWe'regoingtokickassfromone end of this country to the other...
...The Kossacks toreintotheassignmentwithrelish...
...Sorry, Teamsters, Kossacks don't want a flash drive with downloadable union stats on it...
...There'ssomethingdeliciousaboutthesetwoliberals speaking unabashedly in public the way the left alwayswarnsusKarlRovedoesinprivate.Especially at a conference where erstwhile TAS scribe David Brock had earlier gushed, "It's great to be here this morning with you all, no longer blinded by the right, butsurroundedbyallthislightandenergyasaproud progressive," and condemning, to raucous cheers, the right-wing "cult" that had wickedly used "emotionalvulnerabilityandfear"todrawhimin.Theleft must be using the good kind of fear, choosing the right enemies...
...This is a natural alliance: The new Democratic Party--the Internet and the bloggers--combining with the great old Democratic Party of labor unions...
...The preoccupation writ large, however, was with left-wing loyalty...
...WelcometotheTeamstersCookoutatYearlyKos 2007...
...Stop the Attack on CriticalThinkinginOurSchools...
...Revelers spread far and wide until their host begins to badger...
...Philosophical kinship is not intheKossacks'DNA.Theentireplatformofthissupposed shadow convention was a celebration of Kossacks' historic importance and an unmitigated rage at any and all who may discount their importance...
...I would want to include conservative blogs becauseiftheyhavetoadheretothejournalisticstandards the union sets...
...A few minutes later, an audience member asked how panel members propose holding representatives accountable "without looking like all we're doing is being shrill and selfdestructive...
...We're going to stand on principle and hold that line because if we don't nobody does it...
...Everyone wanted to stake his claim...
...One candidate says the Democratic Partyisaboutforcingtheestablishmentto"renounce their nobility...
...Even better...
...And so the politicians take their cue...
...Yet, aside from a definitive change in mainstream attitudes toward the Iraq War, a visit at any given hour on any givendaytoDailyKos.comwillquicklyrefutetheidea of the site as the vanguard of the mainstream...
...I think all bloggers, in one way or another, view themselves as professionals," a facilitator told the crowd gathered at the "A Union for Bloggers: It's Time to Organize...
...We can't win unless you win and you can't without us," Chris ChafeofUniteHeresaid,buteveryonerecognizedthe roomwasall"we's"andno"you's...
...Andsoyouhavetolookathimnotonlyasapoliticalleaderbutasahumanbeing.Whenhewrotethatparticular blog post he had just had a baby girl...
...At this point it's 180 degrees from what we've had the last six years," panelist Pam Spaulding answered...
...Hell no...
...Gina Cooper prattled on at a press conference about how important it was for the candidates to accept the "net roots" as a real constituency...
...Hoffa roars back...
...Accordingtothesite'sownmonthly2008strawpolls, KosWorld is a place where Hillary Clinton has only justbeguntopullaheadofDennisKucinich--she'sup to 6 percent!--and John Edwards is the prohibitive favorite for the Democratic nomination...
...Let's get over it...
...Forget puffing out your union chests and trying to regale computer kids with tales of union glory you yourself can barely recall...
...DoYouSupport Banning Books...
...One small problem-there was no there there...
...It'salways goodtohaveanenemy...
...ever have a gig so easy...
...The engine of a truck cordoned off to the side begins to rumble, and the host asks, with a mischievous grin, "Anybody seen Markos...
...Revolution, baby...
...Yeah, it is pretty broad," Spaulding admitted...
...A womanfromtheNEAhadusedthesamewordswhile introducing columnist Harold Meyerson ("one of the most poignant critics of the Bush regime," she assuredus)andAndySternforalunchtimeconversation...
...Bill Richardson shouted...
...But Working Class Blogger T-shirts...
...District Court administrator, a Working America official, and the man who got the National Writers Union up and going...
...Around the outskirts of the amphitheater, long lines of people slowly snake their way past four grilling stations...
