Decision ‘08

The Wonderful World of Kos

Lots of buzz (just check out Memeorandum) over this Washington Monthly profile of our ol’ buddy Markos Moulitsas Zuniga. Some highlights and lowlights:

The site, which has existed for only around three and a half years, now has 3.7 million readers each week. That’s more than the top 10 opinion magazines—of both left and right—combined, more readers than any political publication has had, ever, in the history of the world.

Psbbbbtt! Patently false; 3.7 million visitors a week is not really 3.7 million visitors, as anyone familiar with a sitemeter knows (it is impressive, don’t get me wrong). The real number of daily visitors to Kos has been estimated (granted, a year ago, and his traffic has grown since then) at roughly 25-30,000. Many of those people visit every day - in fact, most. To estimate that more than 100,000 people read Kos weekly, then, is probably off the mark.

“Everybody says I’m an a**hole, and they’re right, I am,” Moulitsas says. …[W]hen the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee threw a party for him and some other bloggers at last year’s Boston convention, he arrived, immediately picked a loud, disruptive fight with the organization’s executive director, Jim Bonham, and stormed out.

Ever the charmer, eh?

The myth of Karl Rove, which looms over American politics, and the conviction that the party’s wins or losses are a matter of tactics, not substance, has left the Democrats looking for their own master tactician. And some in the party seem to want to see Moulitsas in that role.

And may I say, more than a few Republicans (oh, please, please, PLEASE give Markos more of a role in the Democratic Party!).

…[I]n 1998, [Markos] moved out to San Francisco to try his luck in Silicon Valley. A couple of years later, now married, he moved again, to Berkeley, exasperated at the realization that he wasn’t going to make a fortune in the high-tech boom. “Maybe at some time, Silicon Valley really was this democratic ideal where the guy with the best idea made a billion dollars, but by the time I got there at least, it was just like anything else—a bunch of rich kids who knew each other running around and it all depended on who you knew,” Moulitsas told me. Unemployed, Moulitsas, started posting comments on a site called MyDD.com, the most insidery of the emerging liberal blogs. During late 2001 and early 2002, he developed a following, for the strength and clarity of his denunciations of the Bush administration. Moulitsas started his own blog, and, in the summer of 2002, Daily Kos opened for business.

Strength and clarity - oh, yeah, sure, that’s right. Hilarious that Markos thinks Silicon Valley was shut down by 1998 - the very height of the tech boom! Couldn’t have anything to do with his own shortcomings, of course…

There was another reason, though, why hundreds of thousands of liberals around the country found themselves addictively checking and rechecking Daily Kos as the 2004 election approached. It made them think Democrats were going to win. Moulitsas wasn’t just posting any polls, he was selecting those that suggested Democrats—from John Kerry to congressional candidates—were heading for victory, while downplaying less encouraging signs. It left liberals trapped in a bubble of reassurance. Heading into the election, it would have been reasonable to assume from the evidence presented on Daily Kos that Kerry was the clear favorite to beat Bush, and that Democrats were likely to pick up seats in both houses of Congress. When none of these things happened, there was a sense of incomprehension. All of Kos’s confident predictions had been wrong. “It’s a valid criticism. Looking back, I was too optimistic,” Moulitsas told me. “[At] the beginning, I didn’t even know what a margin of error was.”

Yes, the bubble…Kos, Democratic Underground, Huff’n'Puff - they all share the same function (as, to be fair, do some sites on the right) - to reinforce the views of the already converted, opposing viewpoints be damned!

And speaking of damned - we’ve saved the worst for last:

The site is for the true believers, not the aesthetes; its tone is harsh, impassioned, and frequently humorless.

And sometimes infantile and absurd. The site in recent months has become to seem like the site of some arcane political Thermidor with puzzled liberals being endlessly impaled upon pikes. 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.” The declaration, gleefully seized on by right-wing bloggers, provoked weeks of controversy. Democratic candidates came under pressure to pull their advertisements from the site, and even Moulitsas’s traditional allies in the liberal blogosphere—including The Washington Monthly’s Kevin Drum—criticized him. (When I asked Moulitsas recently how he felt about the episode, his mouth stretched into a smile: “Vindicated,” he said…)

Let’s summarize: when asked about his infamous “I feel nothing…Screw them” comment, regarding the bodies of Americans dragged through the streets of Fallujah, Markos smiled and said he feels vindicated.

