Kos is throwing out the old, and bringing in the new:
It’s that time of the year. Time for the existing guest bloggers to ride off into the sunset and make way for a new batch. This will be the fourth year of the site, and already the site has a storied list of alumni:
Year one: Billmon, Steve Gilliard, RonK, Steve Soto
Year two: DemFromCT, DHinMI, Meteor Blades, Theoria, Trapper John
Year three: Armando, DavidNYC, Hunter, Kid Oakland, Plutonium Page
Year four: ???
This is where you guys come in. I make all final determinations, but every single one of the alumni listed above was recommended by the community. My choices will come from the people you recommend.
I nominate Cindy Sheehan, whose uplifting rhetoric and lilting prose put a smile on my face every time she posts.
In all seriousness, there is someone over there whose name is escaping me (Darksyde, maybe?) who does great posts on environmental and science-related issues. I wouldn’t mind seeing him/her front page every day. I don’t think I am the target audience, though.
And no, I could not make it a week without feeding my Sheehan obsession.
*** Update ***
Yeah. It is Darksyde.
Krista
We should nominate DougJ — he’d give them fits!
Otto Man
Admitting you have an addiction is the first step to recovery. I’m very proud of you, John.
Steve
The difference between the left and the right is that the left sees Cindy Sheehan as a human being, while the right sees her as a caricature to be slimed and belittled without guilt. At the end of the day, though, the people who like to go on about her “moonbatty statements” are simply hurling insults, from the safety of their computer keyboards, against a woman who lost her son in one of the stupider wars this country has ever fought. What a singularly useless way to spend one’s time.
Mike in SLO
I nominate you, John! I’d kill to see the comments on a post by you at dKos!
Dave Schuler
She’d fit right in.
Mike
Hey, we see her as a Human Being. An amazingly STUPID Human Being, but still…
Anyway, enough about Cindy, this war’s as good as over anyway since according to the head of the Democratic Party we lost.
Dave Ruddell
Wait, does this mean no more Armando? Say it so, Kos!
neil
As I was waiting for the page to load I thought, “surely he’s come up with something better than Cindy Sheehan, right?”
Indeed not.
Steve S
I believe you’re right on Darksyde. I happen to really like Meteor Blades, Plutonimum Page, and DHinMI. Armando sometimes… it depends.
As for Cindy Sheehan. I could care less. The difference between rational people and the wingnuts, is rational people ignore the flakes, whereas wingnuts obsess over them.
He never said that. He said we’ll never win.
Frankly, he’s right. It’s a lose-lose scenario, ever since we got in there. The question that now has to be answered is how do we lose the least.
We could just declare victory and leave. Then if someone says it was not a victory, we can accuse them of destroying the morale of our soldiers.
Boombo
Throw the bums out!
Steve
I’m sure we’re well on the way to victory in Iraq, yet somehow our position is so fragile that all it takes is pessimistic comments from a couple Democrats to destroy the troops’ morale and cause us to lose the war. Yeah, right.
jaime
An American defeat in Iraq means withrawal; leaving a fractious, tense, chaotic Iraq with a flourishing anti-American organization (Al Qaeda)left in country.
An American victory in Iraq means permanent occupation (policing a fractious, tense chaotic Iraq with flourishing anti-American organizations (Al Qaeda, Iranian influenced Islamic Republic) in charge of the country.
Tell me, what’s the difference again?
DougJ
President Bush has a Plan For Victory. Plan. For. Victory. Not surrender, not retreat, not cut and run, but victory, total victory. V-I-C-T-O-R-Y
les
You probably do mean DarkSyde; here’s where you can check if you want: http://www.brentrasmussen.com/log/
fwiffo
As a one of those crazy Kos kids, I’d be willing to nominate John Cole as a front-pager for dailykos. I think he would be a great addition. A lot of the folks there are WAY too insular and never expose themselves to ideas they disagree with. In fact, all the problems with dailykos stem from that fact (or the fact that it’s the largest blog in the world aside from Slashdot).
John is my favorite conservative blogger, and it sure as hell ain’t cause I agree with him. He does, however, pass my patented “litmus test for sanity”, i.e. he’s come out on the sane side for the Schaivo, torture and creationism debates. I can handle _honest_ disagreements on abortion, environmental regulation, economic policy, taxes, social security, welfare, federalism, civil liberties issues, religion, etc., but there are a handful of issues where one side is objectively crazy or close to it.
DarkSyde has recieved a number of nominations, and he always produces high-quality material, so I think he’d be one of the frontrunners, if he’s willing to back-burner his own blog a bit.