...This will be a grand coalition...
...And every major Democratic presidential contender save one (Joe Biden) showed up along with 1,500 Kossacks and 250 members of the media in tow...
...Does anyone here think the system is working right...
...Intruth,thismuch-hypedponymayhavebutone trick after all...
...Bill Richardson declares, "The blogosphere is the last free medium in this country...
...A representative of the NEA gushes, "Our members spend their lives getting studentstothinkandspeakforthemselveseverydayand I know that's what you in this room do as well...
...The panelists themselves weren't over it two hours ago...
...Whether it's online or whether it's people who are workinggettingtheirhandsdirtyeveryday.Myhands are pretty clean but a lot of people get their hands dirty...
...Wave it," she instructs, not unkindly...
...Even Hillary Clinton, who would be mercilessly booed a couple hours later, opened her YearlyKos break-out session by thanking Kossacks for "being soinvolved in helping us create a modern progressive movement in America," insisted she not only read blogsbuttriedto"findaway"toworksomeofthebetter ideas she read "into an argument I'm making or legislation I'm drafting," and finally mused, "I only wish we had this active and fighting a blogosphere 15 years ago...
...Itmight be better treatment than Hillary got, yet it is nevertheless a bit disheartening to watch a crowd of selfproclaimed revolutionaries, so fervent in the belief thattheyarebuckingthesystem,dismisstheoneperson who shows up and actually does say buck the system in a fundamental/foundational way...
...This time Stern,itspresident,spentmuchofhistimecramming union jargon into the mold of netroots' philosophical proclivities and prejudices...
...If it weren't fake, Kossackswouldnotbelinedupforgimmickydogand pony show type stuff like Take Your Picture With A Teamsters Truck...
...In 2002 MarkosMoulitsasfoundedDailyKos.Fiveyearslater the site greets 600,000 visitors a day...
...Whomtopush wasnotalwayssoclear.S H A W N M A C O M B E R Meanwhile, the strong independent ladies of "Blogging While Female" heaped accusations of misogyny on not only the progressive blogosphere in general, but DailyKos founder Markos Moulitsas as wellforsuggestinginonlineposts,sansanyconsideration of the patriarchal hegemony, that women who couldn't "handle a little heat in their e-mail inbox" should "try another line of work"--gasp!--as well as criticizing what he termed, "a small, extremist set looking for signs of female subjugation under every rock" after complaints appeared on DailyKos about adsfortherealityshowTheRealGilligan'sIslandthat depicted a bikini pie fight...
...Not vote for him,mindyou.Justhearhimout.Oh,well.Eyeofthe beholder and all that jazz...
...To wit: A roundtable led by Chip Berlet, Frederick Clarkson, Susan Thistlethwaite entitled, "Is the Religious Right Really Dead...
...Actually, truth be told, Blumenthal suggested, he did it even better...
...One small problem-there was no there there...
...Whenweblogwealsobringsomethingsfromour personallifeintoit,"YearlyKosorganizer/DailyKospersonality Gina Cooper lamely argued on behalf of her boss...
...The International Brotherhood of Teamsters notonlypostedBloggerWanted:InquireWithinsigns everywhere, but also handed out free T-shirts festooned with the slogan Working Class Blogger...
...THE LARGE ROOM WAS ABUZZ with the collective murmurofdozensofmenandwomenrepeating well-worn phrases like broad scientific consensus and the debate is over, varying only in tone, tempo, and timing...
...set to discuss "the currentstatusofthereligiousright"beganat1:30P.M.An hour-and-a-half later, a few doors down, the same exact panelists promised to offer advice on "What to DoAbouttheReligiousRight...
...Whom to push was not always so clear...
...The crowd, as is its frequent wont, adores...
...At any rate, our charge was to stir up protest via e-mail against a school district's decision to place a moratorium on the screening of Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth in the classroom...