Sometimes only the plain truth will do: Markos, you are indeed an a**hole, but son, it’s nothing to brag about. You had better hope the concept of karma is a myth…

UPDATE 8:38 p.m.: Many thanks to Ace for the link…

UPDATE 2 10:39 p.m.: Thanks also to Charles at LGF, Leon H. at Red State, Gateway Pundit, Lorie Byrd, Betsy Newmark, James Joyner, The Political Teen, and Kevin Aylward of Wizbang…

UPDATE 3 10:57 pm.: A quick note about the vindicated quote: a commenter at Red State notes that the elipses I put in left out the following:

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 stand by my snip…Markos’s pathetic attempt at justifying the unjustifiable doesn’t alter his feeling of ‘vindication’ for his incredibly tasteless, insensitive, and cruel comment…but there it is, for all the world to see, if you feel differently…

At the American Prospect, Garance Franke-Ruta credulously swallows the 3.7 million weekly readers stat whole, while noting that Newsweek has 3.2 million subscribers. Yes, well, the difference is that Newsweek’s 3.2 million subscribers is an actually meaningful number, you see, one that is subject to audits, and let’s not forget, people actually PAY for Newsweek…really, there is no comparison at all…

UPDATE 4 12/23/05 8:47 a.m.: Markos himself puts the number of visitors at 500,000 per week here (still quite a bit on the high side, I would think). And a thank you to Jon Henke for the kind words and link, as well…

UPDATE 5 12/23/05 8:24 p.m.: Thanks to the folks at RealClearPolitics for putting this post on the front page - my first time for this honor…and many thanks to the great Tim Blair…

57 Responses to “The Wonderful World of Kos”

1 John C. Randolph Says:
December 22nd, 2005 at 11:08 pm
I was here in Silicon Valley throughout the .com boom, and this Zuniga clown is one of the thousands of useless marketroids who flooded into town in the late 90’s. Some of them were able to fool some VC’s for a while, and the ones who didn’t just descended into an extended snit. His “it’s all who you know” snivelling shows that he was trying to get money from suckers, rather than getting it from customers or investors who knew what they were buying.

Meanwhile, companies with viable business models, are doing quite well, thanks. Apple, Google, EBay, E-Trade, Oracle, etc, continue to make money for their shareholders, while companies started by the likes of Zuniga are long gone (and good riddance).

-jcr
2 Abdullah al-Libi Says:
December 22nd, 2005 at 11:16 pm
Daily PoS is such a damn whiner. What an envious little PoS. He couldn’t get any $$$ from some VCs, and now he blames “The Man.” Did he ever consider how difficult it is to raise cash from VCs, and how many entrepreneurs (far smarter than he is) fail to get funding???

PoS is nothing more than an affirmative-action admit for BU law. He should grow up.
3 RW Says:
December 23rd, 2005 at 12:14 am
Money sentence of the post: “Couldn’t have anything to do with his own shortcomings, of course…”

One of the reasons he’s an a##hole (when he’s at his keyboard, of course) could be that he’s overcompensating for a lack of physical stature. It’s my experience that adult males that shop at Oshkosh B’ Gosh for their aparrel are often the hot-tempered sort……mad at the world because they don’t measure up (literally).
4 GOP Run Amok Says:
December 23rd, 2005 at 1:06 am
Yes, the bubble…Kos, Democratic Underground, Huff’n’Puff - they all share the same function (as, to be fair, do some sites on the right) - to reinforce the views of the already converted, opposing viewpoints be damned!

Hmmm…sounds a lot like this site, Polipundit, LGF, Red State, etc. Pot, meet the kettle.

And if you’re really saying that “some sites on the right” do the same thing, then what’s the point of singling Daily Kos out?
5 Mike Says:
December 23rd, 2005 at 1:07 am
Just fo the record, us defense contractors are still going to Iraq. A friend of mine heads that way this summer for a fact finding mission.

Regards.
6 Mike Says:
December 23rd, 2005 at 1:10 am
Amok,

There is a little bit of a difference - Polipundit’s polls appear to have been much more accurate.