John Cole
Ahh. It is because the left CARES more! See- since I am an uncaring SOB on the right, I just objected to the left propping up the mother of a dead soldier to mouth dull platitudes about Jews/neocons, Halliburton, George Bush in the war, lapping up her every word, using her as a prop to advance their political goals because she speaks from ‘absolute moral authority.’
If I only CARED more, maybe even 1/3 as much as Steve, I would understand that she is ‘just a grieving mother,’ and not someone who is being cynically manipulated and used by the anti-war left.
Tulkinghorn
The “Left” did not prop up Ms. Sheehan. She is sui generis and became notorious when Bush insisted on acting like a cad. That was the new: Bush=jerk, not Sheehan=coherent.
Bush made her famous, then she went running to the loons (eg Sharpton) in order to try to make/keep herself famous — hse is using them at least as much as they are using her. This has been with mixed success in any case.
And this does not change the bush=jerk reality.
DougJ
Everybody: enough with the Sheehan.
fwiffo
I’ve submitted my nomination:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/12/6/13847/2437#567
BTW: Am I the only member of the anti-war left that didn’t really like Cindy Sheehan?
Steve
But see, John, you’ve long since passed the point of taking shots at the fringes of the anti-war left. Now you skip right to taking shots at Sheehan herself. If your beef was solely with the anti-war movement that is so cynically “using” her, you wouldn’t get so personal.
And your wingnut commenters, as usual, outdo you tenfold, repeatedly sounding off about what a disgusting human being she is, what terrible things she’s said, etc. I don’t dispute their right to have an opinion, but I think it makes them lesser human beings to just tee off on this woman like she’s not flesh and blood with a dead son.
Perry Como
My nomination. It has all of the logic of a Liberal and is much more useful.
Duncan
The commenter named “Steve” above might be a good candidate to join the other loopy loons that serve duty over at Kos. He would add some “moral uplift” to the site since he here professes such a high uplifting view of such wonderful idiots as Cindy Sheehan. They need more of that mind set over there.
jg
Maybe they should give this guy guest blogger status
http://muttawa.blogspot.com/
One of the funniest blogs on the net. He’ll be off until Prophet Isa’s birthday (guess who) then back to describibg life as a saudi.
Justin Slotman
Billmon was definitely the class of Year One. I can’t say I’ve heard of most of the other Years.
Steve
Duncan is a perfect example of what I am talking about. He finds it fun to sit here anonymously on the Internet and refer to a mother who lost her child as a “wonderful idiot” because he disagrees with her on a political issue. Yes, a perfect example of the elevated discourse which the party of grown-ups brings to the table.
Does the left care more about Cindy Sheehan as a human being than the right? It’s unbelivable that John would even contend otherwise.
Duncan
Steve, losing one’s son does not give you a “get-out-of-being-an-idiot” pass. Ms. Sheehan suffered a terrible tragedy when she lost her son. That fact does not excuse her subsequent moronic ravings, anti-semitic comments and overall disgusting behavior. And as to your own totally moronic observation that the Left is somehow more caring than the Right…..one needs only to peruse the comments found at such “caring” sites as Eschaton and Kos and read the filth written about the President of the United States and others, to see what a pitiful lie the observation of yours truly is.
The Disenfranchised Voter
I agree. Is it possible to nominate Billmon again? Heh.
capelza
Bob Johnson’s dog would be a great front pager….
ppGaz
Well, I see that the regular cycle of using Sheehan as a prop on your stage is right on track. She is being cynically manipulated by the the anti-war left? Perhaps.
But she is being cynically used as some kind of stage device by you, which isn’t anything to be proud of.
And as I have said before, Sheehan is a hero. Not because she is telegenic, or smart, or articulate, or marketable, or even likeable. She is a hero because she stood up.
Standing up is the only qualification for the role of hero.
All the rest, and especially all the rest coming from you and the mee-too monkeys that chirp whenever you do this, is just worthless bullshit. You can’t change what is, John. She’s a hero, and I don’t know what to call you in this context.
Steve S
As much as I don’t really care for Sheehan.
Actually giving your son to the nation does give you such a pass.
Only a Republican would not see the honor in such a sacrifice.
Duncan
STEVE CORRECTED: “Only an unthinking nitwit would not recognize what a useful idiot Ms. Sheehan is.”
demimondian
John — is Sheehan being “used” by the anti-war left? That depends on what you mean. Is she, herself, being exploited against her will, or even without her active cooperation? Hell, no. Is she being exploited by others to promote themselves, whether or not they sincerely care about her cause? Well, arguably yes — but the anti-war left, ipse dixit, does care about her cause, which is, after all, opposition to the war in Iraq.
Halffasthero
I backed your nomination. I think it makes perfect sense. The only thing is that John has made no comments on whether he would accept such a nomination…