I have taken a lot of shit for defending dKos and the Kossacks, but this diary is a perfect example why I continue to cruise the site as much as I do.
Everything you wanted to know about the water samples after the flooding in New Orleans, in plain English.
Sure, the partisanship and the other crap can get tedious (imagine how lefties feel reading the Powerline), and the commenters there make this site look like a model of civility and thought, but if you simply write off the whole site, you are making a mistake.
kl
As mistakes go, that’s one I can live with.
Lines
Defend dKos? Have I missed something?
I guess the closest would be something along the lines of “at least dKos isn’t as bad as that slandering bastard, Atrios”
John Cole
I consistently defend Kos.
Kimmitt
Yeah, that’s not a fair criticism.
Heeeuw. I’d have a hard time equating Kos with Powerline. There’s that whole “cult of Bush” thing which really gives Powerline its extra sparkle.
kl
Kos isn’t a “cult of anti-Bush”?
guyermo
I cannot speak for all at Kos, but I dislike Bush because I believe him to be patently dishonest and insincere.
The phrase “All hat and no Cattle” comes to mind. He is a man who not only places image over substance, substance doesn’t even enter the equation except from his handlers/cabinet members.
guyermo
As to the diary itself, it’s good news that the environmental impact probably will not be as bad as was feared. Negative impact yes, but it won’t exterminate all life in the lake.
Kimmitt
Hating and worshipping a guy are two really different things.
aop
Not when the degree of hatred rises to the level of delusional paranoia often found at dKos–it has the same effect as Bush-worship of edging out constructive debate.
kl
Wow, that’s really naive.
Lines
Yep, a constant defender of Kos. Of course, you can “Bennett” this quote all you want, telling me what you meant.
Off Colfax
I don’t write off all of dKos…
Just 3/4 of the front-page writers, particularly Armando, 2/3 of diarists, Kos himself, and all but 5 or 6 commenters.
That’s not writing off all of dKos, is it? A vast majority of it, certainly. But not all.
To be perfectly honest, I stopped reading dKos regularly when the second-to-latest crop of front-pagers came out. This was when Armando really hit the scene, and he’s driven the whole site downhill for anyone that isn’t so far to the Left they make Lenin look like Limbaugh. And that means that any moderate Democrat, such as myself, is immediately turned upon, attacked ad hominem, publicly dissected and beaten, and dumped on the side of the road, left for dead. (Hmmm… Left For Dead. Sounds like a good name for a dKos recovery blog…)
I’ll read the occasional article in story-only format, but I won’t touch anything that displays a comment as, quite frankly, it’s almost like reading Powerline, LGF, and RedState. Except Democrats are writing it this time.
Unless and until Kos takes a wide broom to his site, I won’t even type it into the address bar. (Deleted the bookmark a LONG time ago.)
Mike in SLO
John,
This site IS a model of civility and thought when compared to almost every other political site out there! I know I am always going to get interesting, thought provoking comments from all sides without the junior high name-calling so prevelant on most other sites (well, most of the time anyway!)
And I agree with you about Kos. You shouldn’t judge a political blog by its commenters. Kos does often have insightful posts, yet ALWAYS has screeching, over the top commenters! Oh well, I guess that what the internets were made for.
Bottom line — Even the commenters I rarely agree with on Balloon Juice are civil and write in complete sentances. Many have enlightened me and changed my mind on issues as well. That’s the most you can ask for in a political blog.
guyermo
Off Colfax,
at least you didn’t compare us to FR. Diarists at Daily Kos, the ones who actually take themselves seriously, only post snippets of articles, or relevant paragraphs that work with their evidence rather than posting entire articles with no analysis and “Barf Alert” in the headline.
As far as commenters and front pagers, if a grain of salt were to equal a salt lick, then I take any political website with about 2 cubes (sugar cube size).
John Cole
There is nothing to ‘Bennett’ about the quote- they cared nary a whit about Cindy Sheehan. they cared, as I stated, about the anti-war movement and galvanizing support against the war.
You think defending someone means I have to play along with whatever bullshit they make up?
BTW- Where is Cindy Sheehan now? What? No more front page diaries? What gives? I thought this was all about their deep concern for poor Cindy?
aop
A-fucking-men. I spent a lot of time at dKos around the last election, as it was kind of a clearinghouse for info, polls, etc, but I quickly realized that having any non-ideologically pure opinions makes you persona non grata around those parts. Float the “I’m pro-choice for pragmatic reasons, not because abortion is a great thing” trial balloon over there and then time how many seconds it takes you to get troll-rated out of existence. At this point, I find dKos as irritating as FR, LGF or Powerline–I hate being sold a bill of goods, regardless of who doing the selling.