Regards
7 Mark Says:
December 23rd, 2005 at 1:34 am
GOP Run Amok, if you think this site is an echo chamber, I think you are unfamiliar with my work…
8 Iowa Voice Says:
December 23rd, 2005 at 5:39 am
Article On Kos At Washington Monthly

I saw this article on Markos Moulitsas Zuniga yesterday (you’ve heard of him….he’s the “Kos” in “Daily Kos”).

I was going to go through it piece by piece, but Decision ‘08 took care of it already.
9 PaulS Says:
December 23rd, 2005 at 7:36 am
On the number of views - 3.7 million per week - the number is probably skewed by the number of conservatives/republicans who view the site. I am a registered independent who votes republican most of the time and is generally conservative in my views. But I visit kos daily - mostly for the humor factor. But also because I want to understand both sides of the argument. If anyone sees the 3.7 million number and thinks it gives a clue to the political make-up of the country, they are mistaken.
10 Opinion Striken From KOS Says:
December 23rd, 2005 at 8:55 am
Mark - If you are KOS, what you do is not work. What you do is complain about anything our President, our military, and the patriots of this country do. You attempt to create controversy, but 99% of Americans don’t know who you are and all but about 30,000 don’t care who you are. You and your site are irrelevant in the real world.

If you are KOS, you or your minions strike any comment I ever post. Echo Chamber at its finest. I think we are very familiar with your work - strike it (includes polls, opinions, news, articles) unless it fits in your narrow, biased view of the world and helps make your unrealistic point.

Incidentally, red state, lgf, et al. allow any opinion in the comments(unless it is obscene). Most of those coming from your ilk are so far removed from reality that they are just ignored as they should be. Some are dispelled with actual facts quickly. Some are batted about by intelligent folks for a longer diversion.
11 Isaac Schrödinger Says:
December 23rd, 2005 at 9:26 am
Cakewalk vs. Tough Work

I feel a little differently about this matter. Now, I agree with the Republicans on most issues and I want
12 Buck Says:
December 23rd, 2005 at 9:40 am
I might pick up, and put down my Newsweek magazine 10-20 times per issue. If Newsweek could count every time everyone opens it as a new visitor, include browsers in mag shops, and the newsweek.com web hits, I suspect the numbers would be in the hundreds of millions per week. This one mag would swamp kos stats, let alone the ‘the top 10 opinion magazines’ doing the same thing.

Get it? That is the story. That is why Kos is singled out. Distort your stats and blogs will “fact check your a**”. That is how it works.

Good job Decision ‘08.
13 Mark Says:
December 23rd, 2005 at 9:44 am
Opinion Striken From Kos, I’m not Kos! I’m Mark, the proprietor of the very site you are reading…
14 Sons of the Republic Says:
December 23rd, 2005 at 9:52 am
Kos, Deflated

Kos will most likely proclaim this post to be torture reminiscent of Genghis Khan.
15 Jen Says:
December 23rd, 2005 at 9:55 am
there is very little difference between news week and daily kos both in substance or honesty
16 Outside The Beltway Says:
December 23rd, 2005 at 9:57 am
The Kos-ification of the Democrats

Benjamin Wallace-Wells has a feature on Markos Moulitsas Zuniga called, “Kos Call—For America’s number one liberal blogger politics is like sports: It’s all about winning.” The piece paints the picture of an angry jerk f…
17 John Says:
December 23rd, 2005 at 10:04 am
For GOP RunAmok:

Yes, the bubble…Kos, Democratic Underground, Huff’n’Puff - they all share the same function (as, to be fair, do some sites on the right) - to reinforce the views of the already converted, opposing viewpoints be damned!

Hmmm…sounds a lot like this site, Polipundit, LGF, Red State, etc. Pot, meet the kettle.

And if you’re really saying that “some sites on the right” do the same thing, then what’s the point of singling Daily Kos out?”

