Calling it on the Netroots

In their new-found zeal for Obama, this most centrist of candidates, many liberal bloggers have turned their backs on their own principles, or revealed them to be empty. (I’m talking about the established ‘big boys’ here, and they are most of them boys. Only Digby and FDL can approach the same cred, and I am exempting the women and Atrios from this criticism) They have been every bit as intellectually dishonest as any republican talking head could be, have engaged in the worst kind of character assignation against Clinton and her supporters, used the most divisive language and behavior, and then accused HER of being the one to destroy the democratic party.

Kos, perhaps the most prominent liberal blogger, commits all three sins. He is intellectually dishonest, makes character and motive-based assertions, and alienates huge blocks of Hillary supporters – all with one hypocritical post.

Here was Kos on Michigan and Florida before he declared for the big O:

What's more, 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.

And I give you Kos today.
(h/t Jeralyn at Talk Left)

Wow. So Kos really believes that it is in the interest of Obama supporters to compare the voters of two must-have states to his kid’s preschool ballots? This is a great unifying strategy. Here people, I give you a classic example of the infamous circular democratic firing squad, so beloved for its uncanny ability to snatch ignoble defeat from the gaping jaws of victory!

But he goes on from there to repeat the new-favorite assertion from a big part of the netroots (repeating a trope first arising from ABC): not only that the Clinton campaign is risking civil war by its very existence, but that the campaign has adopted a deliberate strategy to provoke one.

Aravosis makes the same assertion, but he’s not the worst at his site. Joe at his site routinely foams at the mouth.

The hypocrisy and low-ball politics of the left netroots isn’t necessarily any worse than “politics as usual”, it’s just that they – and their now-anointed candidate – purport to be something different. He isn’t and they aren’t.

So Michigan and Florida voters can go suck something until they can come in on the side of Obama. And Supers may not go against the expressed will of the voters unless their voters come from Massachusetts, or New Mexico, or Pennsylvania, or California. Because support brokered in long meetings of party officials can’t count more than the expressed will of the voters unless those voters are in Texas, where the caucus results announced this week essentially overturned the winner of the popular vote.

So these guys are turning out not to be very different from the old guys, and they have jumped one by one onto the bandwagon. Chris Bowers at My DD was the most recent to leap, but of the most linked and trafficked liberal websites, all but Atrios, Digby and FDL have abandoned their principles in a good old-fashioned desire to be on what they now perceive to be the winning side.

These guys all supported and promoted the MoveOn ad about Petraeus. And they were universally appalled that Obama voted for the censure. Only Hillary was brave enough to stand up against that particular pander, but did they reward that courage?

More broadly, has the organized netroots rewarded those candidates for this nomination who took liberal positions? They did not. They never took Kucinich seriously. They flirted with Edwards but wouldn’t get off the fence in time to give him any meaningful support because they suspected he didn’t really stand a chance.

They saw the way Obama triangulated against the left to gain the support of conservative-leaning voters. He cozied up to McClurken to woo conservative Christians, put down the left to pander to Reaganites, and used right-wing talking points against Hillary to gain independents. They even called him on it at the time. But it hasn’t kept them from supporting him. Even the policy guys, like Ezra Klein on healthcare, have abandoned their own issues to support Obama.

So Hillary went left and Obama went right and the “liberal” netroots are disproportionately supporting Obama. What is the takeaway lesson in this? Why should any candidate take risky stands if it isn’t going to earn them the support of this base?

It says to me we can quit expecting them to be a vehicle for the liberal voice. They are more about their own power and growing influence than they are about giving some heft to supporting liberal policy. They seem to have collectively decided that, after Dean, they couldn’t afford to put principle first. They had to be on the winning side this time, and they decided Obama was it.

Now they all say that it was ultimately Hillary’s initial support for the war that led them to decide. Bullshit. Her vote never changed and many of these bloggers seemed to toy with supporting her before they fell. It was influence, pure and simple, that they’re now seeking

It says to me that the “left” of the net has gone hopelessly center, and that we must continue to insist on a real left for whom policy trumps personality.