Lines
John, the way you wrote it in the original was that you do defend Kos:
My original post was more a snark on the fact that you paint your relationship with Kos with such a wide brush, when most of us would realize that anything left of Drudge can be correct now and then :) I’m no Kossack, in fact I rarely go over there, too much noise, not enough meat. I was just surprised by the sweeping generality of your statement.
Off Colfax
She’s back where she should’ve been before FOX and Friends decided to devote 4 hours every day to the insane woman that went to Texas to try to talk to the President. If they hadn’t done so, she would’ve returned to obscurity within two news-cycles and only surfaced twice, with never being on the front page of any newspaper, and never with dedicated graphics/theme-music/animation assigned to her. Face it. She wasn’t even popular with Democrats until O’Reilly started screaming about her for days upon end. And then, it was just a “Anything that pisses him off has GOT to be good!” from the rest of us. Sure, there were some that supported Cindy honestly, but they never would’ve known about her without the flamethrower of news known as FOX.
Sheehan was the best thing for FOX’s ratings since Terry Shaivo. And if she hadn’t existed, odds are that someone would’ve invented her.
Tim F
Lines –
John inhabits a rightwing community in which Kos might as well be a bin Laden family member. For him to say a good thing about the site, ever, under any circumstances, will earn him scorn so thick you could serve it on leftover turkey.
Kimmitt
Enh, Bush is basically a weak fascist. I can understand why someone who doesn’t accept this important piece of information would have a hard time hanging out at a site with folks who have.
Kos is a partisan site; anyone who says, “I am in favor of a Democratic majority, and I am proud to be a Democrat” can say more or less what he or she sees fit, within the spectrum of Democratic opinion. Anyone who is a Republican or Independent is a guest, rather than a contributor, and should respect the stated mission of the site.
Seriously, Kos is worth skimming through, even if you don’t share the ideology. Powerline isn’t.
Kimmitt
That’s a weird metric. The Kossacks viewed Sheehan as a successful fellow-traveller, not as either a victim or a martyr.
aop
No, Bush is just an incompetent, shitty president. But thanks for perfectly driving my point home.
Nope. Incorrect. They rip to pieces anyone with views that deviate the least from what I would consider to be doctrinaire liberal. I say this as a democrat who’s never voted for anyone but democrats. Perhaps you’re doctrinaire enough to never have run afoul of the dKos thought police, but they alienate a whole hell of a lot of “proud” Democrats – the NARAL stuff from a few months back is a good example.
Agreed. The ongoing flu-preparedness thing has been excellent.
The Disenfranchised Voter
Eh, I dunno about that. Maybe it was your tone or something. I’ve frequently commented about being totally in favor of the right to bear arms and I actually got all 4’s in my comments. It might have been the way you presented yourself over there, not necessarily your beliefs. Just a thought.
Oh and by the way…the argument that the Bush Administration is a weak fascist one isn’t much of strecth if you ask me. See for yourself.
Laurence W. Britt has an interesting article here: Fascism Anyone?
and here is a page with evidence to back up the 14 points: Evidence
kl
Hence, “Mother Sheehan.”
feral1
Nope. Incorrect. They rip to pieces anyone with views that deviate the least from what I would consider to be doctrinaire liberal.
Look, Kos himself isn’t a doctrinaire liberal and he takes NARAL to task on the front page pretty regularly. He also strongly makes the case for supporting Democrats across the ideological spectrum, if they are strong DEMOCRATS first and foremost. That’s not to say they’re aren’t a lot of snipers on Kos, but I think that is unavoidable when you have such a large on-line community no matter the political affiliation.
aop
I think BJ is a pretty good example of how a site owner’s politics can be completely different than the vast majority of his/her commenters. Regardless of Kos’s personal politics, there’s enough of a frothy, hysterical, paranoid contingent there to keep me from wanting to linger. Even so, I probably agree with those people on most issues, so maybe it just comes down to aesthetics.
Yes, I’ve seen this article before. There are definitely some interesting points of comparison, at least superficially, but I think those comparisons could be drawn to most American presidential administrations, to one extent or another. Dunno, I guess I think Democrats would be better off spending their time criticizing Bush and republicans on their record of near-criminal incompetence, than running around crying “fascist” and “Bushitler” and all the other collegiate sloganeering dKos is usually rife with.
russell
Here’s the funny thing.
Lots and lots of folks on the right read Kos. I don’t know why. It gets them steamed up, they always find something to be outraged about. Maybe that’s the appeal, although it seems a bit odd.
Conversely, I don’t know any lefties who read Powerline.
The Disenfranchised Voter
I rarily see anyone at kos call Bush, Hitler. I’m sure some do but calling someone a fascist or fascist like is not equating them with Hitler–something I think we all need to take into consideration.
kl
Mapes and Rather sure didn’t! That seemed to work out pretty well for them.