To answer your questions:
1.) For election 2004 many conservatives were nervous and showed all the polls whether you believe it or not. And they were mostly accurate as Bush won. This is just like the arguement libs use about Fox (one conservative out of hundreds of liberal outlets). At least Fox tries to obtain some balance constantly inviting liberal guests and actually giving them time to speak as well as in addition to Alan Colmes, Greta Van Susterin, Geraldo Rivera, Mara Liasson, Cece Connolly, Ellis Henican, etc.

2.) Daily Kos was pointed out because the Dem party is using him as part of their strategy/foundation.
18 Yaya Says:
December 23rd, 2005 at 10:09 am
Kos talks bout the article here:

http://dailykos.com/story/2005/12/23/24711/486

And mentions that several of the “facts” like the number of daily visitors, wasn’t provided by him - it was an error by the author. And there are many, many more factual errors, some of them massive. Before you make a judgement, just take a look at this.
19 Jay Says:
December 23rd, 2005 at 10:49 am
Well done.
20 QandO Says:
December 23rd, 2005 at 11:06 am
The Democratic Noise Machine

Washington Monthly has done a less than flattering feature on Markos Moulitsas of the Daily Kos…
21 Ann Says:
December 23rd, 2005 at 12:23 pm
While the numbers of hits/readers of the Kos site may be inflated, what none of you can dispute is the fact that Daily Kos is THE GO-TO site for Dems, Independents and Repubs to test the daily political wind. I too am an Independent voter, and regularly check out the Kos site, more so than I check out RedState or LGF or Insta, etc. Do I detect some sour grapes around here? Some jealousy, mayhaps? The Kos site is like drinking chicory coffee….strong, wild, a little too, too flavorful and undisciplined, but robust and pure.
22 Mark Says:
December 23rd, 2005 at 12:27 pm
Ann, without a doubt, Kos is the most popular humor (oops! I mean political) site on the web - am I jealous of his numbers? Yes - but that doesn’t mean he’s not a small-minded little weasel…
23 dmac Says:
December 23rd, 2005 at 12:31 pm
Ann - I used to go to Kos’s site in the distant past (up to about a year ago), but my benign comments were almost always banned there, apparently for no other reason than sheer spite, since no profanity was ever used in my posts…

At least the other sites let just about anyone vent their spleen, no matter how offensively they may express their views. Kos lets only those who drink his cyanide - laced Kool - Aid spew their bile on a daily basis. Pure? Pure hate is more like it.
24 norm Says:
December 23rd, 2005 at 12:40 pm
I’ve never visted the Kos site.
25 Dennis Says:
December 23rd, 2005 at 12:57 pm
Interesting that the story makes the sports analogy for Kos’ approach to politics. I once knew a fellow on another Web site who was a dedicated Kossack. He started 2004 as sort of general politics junkie who wanted to see a Democrat win, and by the end of the year he was clearly ensconced in the Kos bubble, always linking to the latest Bush Bulge piece and shocked when Bush won. It was sad to see the transformation from honest disagreement to full-fledged moobattery, and I think Kos helped encourage him by giving him a place where he could vent so freely.

At one point he made some reference to Glenn Reynolds being Kos’ “enemy,” and I realized he was pretty much a lost cause. Instapundit generally leans right, but he’s pretty mild-mannered in his disagreements. But Kos encourages this kind of us vs. them view, in which people like Reynolds become “the enemy.”
26 dennis Says:
December 23rd, 2005 at 2:15 pm
“…{At] the beginning, I didn’t even know what a margin of error was.”

And this guy thought the smart money in silicon valley was going to give him big bucks when he didn’t even understand basic statistics??!!!
27 Richard Says:
December 23rd, 2005 at 3:18 pm
This guy epitomizes the Party of the Demcorats so I don’t understand why they won’t let him macrch out front and carry their banner. Please, make him the centerpiece of your party.
28 Ann Says:
December 23rd, 2005 at 4:01 pm
“PoS is nothing more than an affirmative-action admit for BU law. He should grow up.”

“You and your site are irrelevant in the real world.”

