Boozhy Headlines: The Imperial We that is Daily Kos

Oh Kos!  Where is that scrappy, refreshing liberal voice of the people that we once loved???  First news breaks that you were on Dean's payroll during the 2004 election while publicly endorsing him on your site, leading us to believe that you may occasionally blog for dollars, tarnishing your reputation as an independent "watchdog of the people."  Your response was not an apology, but essentially a big plate of "shut the fuck up, I did nothing wrong."  And now you are referring to yourself in the "Imperial We" on national television when speaking of your campaign against Joe Lieberman.

TAPPER: And your animosity for Joe Lieberman, if you look at his voting record, he is squarely in the Democratic camp on vote after vote after vote after vote, from every interest group. It seems to me that you don't like him because of his support for the war in Iraq. No?

MOULITSAS: That's an easy cop out.

TAPPER: Well, then why don't you like him? If he supported — if had been against the war in Iraq — would you be so against him?

MOULITSAS: It depends — it depends. The reason we are, we oppose Joe Lieberman is because he enables the Republican agenda, he enables George Bush. He was, you know, he may vote with Democrats 90 percent of the time, but he only votes with them if it doesn't matter. When it really matters, Joe Lieberman isn't with us.

True "we" here at Boozhy also use the Imperial We in our blog entries, but it's a joke.  Are you growing too big for your britches while joining the establishment and becoming another pretend independent voice of the people?  Are you Armstrong Williams in Liberal clothing?

Comments

[Jim]

WIth the whole PARADE of true charlatans in the press and web news media, I hardly think that Daily Kos is an apt target for criticism of veracity and purpose. What about Rush, Fox, Coulter, and yes even yer pal Andrew Sullivan? I think discerning readers can decide how much gravity to give any one source. As far as Joementum goes. He has snarkily morphed into AIPAC's mouthpice as well as GWB's fave Democrat. How can one resist the side one is already on and not expect some raised voices? What is truly sad is the fact that Joe Lieberman still sees "sticking blindly with Bush" as a good democratic alternative and is campagning like Karl Rove is at the helm. He is delusional I fear. Daily Kos isn't our bigger problem is it?

[John]

Kos was upfront about being hired by Dean's campaign. It would only be a problem if he was taking money under the table to offer support in the way of buzz about a candidate. I think you're off base here.

[Gabe]

I consider myself very much apart of that Imperial We. Kos definitely speaks for me as he does millions of others.

[Big Hugh]

When did the WSJ break the story? I think Kos has been proudly talking for about two years about his affiliation with the Dean campaign. So if WSJ broke the story, it would have been more than two years ago, ancient history by today's standards.

[Aaron]

Markos had a link on the front page of his website that said something like, "I am a paid consultant for the Dean campaign" for the duration that he worked for them.

Sounds like you're spending too much time with Sully in Ptown.

[codswallower]

Kos was using we in the sense of "We who oppose Leiberman," not in any grandiose sense. He's part of large group of Democrats who are sick of an opposition party that all too often refuses to take a stand. Leiberman's the posterboy for such appeasers. And it's time we held him responsible for it.

[hahaha]

Uhhh, did you do any research? Any investigation?

He had a link on the front page of his site that proclaimed his work for Dean.

And you now reveal this as some sort of scoop?

[Shane]

You're spot-on about Kos's treatment of Lieberman. Yes ol rabbi Joe sanctimonious and yes he's overly- Orthodox but he's a good Democrat and on gay issues he's second to none. I think Kos's treatment of him is a disgrace, and Daily Kos is drifting dangerously close to open anti-semitism lately with some of its posts on Israel.

[Christian in NYC]

Shane,
No offense, but somehow a lot of us think that the national Bush-created disasters in Iraq -- and Lieberman's steadfast, blind support of Bush's policies -- seriously outweigh whatever stance the senator has on gay issues. Gay issues may be near and dear to your heart, but in the larger moral and political [and human] context they utterly pale in significance to what happened and continues to happen in Iraq [and w/ our Constitution]. And that anti-Semitic charge of yours has been smacked down time and again. Allow me to smack it down again: Criticizing a wrong-headed, Republican-enabling Dem senator who happens to be a Jew doesn't make one anti-Semitic.

[Christastrophe]

Yeah, I hate to pile on here, but trying to claim a royal We in this instance seems incredibly intellectually dishonest. He is clearly referring to the group of people who oppose Lieberman for the same reasons, and doing so in a way that's smart. Using "we" emphasizes that this is not, as it has been painted in media reports, a cabal of fringe blogging weirdos trying to take down the Senator for no good reason. Using "we" emphasizes the plurality of the opposition to Lieberman from an electorate that feels betrayed (and the latest numbers from Rasmussen bolster that). And dragging an old non-story about Dean into the discussion just makes your argument look that much cheaper and emptier.

Too much time with Sullivan, check; trying to get linked to, check; no research, check; depth, uncheck; insight, uncheck; some comments much better than the post, check.

[Shane]

My comment regarding: anti-semitism has nothing to do with Kos's treatment of Lieberman and everything to do with recent posts on Daily Kos questioning Israel's right to exist. If you want to be a one-issue voter that's fine, but in the end all that serves to do is marginalize the Democratic party by requiring all its members to march to the jackboots of the liberal lynchgang left. I don't see any difference between that group and the anti-abortion crazies that have ruled the Republican party for so long.

[Juan]

John, He is taking money from candidates and not disclosing their identities citing non-disclosure agreements (read Kos' post linked in the article). I've written a Kos Redux post today, better delineating my arguments, check that out also...

[oliver]

I think Juan is pretty and you should all just shut up and look at him.