...We need those people...
...I mean, saving our Constitution...
...CONSIDERING THE COMPANY he was keeping at YearlyKos, it probably comes as no surprise that Hoffa was not the worst panderer on hand...
...Ask John Edwards if he'd do this: I will have a union member as Secretary of Labor...
...Keep being tough...
...Yetthefurnacesfuelingthosefightsseemtohave gone cold...
...The sheen of revolution has slightly dulled, however, and that left-wing sense of entitlement has begun to creep in...
...put on by a politicalblog...
...Representatives of the AFL-CIO, armed with"KickingAssfortheWorkingClass"stickers, were on hand, as was a DNC employee, a D.C...
...The new voice of America...
...Was it the candidates, who lavishly praised Kossacks, but did not shift their positions towards theminanyfundamentalway?OrwasittheKossacks themselves, who so desperately seeking respectability, started holding press conferences and carrying themselves like any other interest group...
...Hoffa's crew and the other unions, like the Democrats, have learned their lesson...
...That's more like it...
...OUT OF THIS CACOPHONOUS, confused milieu comes a single actual demand from the crowd: Acknowledge us as legitimate...
...At a conference...
...Like so much else at YearlyKos, this "grand alliance" was all artifice...
...what...
...Finished, she jumps on stage to smooth out a doublewide column of union workers, rearranging some by height, turning others just so, putting American flags in the hands of still others...
...It wasn't as if Dubya were suddenly popular or inconsequential...
...Eugene McCarthy is dead...
...a Kossack on the press riser next to me snickered as Gravel spoke about the national initiative...
...Let's hear it for the new major force in the Democratic Party--thebloggers...
...Thentherewasthe content...
...Photographers scramble for better angles...
...So sounded a query at one of the first panelsatYearlyKos,thesecondannual terrestrial meeting this August of devotees of the uber-liberal DailyKos website.Thequestioncametowardthe endof"HoldingCongressAccountable for a Progressive Agenda," presented to Firedoglake celebrity blogger Jane Hamsher by a middle-agedwomanwhoexplainedshewastryingto convince disillusioned "progressive activists who are ready to give up" to continue to partner with her local Democratic Party chapter...
...Thereareallkindsofissues.Um...
...Hoffa mostly smirked at Gravel during his speech, even though when Gravel was a senator from Alaska the Teamsters had few better friends than he...
...I'm 12 again...
...There were no blogs...
...3 2 T H E A M E R I C A N S P E C T A T O R O C T O B E R 2 0 0 7 S C E N E S F R O M A C R A C K - U P "Revolution,baby...
...Let's hear it for the working men and women of the Teamsters...
...They're not at a computer...
...Anybody seen Jimmy Hoffa...
...Even Sidney Blumenthal waxed philosophic about how the DailyKos"phenomenon"remindedhimof"theearliest days when I first got into journalism in the early 1970s," back before the alternative press was "monetized and commercialized...
...Mike Gravel, on the other hand, didn't care...
...The Religious Right will be around for a long, long time...
...a woman finished...
...Likewise, hundreds of Kossacks--as they've nicknamed themselves--flocked to "Ned Lamont for Senate:WhatReallyHappened,"despitethefactthat thetopiccouldhavebeenwrappedupinafewwords: Um,helost.Theadvisoryboardappointedtowinnow down questions submitted online for the YearlyKos Presidential Leadership Forum included Gary Hart, Walter Mondale, and George McGovern...
...even in a space where all he had to do was invoke Bill O'Reilly'snametogetapplause,Graveldemurred.He was just going to talk about abolishing the federal income tax and creating a national initiative system, whatever anyone said...
...We're supposed to be shrill and self-destructive...
...This was the raison d'etre Kossacks had been seeking...
...Just the basics at this point...
...Sure, there were booths at YearlyKos where near-manic middle-aged women would try their damnedest to sell Articles of Impeachment Against George Bush or "Goodbye, George...