“Yes - but that doesn’t mean he’s not a small-minded little weasel…”

“the bubble…Kos,”

And yet….and yet…..how do you explain the fact that Kos is the most popular political site out there? EVEN after Repub win in 2004, his readers did not feel betrayed by the bubbling…his readership/hits GREW. Even after his callous comments about the death of contractors, his viewership/popularity GREW. I think he IS revelant in the world of politics, and it would behoove all of us to understand what political need he is meeting, because he is meeting a need for political junkies, despite his faults. Why?
29 dmac Says:
December 23rd, 2005 at 4:18 pm
There will always be people who feel completely disenfranchised by the political process (despite all evidence to the contrary), so a site like Kos is popular because the folks who desperately wanted Bush to lose naturally would gravitate towards a place that allows them to infantilize their own feelings. No doubt we would’ve seen a similar phenomenon regarding the legions of Clinton - haters during his two terms in the WH.

Kos is relevant only as far as his influence is proven in the political process. Yes, the DNC keeps checks on what goes on there, but his candidates have lost consistently despite his best efforts. Remember the Dean push? If anyone can name one major policy plank that Kerry adopted because of the rantings at Kos, or name one candidate that unequivocally won because of his endorsement, then by all means let’s give him his due.
30 Toby928 Says:
December 23rd, 2005 at 4:22 pm
“because he is meeting a need for political junkies, despite his faults. Why?”
Ann, I agree that he is just meeting a need. I don’t agree with Larry Flynnt and Hustler magazine but I have to admit, he too is rolling in dough, meeting the need for people I’d rather not associate with. It would be better for all if there was a popular Democratic site that wasn’t just an echo chamber for the nuttery but there may not be enough demand. That may explain the last six elections. Too bad for all concerned.

Tob
31 Ken Says:
December 23rd, 2005 at 7:14 pm
Moulitsas is not an a**hole.

He is a coward who wishes he was a terrorist.
32 skylander Says:
December 23rd, 2005 at 11:55 pm
the contractors are no better, no worse, than mercs used in any war. just because they are our mercs doesn’t make them any better than the hessians in trenton.
33 Barry Says:
December 24th, 2005 at 1:08 am
“And yet….and yet…..how do you explain the fact that Kos is the most popular political site out there? EVEN after Repub win in 2004, his readers did not feel betrayed by the bubbling…his readership/hits GREW. Even after his callous comments about the death of contractors, his viewership/popularity GREW. I think he IS revelant in the world of politics, and it would behoove all of us to understand what political need he is meeting, because he is meeting a need for political junkies, despite his faults. Why?”

Ann,
Good point. And that’s why I read him. I can’t do it daily because seeing the underside of humanity congratulating itself for being repugnant and bitter is more than my constititution can handle. The raw animus that flows there early and often is something as amazing as it is disturbing. And that’s why I believe that in the end he won’t do much more than become a rallying point for GOP fundraising. He represents a lot of people, to be sure, but if you spend any time there you will quickly see that most of them are the engraged “Bush stole the 2000 election” bitter partisans who will tolerate no facts of any kind that might shake their smug certainties. While they are a large cohort (mostly 20-somethings I’d bet, based on the complete ignorance of any political history previous to 2000) I can’t see that kind of motivation having much staying power. They already thought they changed the world and won the 2004 election. One or two more disappointments and those smart kids will either begin to ask what’s wrong with their point of view, a good thing, or they’ll just fold and slink away, not such a great thing. I’m a pretty conservative guy, but I also believe it serves our country well to have a robust and thoughtful opposition. Kos ain’t it. Those angry posters ain’t it either.
34 Will Says:
December 24th, 2005 at 1:31 am
The whole thing about the contractors is a bit out of context. Kos, a former soldier, was of the opinion that we should not mourn the death of mercenaries because they are fighting for money as opposed to a cause.

Now I think Kos is wrong. While contractors work for money it is not like they would work for the other side if it paid more, and it is not like American troops don’t get paid too. I’m sure that most contractors are deeply patriotic. And they can’t all be blaimed when a couple of them shoot trophy videos of themselves murdering innocent people who happen to be driving on the airport road. Or when four of them take a shortcut through an insurgent stronghold after being explicitly told not to and setting off a course of events that results in a couple hundred Americans and thousands of Iraqis being killed. But the bottom line is, mentioning Kos’s crass remarks without mentioning their full context makes him seem a lot worse than he is.

