Alleged "liberal" columnist smears DailyKos...

[regnaD kciN]

In a "ain't they just awful?" column on the Edwards bloggers, self-identified "liberal" Froma Harrop gets in a gratuitous shot at DailyKos, suggesting they're to blame for Lieberman's victory over Lamont last November:

Ned Lamont was very much a political moderate, but his message couldn't break free of the lefty bloggers who helped launch his campaign. Shortly after his stunning Connecticut primary victory over the Democratic incumbent, Sen. Joseph Lieberman, Lamont ran ads that prominently showcased Markos Moulitsas, founder of DailyKos.

I asked Lamont whether he would put distance between himself and the leftist blogs, and he responded: "I think they're a great neighborhood to be in. It's like an enormous bulletin board." He also conceded that he was new to the blogosphere culture.

Lamont wasn't even paying Moulitsas, yet the Lieberman campaign managed to link him to the profane language and radical politics of DailyKos. That may partly account for Lamont's failure to pick up enough independent votes to win.

Now, I've been on DailyKos for several years. I can't ever recall an instance of "profane language," and its supposed "radical politics" seem to me a slightly-more-populist take on mainstream Democratic positions. Am I living in an alternative universe, and has anyone here experienced a DailyKos closer to Harrop's description?

Why does this matter? Because, like it or not, more people still get their news from standard ("Corporate Media Cartel") sources than from their own research of the wide spectrum of sources available on the Web. It's easy for corporate media sources to spin a fantasy of "lefty bloggers" as extremist barbarians to those whose only knowledge of them comes from the comments of pundits like Harrop.

I would hope that those of us who are subjected to Ms. Harrop's slanders would let her and her editors know that we are not thrilled with her slander of a news source about which she clearly knows nothing.

And here's another reason to care: at least here in Seattle, Harrop has apparently been chosen by the Times to be the replacement for Molly Ivins (!!!), becoming the official "liberal" balance on the Monday editorial page to Charles Krauthammer and Jonah Goldberg. With friends like these...

:argh:

[FVZA_Colonel]

1. I remember shaking my head when reading it this morning over breakfast.

If that's what we'll be getting from her, let's keep looking.

[DonkeyInChinaShop]

2. Kos swears once or twice

I think I've seen him or other bloggers on the main page say fuck from time to time. But at least Kos is more thought-provoking. DU posts can be so hit and run.

[illinoisprogressive]

3. Kos like DU are just left leaning blogs. But, the noise machine makes it

sound like all of them are these radical anarchist sites where we all plot to bomb the cities and crown bin laden.
It's all they got right now.