Warning: this is a blog post about a blog. If you find such posts frivolous and incestuous at a time when Iraq and our economy are in crisis, read no further.
Last year, Markos Moulitsas remained defiantly neutral in the presidential primary. It was a mistake, I felt -- a blown chance for the most influential progressive blogger to help shape the race. I thought John Edwards was the best choice for progressives but realized that strong cases could be made for other candidates. Kos, however, coudn't pick a favorite and, to his credit, articulated his reasoning. He alternately bashed and praised the candidates, reserving the harshest and most persistent criticism for Barack Obama. After Edwards had opted to publicly finance his campaign, Kos said he planned to vote for Obama but retracted his support once he'd determined that Obama was "running to the right of his opponents."
Now, though, Kos is relentlessly pro-Obama and anti-Hillary, to the point where he offers no criticism of him and make serious, unsupported charges against her.
What happened?
I know, I know, the primary happened, in which Hillary has revealed her depravity, all the more striking in contrast with Obama's nobility. I'm not going to defend the Clinton campaign's race-baiting or its praising of McCain at Obama's expense. Nor, though, will I defend the Obama's campaign sexism or its willingness to claim race-baiting where there is none. I believe history will show both that the Clnton campaign wanted to turn Barack into the "black candidate" and that the Obama campaign wanted to turn Hillary into the racist candidate. They both exploited racial resentment.
Has Hillary played dirtier than Barack? Were her transgressions more harmful? Yeah, I think so, but to portray Hillary as solely responsible for the ugliness, as Kos does, is to engage in the sort of mindless primary partisanship he was critiquing just a few months ago.
But what about Hillary's hardball tactics? Isn't her flaunting of the rules reason enough for Kos to oppose her? It would be, perhaps, if he didn't recently cite her flaunting of the rules as reason to support her.
Clinton was the only top-tier candidate to refuse the ultimate Iowa and New Hampshire pander by removing her name from the Michigan ballot. That makes her essentially the de facto winner since Edwards and Obama, caving to the cry babies in Iowa and New Hampshire, took their name off Michigan's ballot. Sure, the DNC has stripped Michigan of its delegates, but that won't last through the convention. The last thing Democrats can afford is to alienate swing states like Michigan and Florida by refusing to seat their delegates.
That was in January when he criticized Obama for removing his name from the Michigan ballot. But by February he was claiming that Michigan, not Obama, had removed his name from the ballot.
And the Obama campaign has itself played hardball. Most notably, it blocked a revote in Michigan, which would've enfranchised millions of voters. The move by Obama prompted not a peep of protest from Kos, who probably wants to talk about Michigan as little as possible. It was Kos who urged Democrats to vote in the GOP primary, and Obama based his objection to the revote based on its exclusion of Democrats who voted in the GOP primary. Progressives have blasted Rush Limbaugh for trying to sabotage the Democratic primary, but he might have gotten the idea from Kos.
To be sure, there are good reasons to prefer Obama, his opposition to the invasion of Iraq chief among them. I voted for Obama after Edwards had dropped out, and last year I expressed exasperation at big bloggers' apparent acceptance of Hillary. But all the good reasons to oppose Hillary -- her hawkishness, her corporatism, her establishment-ness -- were obvious last year, long before Kos was refusing time and again to opt for Obama over Hillary.
In Januarym Kos was a skeptic who denied the differences between the candidates; now he's a cheerleader for Obama who exaggerates the differences between them. It's just the sort of rapid, unexamined transformation that afflicts people devoid of strong beliefs. Not fortified by a commitment to progressivism or a deep understanding of policy, his philosophy sits precariously on shaky slogans. He wants people to "crash the gates," unless those people are unions members protesting corporate free trade. He wants "people power" to prevail, unless those people have the misfortune of living in Florida and Michigan.
Why does any of this matter? Because he sets the temperature at his site, still one of the most important online communities for progressives. It's no coincidence that in the last two months the site has devolved into a propaganda organ for the Obama campaign. Although it's aggravating to come across Drudgery at the top of the rec list and casual claims that Hillary is a sociopath, it's not the nastiness that's worrisome (freedom is untidy); it's the laziness, the unquestioning partisanship, the lack of brainwork. These days at Daily Kos there's no exchange of ideas, no debate. Obama is good, Hillary is bad, case closed.
It's probably not wise to go looking to Daily Kos or any other political blog for Truth, but the progressive blogosphere fancies itself the reality-based community, and that commodity is in short supply at the mothership. If you're a progressive untouched by enthusiasm for Obama or hatred for Hillary, you must be wondering what race Kossacks are watching. In the race I've watched, Obama has not campaigned as a transformative progressive. In the race I've watched, he has failed to offer a single bold policy initiative, coddled a virulent homophobe for political purposes, voted to fund the war in Iraq and justified doing so by parroting a disgusting rightwing talking point, echoed the GOP claim that the Social Security system is in crisis, refused to join Edwards in opposing the Global War on Terror framework, joined George Bush in seeking to expand the size of the military by 92,000 troops, said he would increase the military budget, supported corporate free trade, enlisted Tom Daschle to assemble a base of support on K-Street, raised buckets of cash from lobbyist-law firms, and bashed unions for helping Edwards until he himself was the beneficiary of labor's largesse. Et Cetera.
Ah, but it's a two person race, and he's better than Hillary. Then say that. Say I should vote for him because he's a little better (less bad?) than Hillary. Don't tell me that she is Darkness and he is Light.
I'm under the impression that a primary mission of the progressive blogosphere is to try to produce more progressive politicians, but Daily Kos--as well the netroots as a whole, including Move On--has abdicated the job of trying to hold Obama accountable. Both Move On and Blue Majority gave him endorsements without offering so much as constructive criticism. Kos himself hasn't written one word critical of Obama in several weeks, during which time Obama has sent nothing but alarming signals on the sphere's signature issue: Iraq. Unlike Hillary, he wouldn't ban corporate mercenaries and his advisors are describing his modest withdrawal plan as a "best case scenario" and calling for a large residual force. Also unmentioned by Kos and the other Daily Kos front page bloggers is Obama's attempt to deny that he once held certain liberal positions. The dishonesty, more than the positions, will hurt him in a general election.
What has Obama does to transform himself from a source of disappointment in the netroots to the darling? Nothing but win, and that's not nothing; but it shouldn't be mistaken for a progressive value.
The good news is that blogs can quickly correct themselves. On any given day Daily Kos might snap back to reality. With Obama and McCain both pinning their hopes for victory on support from independents, the general election is likely to be a depressing race to the middle. I hope Daily Kos will try to pull Obama leftward once he has vanquished the Evil One, because right now it's not worth the paper it's not printed on.