And yes, Kos is an echo chamber. So is the entire goddam blogosphere. With the fall of the MSM, people get to choose their own reality these days.
35 dmac Says:
December 24th, 2005 at 11:37 am
“And they can’t all be blaimed when a couple of them shoot trophy videos of themselves murdering innocent people who happen to be driving on the airport road.”

What? Never heard that one - cites please.
36 CBart Says:
December 24th, 2005 at 11:58 am
Skylander,

I was reading Washington’s Crossing by David Hackett Fischer and I found the part where he describes the fate of the captured Hessian mercenaries most interesting. The attitude of the Continental army and Washington was diametrically opposed to that of you and Kos. They treated the Hessians with dignity and respect. They fed them and cared for them. As a result many of them stayed or returned to the U.S. after the war. I guess you and Kos prefer the revolutionary Lenin to the revolutionary Washington. I don’t.
37 The Raven Says:
December 24th, 2005 at 12:01 pm
What makes DailyKos essential reading, among other things, is the quality of writing. Strong, crisp prose and a tradition of citing back to original sources. It isn’t just “Bush sucks,” but also links to the information that proves just how badly he does, in fact, suck.

Also, the board features very little of Kos’s own reporting. It’s the other writers, like Hunter and Armando, that have built a loyal following. User contributions are group-rated and recommended, building an in-house vetting and quality filter that brings breaking stories to the top of the feed and keeps them there.

DailyKos isn’t a Weblog in the sense that most others - like Digby or Reynolds are - but it’s a collaborative effort that has generated a community. Again, first and foremost it’s the quality of the writing. Visit Ace of Spades HQ or LGF, and your eyes are likely to start spontaneously bleeding from the torrent of illiterate vapidity those sites concentrate, from their jingoistic chanting and recycling of Fox News talking points.

But I support the troops! Right?
38 dmac Says:
December 24th, 2005 at 12:03 pm
“…people get to choose their own reality these days.”

At least in Skylander’s world, they can.
39 Mark Says:
December 24th, 2005 at 12:10 pm
dmac, I think this is the contractor incident referred to (though the contractors are British)…
40 Mark Says:
December 24th, 2005 at 12:13 pm
The Raven, I understand that Daily Kos is more of a community than a blog (the closes parellel on the right is Red State) but I guess quality of writing is in the eye of the beholder…
41 dmac Says:
December 24th, 2005 at 12:26 pm
It’s not a community when they continually reject well - reasoned arguments to their screeching polemics in their comments sections. Happened to me all the time, and they have a long history of such policies.

The other sites of course are also quite screechy at times in their comments, but they also allow dissenting viewpoints that are unedited.
42 dmac Says:
December 24th, 2005 at 12:29 pm
Mark - thanks for the link, but I couldn’t find anything else to determine whether it was a staged event or a real action.
43 J. Peden Says:
December 24th, 2005 at 12:33 pm
Ann: the question of why those of the LLLiberal mentality exist is not answerable, in my opinion. The important thing politically is to recognize that they exist in significant numbers, see how they operate and describe it, recognize that they constitute a threat to the rest of humanity, and therefore defeat them. They’ve already gotten much too far along in producing what they seem to want politically, which is control - of speech, ecomomics, the environment, of all others - and in general of thought.

That said, now I will make a brief attempt at the nearly impossible - explaining those of the LLL in terms of their needs: to begin with, in my schema those of the LLL quite simply are either unable or unwilling to reflect upon their own thoughts, or upon any thought in a rational way. [Actually “unwilling” becomes “unable” if the unwillingness is intractable, which it is in the case of the LLL. Therefore, I ascibe this defect to genetics, though in the end I can’t proove it. So my explanation only amounts to “some biological process - evolution - produced it”, which functionally comes down to the religious claim that “God did it” in terms of Ultimate causes - of which there are none, but rather only statements of alleged Ultimate causes.]

In my schema, those of the LLL sense strongly the need for meaning in their lives and Kos’s venue, “charisma”[!] and mantras fill and feed this need - again, since the LLL’s are unable to reflect upon thoughts. All you can do in that case is repeat memes - memes which are then nearly necessarily those of a fantasyland. We know them too well in all their irritatingly irrational glory. To me the memes try to establish the Marxist fantasyland of the Oppressor-Victim-Savior explanation of humanity. So in my opinion Looney Leftist Liberalism is virtually identical to the Marxist Religion of Communism.

