It's All the Media's Fault

"As a proud part of the monolithic mass of groupthinkers that makes up the MSM, I am just one of many who are actively rooting for, even working towards, the humiliating defeat of U.S. troops in Iraq. That's why we all made sure to trumpet the Washington Post's recent release of a cable sent from the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, marked sensitive and headlined 'Snapshots from the Offfice: Public Affairs Staff Show Strains of Social Discord.'

"Oh, wait.

"You'd think that if the press really were the band of rabid defeatists some right-wing media critics make us out to be, we might have tried to jump on the party thrown for President Bush in the wake of the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi by trumpeting the release of a missive -- sent under the name of the U.S. Ambassador to Iraq -- that paints a picture far darker than ever previously acknowledged, even implying that the Embassy cannot protect its own employees."

A big development in Maryland politics, as noted by the Washington Times and many others:

"Montgomery County Executive Douglas M. Duncan yesterday unexpectedly quit his campaign for governor, saying his once-secret battle with depression forced him from the race."

I bet he would have been a lot less depressed had he not been trailing badly in the campaign.

There may be plenty of smoke and little fire in this question of whether Kos and his co-author, Jerome Armstrong, were influenced in their blogging by political payments. Kos says he disclosed that he worked for Howard Dean for a time, and Armstrong has reached a settlement with the SEC on a related question. Now the New Republic's Jason Zengerle is questioning why the two popular bloggers and their allies aren't saying much:

"Why the strange silence in the face of such damning allegations? Well, I think we now know the answer.

"It's a deliberate strategy orchestrated by Kos. TNR obtained a missive Kos sent earlier this week to 'Townhouse,' a private email list comprising elite liberal bloggers, including Jane Hamsher, Matt Stoller, and Christy Hardin Smith. And what was Kos's message to this group that secretly plots strategy in the digital equivalent of a smoke-filled backroom? Stay mum! He wrote (emphasis added below):

"The YearlyKos media people have already forced corrections at Slate and NY Times (Suellentrop's blog). There has been some serious overreach by the few outlets that picked up this story (which as I mentioned before has been shopped around). It was interesting how this one piddly-ass story was used to try and smear Jerome, me, AND YearlyKos. So the only paper to run this as a news story is the disgraceful NY Post. Others who picked up on it have had to backtrack from their original sensationalistic claims.

"I am exploring legal options against some of the wingnut bloggers who are claiming I'm syphoning netroots money into consultants and my own pockets. Note how Glenn Reynolds is fueling it with his typical passive aggressive, 'I don't think it's a big deal, but let me provide links to everyone who thinks this is THE BIGGEST STORY EVER!' And Jerome's case, if it could be aired out, is a non-story (he was a poor grad student at the time so he settled because he had no money). Jerome can't talk about it now since the case is not fully closed. But once it is, he'll go on the offensive. That should be a couple of months off.

"This story will percolate in wingnut circles until then, but I haven't gotten a single serious media call about it yet. Not one. So far, this story isn't making the jump to the traditional media, and we shouldn't do anything to help make that happen. My request to you guys is that you ignore this for now . . . If any of us blog on this right now, we fuel the story. Let's starve it of oxygen. And without the 'he said, she said' element to the story, you know political journalists are paralyzed into inaction. Thanks, markos.

"So far, Kos's friends in the fiercely independent liberal blogosphere seem to have displayed a sheep-like obedience to his dictat ."

Or maybe they just don't think there's much worth writing about.