...The truck rolls perhaps 50 feet and then off jumps Markos Moulitsas...
...What else...
...Light reggae mingles with the smoky scent of summer food...
...He gets a thumb's up...
...Double gasp...
...Thereareknittingbloggersandnature bloggers and all kinds of bloggers and we have to include them as well, do we not...
...Come on, everybody,scootin...
...Back at the BBQ, Hoffa's repeated praise of John Edwards--who wasn't on hand--during his introduction of Bill Richardson seemed to stick in the New Mexico governor's craw...
...At the"HoldingCongressAccountableforaProgressive Agenda," one confused soul asked, "If we're going to hold Congress accountable to a progressive agenda, how do we define progressive...
...There were no computers...
...Through sputteringlaughterheadded,"Powertothepeople...
...It is critical to our people-powered movement that we reach people wherever they may be," Moulitsas, in dark jeans and a blazer, shouts...
...According to those in-the-know, after all, it's sexy, it's savvy, it's the future...
...vention host: "It's fairly difficult to go too far online...
...Cue predictably spontaneous applause...
...I cut out early and caught Spiderman 3 on pay-per-view...
...When word came down that Nancy Pelosi might cancel her YearlyKos engagement, a woman next to me scoffed, "She's too busy writing Dubya's legislation for him...
...You guys are tough on everybody and you know O C T O B E R 2 0 0 7 T H E A M E R I C A N S P E C T A T O R 3 1 S H A W N M A C O M B E R "HereIam,askinnynerdonacomputer, andIgettodriveinononeofthose," Moulitsasenthuses...
...Two very profitable words for the Teamsters you probably couldn't say without Mike Gravel: Alaska Pipeline...
...This is not a message Kossacks have the slightest interestin.Showup,kissthering,lookdeepintotheir eyeslongingly,andtellthemyou'venevermetanyone likethem.Snuggleuptotheircollectiveelectronicear and whisper how ecstatic you are they're running the show now...
...Teamsters president James P. Hoffa is not far behind...
...But we were a genuine force journalistically, socially, and politically...
...Weknowhow frequently DailyKos has looked at, say, George W. Bush asnotonlyapoliticalleaderbutahumanbeingaswell...
...Idon'tthinkmostof the folks at this conference appreciate just how big [unionized labor] is," activist/professor Joel Rogers groused...
...We cannot allow the next generation to be denied their basic right to education...
...Participants were only all too happy to count the ways: No immediate Iraq pullout, defections on the hate crimes bill, congressional staffers building walls between representatives and bloggers who grew accustomed to easy access during the campaign...
...No...
...the crowd shouts...
...the moderator began...
...John Edwards confides, "You are so important in making this democracy work...
...Good for you...
...Labor's primary problem last year was that it attemptedtoarriveonitsownterms.Lookatallwe've doneandhowindispensableweare,labortriedtosay...
...The truck lurches forward...
...Voila...
...Evangelical parents could make the same argument for screenings of The Silent Scream in every biology class in America, which would probably have Kossacks begging Buddhist monks to self-immolate ontheCapitolsteps.What'sgoodfortheliberalgoose, however,isn'tgoodfortheconservativeganderinthis corner of the political world...
...Is it possible for such a young, victorious movement already to be looking backwards...
...The sky is the collectively bargained limit, even for conservatives...
...I'm12again...
...Yet, if the unions have time and cash to fete the leisure class, the idea of a working class in jeopardy becomesmoredifficulttobuyinto.DidthelateJames Hoffa Sr...
...screamed another headline...
...Just don't mention Teamsters' steadfast support for drilling in ANWR or you'll get growled at like Hillary Clinton incarnate...
...O C T O B E R 2 0 0 7 T H E A M E R I C A N S P E C T A T O R 2 7 BY SHAWN MACOMBERChicago "We pretty much consider ourselves ordinary Americans, but I get the sense that's not what they think of us," the young woman lamented...