They are identical in their virtually racist abhorrence and hate of free-thought/creative rational thought as the “other”. Thus they want/need at least to control others - and everything else - and their thoughts. This is impossible, but the LLL’s still want to do it as their primary means of establishing their own meaning in life.

The way I see it, I don’t need to control them as a life’s goal, but they need to control me - especially my thoughts, but involving every other damn thing I might do. I say this is antithetical to humanity. At least we can maybe see this battle as one between competing hominids. Defining what LLLism is, or seems to be as rationally analyzed is probably helpful in defeating it. [We could also see it as a full-blown obsessive-compulsive disorder.]
God, or whatever, help us all.
44 DG Says:
December 24th, 2005 at 2:20 pm
KOS is an inmate looking for an asylum to run.
45 sgpi11 Says:
December 24th, 2005 at 2:51 pm
J. Peden, to add to your thoughts here… I’m currently reading Thomas Sowell’s “The Vision of the Anointed”, and he elaborates on these people’s thoughts quite well. To sum it all up, these few people think they know more than the rest of us, and think they should be running things, and just can’t simply understand why Americans should want a “common” man to lead them. They don’t see traditions as the distilled experiences of millions of people over hundreds of years, but simply as obstacles to them running things as they see fit and “rebuilding” the human race in their image.

Their arrogance and ignorance never fail to amaze me.
46 Godfodder Says:
December 24th, 2005 at 6:52 pm
The only “need” Kos serves is the need of a minority of Dems to vent their narcissistic rage about their political impotence. Republicans don’t need such a forum, and god willing, won’t need one for a long, long time.
47 Ben Says:
December 24th, 2005 at 8:16 pm
You all are just wrong about the site. The quality of comments is uneven–sure it is. What do you expect from a public, minimally gate-kept blog? But at its best, there’s real debate on Dkos and worthwhile analysis of issues. Is the site partisan? Of course it is: it’s not meant to be anything else. But, again, given that framework, a lot of substantive, intelligent thinking goes on there.

Read some of the Kos threads and compare them to say, Huffingtonpost threads, and you’ll get a sense of what I mean. Kos is much smarter, more useful.

And of course, GOP Run Amok is also right, there are site like Kos on the right and left.

It’s like driving, right: when you cut someone off, you’re just in a hurry. When someone else does it, the f**ker need to have his license revoked.

By the way, this thread is no less partisan and certainly no more substantive than anything I’ve seen on Kos.
48 Mark Says:
December 24th, 2005 at 10:35 pm
Well, Ben, I’ll give you this much: you’re right that it is more substantive than Huff’n'Puff…
49 Will Says:
December 25th, 2005 at 12:37 am
You know why we dislike him, spgi11? Because he is the incredibly well-connected son of a president who tries to pass himself off as a “common man.” And apparently you bought it.

If by common man you meant someone who wasn’t especially intelligent or exceptional, well, I guess he’s your man. But I don’t want my doctor to have a “common” knowledge of medicine, I want him to be an expert. I want my auto mechanic to know more about cars than the average guy on the street. And I want a president who has a deep understanding of history and public policy and applies this knowledge in his decision making, not one who say, trusts a tyrant like Vladimir Putin because his gut instincts tell him that Putin is an okay guy. Perhaps that makes me a “elitist” but so be it.
50 cab404 Says:
December 25th, 2005 at 1:24 am
DailyKook is largely a club of hobby Marxists, frustrated at their impotence. Not a few of them are technoids and korporatchiks with comfortable incomes who gravitate to the site because it’s the best fix around for bombast junkies. These people are not worth analyzing. Their silly utopianism and nihilism are almost always pretty half-baked stuff. They are best thought of as a mere curiosity, a statistical residue of free thought, which nearly all of them oppose, a wonderful irony.
51 wronwright Says:
December 25th, 2005 at 8:43 am
I think the 1.3 million number is analogous to a reader of the Wall Street Journal buying one copy, reading one article, putting it down, later reading the editorials, putting it down, and later on reading the International News. For the Daily Kos that would amount to three users.

