Rain Storm -- an online journal of opinion and culture

Send John Hall some love and some cash.

Did I mention that I still have the Power LP (that's vinal, kids)?

The Freeway Blogger writes a book for the child in all of us. Go read it now.

Billmon reminds the right wing slime bloggers that the stars guided America's destiny during her bright shining hour.

Late breaking comment: Avedon is smart, creative, and hot. But we've known that from the get.

until they raise the minimum wage for people who actually work for a living.

Who could argue against that?

Josh Marshall notices that, the more democracy we export, the less we seem to have here in America.

Funny how that works. Or else not.

Then sent thousands of his devoted followers over for a look-see.

Can't imagine what other keyboard commandos have been lurking all these years. Assrocket? Captain Squatters? That skinny-legged (insert female canine person here)?

Time may tell.

Earlier today as I wondered boldly through left blogistan, if occurred to me that, rather than the hissy fit I mentioned below, what we're really seeing is coordinated attack on the progressive bloggers.

Not me, you understand. I'm much too obscure to draw any serious attention. And besides, I do have this bad compulsion to hunt down those who attack me and gnaw on their skulls.

But some of the bigger boys are definitely targets. Billmon explains it pretty well.

The initial smear, after all, wasn't incubated on just on any old blog, but on one tied directly to the apron strings of the Grey Lady herself -- The New York Times, with another venerable publication, The New Republic, putting the echo in echo chamber. Then the mainstream jackals moved in, right on schedule. It does appear that somebody has been feeding driblets of derogatory information (including, apparently, a phony email) to sympathetic reporters. But if there are any political operatives involved (as opposed to journalists acting like political operatives) they've keep their tracks very well hidden. Call it the Immaculate Swiftboat.
This is something new, or at least different from what we've become accustomed to. I think it highlights the speed with which the lapdogs of the so-called liberal media are evolving (or I should say devolving) into the watchdogs of the political status quo -- in this case, the ossified and increasingly disfunctional status quo within the Democratic Party. Kos, and his blog allies and followers, appear to have touched an extremely raw nerve with tribunes of modern neoliberalism (like neoconservatism, but without the strength of its convictions.)

I've no doubt the motives here are partly personal (it's never wise to ignore the overlap between the personal and the political.) Kos has said some extremely harsh, if generally accurate, things about The New Republic, the Democratic Leadership Council and the various political consultants and pundits associated with them (i.e. the Lieberman Democrats.) Like most bloggers, Kos doesn't always bother to maintain the archaic fiction of "civility" -- as if political debate were still the domain of 18th century planters in powdered wigs, discussing natural law in their drawing rooms while their slaves poured their mint julips for them. In other words, he frequently uses words like "fuck" and "shit" and sometimes calls his opponents stupid wankers, or whatever. The rabble manning the barricades at Daily Kos can be even more, uh, direct at times. Of course, anyone who's ever poked a stick in the open sewers of Right Blogistan could spear some far worse scatalogical examples. But it's still pretty strong stuff for the delicate blossoms who inhabit the TNR's editorial offices. I can only shudder to think what would happen if they were ever exposed to the Rude Pundit (or vice versa.) Think of the analyst bills.

But the sweet young things of the TNR have their friends -- at the Times, Newsweek and wherever else Ivy Leaguers with mediocre intellects but good networking skills obtain journalistic employment. And so it didn't take long for Kos and his friends (i.e. the liberal blogger mafia) to make some highly venomous enemies among the lambs of the neoliberal punditocracy.

But none of this seething animosity would have mattered, or made it into print, if Kos hadn't committed the mortal sin of becoming too big and too visible to ignore. When you combine the relatively successful launch of his book -- which took a sawed off shotgun to the leeches attached to the Democratic Party's flabby underbelly -- the huge media coverage of this month's Yearly Kos convention, and (last but hardly least) the role of the netroots in boosting Ned Lamont's primary challenge to the TNR's pride and joy, it's clear that Kos has turned into a much more formidable opponent than the Dino Democrats bargained for.

[ . . . ]

The real question in my mind is what the attack puppies are trying to accomplish. Surely they must understand that in the end, there is no such thing as bad publicity for a blogger. Ann Coulter has built an extremely lucrative career out of being attacked in print by her opponents. Does the TNR really think Daily Kos's traffic and ad revenues are going to do down because of this? If so, it may explain why the fucking rag is withering away: an absolute lack of business sense.

Seriously, though, I suspect the real objective here is to try to scare away the Democratic pols who have been cozying up to Kos and the liberal blogosphere. The sight of all those powerbrokers -- Harry Reid, etc. -- lining up to kiss Kos's ring in Vegas must have really set the klaxons wailing at DLC HQ. It isn't that Kos is particularly liberal or progressive (the right wingers only yell that he is because they understand that he isn't.) Go where the real lefties hang out, and you'll learn mighty fast that the name Kos is a dirty word in those circles -- right up there with those other well-known fascist running dogs like Howard Dean and John Kerry.

But in the end it doesn't matter. The Lieberman Dems don't hate and fear Kos and the Daily Kos "community" because they are too far to the left. They hate them because they represent an emerging power center within the Democratic Party that they don't control -- what's more, one that is now much closer to the public mainstream on the central issue of our time (the Iraq War) than they are.

There you have it folks. It's the old guard Dems and a few Ivy League journalists, seeing the times a changing, focusing all their resentments on a handful of insightful bloggers who might have referred to them as "wankers" a time or two.

So they've been throwing a swift boat hissy fit, telling stories out of school about those mean bloggers who called them such awful names. What a bunch of whiny ass wankers.

Before you know it, your grandkids are occupying Iraq.

President Bush sharply condemned the disclosure of his invasion and occupation of Iraq, stating "The disclosure our secret peacekeeping operations in Iraq is disgraceful."

"For people to leak that we invaded and occuapied Iraq and for a newspaper to publish it does great harm to the United States of America," Bush said, jabbing his finger for emphasis. He said the disclosure of the war "makes it harder to defeat the terrorists."

According to recent reports, the U.S. military secretly invaded and occupied Iraq 3 years ago. Bush maintains the invasion was completely legal. "Congress was briefed and what we did was fully authorized under the law," Bush said, talking with reporters in the Roosevelt Room after meeting with groups that support U.S. right to make war anywhere and anytime the president feels like it.

"We're at war with a bunch of people who want to hurt the United States of America," the president said. "What we were doing was the right thing. But if the terrorists know we're there in Iraq, it seriously compromises our ability to destroy them. That's why leaks like this hurt the United States. See, if the terrorists know that we're there and we're going to destroy them, it makes it that much harder to win the war."

The president refused to comment on another report that over 2,500 American troops had died in the secret operation in Iraq. "If the terrorists suspect that they've killed some Americans, that's only going to embolden them further. So I'm not going to jeopardize more Americans by commenting on any casualty figures."

Later, White House spokesman Tony Snow said it was up to the Justice Department to determine whether there would be a formal investigation of the news leak.

"Certainly nobody is going to deny First Amendment rights. But the New York Times and other news organizations ought to think long and hard about whether a public's right to know in some cases might override somebody's right to live," Snow said. "And whether, in fact, the publication...could place in jeopardy the safety of fellow Americans."

Damn.

I leave town for a couple of days and some asshole wanker over at TNR throws a hissy fit.

Digby is deeply moved. As in, when the manure gets that deep, it's time to move.

UPDATE - Monday afternoon: More blogofascist snark.