Dartblog

Kos, of the Daily Kos, gave an address at the recent Kos Convention. In one quip, pulled by John Hinderaker, you really come to understand the puffed up shadow of the Cottage Kos industry. When a reporter noted aloud the Kos Committee’s lack of electoral success—embodied now in Senator Joe Lieberman—Kos responded from his Hyatt Regency lectern: “Yeah, but he’s not a Democrat. [See,] we’re cleaning the Democratic Party out.” I add the part in brackets so that you can understand the self-regarding yipping lilt Kos used in answering the question. Um, Mr. Reporter, you don’t seem to understand who we are. See, we’re the people. And, um, we’re cleaning the party. OK? It’s a blog revolution, maybe you’ve heard of it. Your little criticism there, about Lamont, just fits in with our plan. That’s exactly what we wanted, was to lose. Doy.

Kos, in other words, is abluting the Democrats of centrist men like Joe Lieberman. Then feting it at the Hyatt.

So, to be terribly clear about the success of the Kos Cabal four years into its march: 1) They aren’t winning elections, 2) They have proved unable to raise significant capital, 3) Their credibility with the public is negative or nonexistent, 4) They have no effect on the opposition party, 5) They have no material effect on their own party, 6) But they can occasionally squeeze moderates out of their own party by being one more pin among many needling the Democratic Party toward the left.

There are those who truly believe that the national Dems lay prone in Kos’s marriage bed. I just don’t see it. It is true that all the Democrats came to his Kosvention at the Hyatt Regency. But that was primarily so that they wouldn’t be seen as rejecting People Power, which presently happens to be represented by the noisome word “netroots.” It was not because they intend to care one whit what those people actually think.