For my part, I probably will read the WSJ at ten different points of time during the day. Yet I’m only one man. Except for my other personalites. Such as Evie, the cockney flower seller. “Posies for the missus, gov’nor?” But Evie doesn’t read the WSJ so she wouldn’t count.
52 dick Says:
December 25th, 2005 at 6:10 pm
The Kossacks remind me most of the Stalinists who kept on believing in communism even after all the show trials and the killing of all the Kulaks. They could not bring themselves to understand that what they were believing was all emperor’s clothes. They also refused to believe that Alger Hiss was a spy even after it was proven and that the Rosenbergs were spies even after that was proven also. The Kossacks keep telling each other how bright they are and how right they are even after the voters turn down all they offer. They claim to be for the common man but they act as if they are the uncommon man who is a natural born leader to tell us who to follow and what to do.

What I find funny is that even after the Chinese Communists under Mao turned all the intelligentsia into peasants these people still follow him. Even though Che was a stone murderer they still follow him as well. The thing is that if they ever did have a revolution that is the group that would be first up against the wall for the firing squad.
53 DG Says:
December 26th, 2005 at 8:09 am
Will, Will, Will,
We had a supposed expert on all that stuff. His name was Bill Clinton. All he did way try to game the system for his own personal gratification. Now we’re getting to watch his other half (minus the stinky misplaced cigar) try to do the same thing. Fool me once ….and so on. You hate Bush because he’s not one of the pragmatic bastards you spawn out of the Dem party. He’s everything you Libs are not, which is why he continually out manuevers you. And it really chaps your butt.
And the Putin remark is just another example of the Dem ignorance of how to deal with Russians. Something that I happen to have a lot of experience with. It was a set up, dummy. He knew he had to roll Putin on the Iraqi debt relief. Putin didn’t know what hit him when Baker delivered the death blow. Bush went one better than the Gipper’s
“Trust but Verify”……Hold your friends close and your enemies closer so that when you coldcock them you don’t have to reach as far.

Two words for you….Denny Crane.
54 J. Peden Says:
December 26th, 2005 at 1:21 pm
sgpi11: Amen - the Annointed seem to me to be composed of the Self-Annointed plus the Meme Adopters, who simply repeat the memes in order to be “in” or “elite” or “sophisticated”, thus Annointed also - and potentially in control.

The Self-Annointed act as if they think they channel the Ideal - that ideas which pop into their heads must be correct simply on that basis. Howard Dean, for example, has virtually admitted this in explaining that he knows his pop-up ideas must be correct because his “unconscious” must have worked on them.

But the Self-Annointed therefore differ from the extreme Evangelist who overtly claims that God has actually talked to him/her - but of course not to anyone else.

Yet all Annointed in practice rely upon group acceptance as the immediate proof of the correctness of their ideas - acceptance as evidenced by the echos, most importantly those produced by the Grand Echo Chamber known as the MSM, or perhaps also by the “Europeans” or “Our Allies”. And now even by Saddam Husein.

Proof by virtue of getting something done - literally anything - manifested by making the rest of us do it, comes later.

The ironic but not surprising thing about Communism is that it produces exactly that which it says it opposes: a State in which a materialistic Elite - the Party - completely enslaves the rest of the population, an epitome of control.

Oh how I have longed for a return by Freud! Could Thomas Sowell be it?
55 Stephen Says:
December 28th, 2005 at 7:57 pm
History has not as yet recorded a shortage of con men…or pigeons.
56 Right On! :: Begging the Questions :: January :: 2006 Says:
January 1st, 2006 at 11:12 am
[…] Mark Coffey at Decision ‘08 has an interesting recap of the liberal fawning over the Daily Kos blog. One excerpt caught my eye and begged a question: […]
57 nora Says:
January 1st, 2006 at 8:56 pm
This is a bit off thread but I have to say how gratifying it is to hear from people reading Thomas Sowell…and his latest, “Black Rednecks White Liberals” is absolutely brilliant, maybe the single most enlightening sets of research I’ve ever read. Explains sooooo much about the way people are acting today, all based on historical research. Answers questions I’ve had for years. Highly recommend this book.
And BTW, way good chat here, thanks.

Nora