...Instead of donating their remaining minutes to, say, refugees in Darfur, they're holding tightly onto them, trying to snatchsignificanceoutofthejawsofirrelevance...
...HereIam,askinnynerdonacomputer,andIget to drive in on one of those," Moulitsas enthuses...
...LABOR'S ATTEMPTED COURTSHIP of the netroots at YearlyKos2006wasnotnearlyassuccessfulas it was this time...
...Just about anything that has been put on hold, stomped on...
...Your early conversations have become the national conversation...
...A few examples: "Personalization is key...
...He hadn't sleptintwodays.Hisin-lawswerethere...
...How such navel-gazing self-adulation can sustain a movement over the longterm is anyone's guess...
...fake...
...Sorry, old friend, it's a new day...
...The Netroots Candidates Celebration at YearlyKos 2007, for example, was a complete bore...
...The man fromtheTeamsterscounseledinclusiveness.Perhaps sore-knuckled knitters can find a place in an international brotherhood after all...
...The photographers and videographers in their embroidered Teamsters shirts follow Moulitsas's everymove.TheTeamstersarrayedbehindhimsmile winningly...
...With typical modesty, Blumenthal explained how he and his friends carried "a light into dark corners, but by doing so we intended to change the perception of the reality we were showing...
...Congressional candidate Eric Massa compares DailyKos posters to Thomas Paine and roared that those who challenge them are "insulting the people who made this country great over 200 years ago by exercising citizen journalism and bringing about the greatest democracy and democratic revolution this world has ever seen...
...These, itseems,aretheequivalentofabirthdaypartyponyin our host's arsenal...
...Several nochance congressional candidates the site plugged actually won in 2006...
...Shawn Macomber is a 2006 Phillips Foundation Journalism fellow...
...workshop...
...No word on how Michael Dukakis dodged this bullet...
...Al Franken sent a video message that felt like a rehearsal tape for an unfunny Saturday Night Live sketch...
...This is how forward-thinking the netroots are: They candivinetheultimateanswerstotheirquestionsbeforetheyevenaskthem,andthenmagnanimouslygo aheadandaskthemanyway,nodoubttorebuildpublic faith, take back our country, save our democracy, and feed poor, starving kids...
...But that is why we're meeting today, so we can start getting to knoweachother....Youarethevoicethathascomeup and risen out of nowhere...
...Iwillbeapresidentwho will push for the unionization of the American workforce and the federal government...
...Mustweevennotetheaudience applauded more loudly for themselves...
...MANY KOSSACKS NOW SEEM TO BE asking, as Robert Redford's Bill McKay did at the end ofTheCandidate,"Whatdowedonow...
...Heshootsalookbackatthephotographers and videographers lined up on a riser...
...C HAT DID YOUR PSYCHOLOGIST TELL YOU...
...And on it goes...
...The "natural alliance" line was a familiar one...
...That's our job," Hamsher retorted...
...It'sreallyimportanttopickafight...
...And Hoffa...
...Candidate after candidate relayed the exact same story: Each had been told there was no way he could win, but each nonetheless decided to reject "conventional wisdom" and run for Office X anyway because he knows in his (bleeding) heart that progressive ideas are better and the country is in such dire straits somebody has to do something...
...He praised the Chinese government for its progressive unionization policies ("Our multi-national, pro-democracy, pro-freedom corporations go over and fight democracy in China and workers rights the same way they fight it in the United States"), took the requisite dig at Rupert Murdoch, (jokingly) suggested a voting moratorium for white males ("the worst progressive voters around"), and, ultimately, claimed to cheers that unions are "just a way to redistribute wealth...
...Wesley Clark thanks "you Kossacks" for bringing "intelligence to this debate...
...There was never any discussion, however, over who was really being co-opted here...
Vol. 40 • October 2007 • No. 8
