Interesting piece up by Tacitus on Doug Bandow and the implications of his being a paid shill and how this impacts blogs.
I agree with much of what he says and observes, but the part about Kos/Dean/Teachout I think is not even relevant. The rest, more so, in so far as it discusses where all this is going, and the lines between advocacy and simply being a paid hack.
DougJ
How come we never hear about all the conservative columnists who *aren’t on the take*?
Paddy O'Shea
The truly wonderful thing about blogs is that so many are willing to be accomplices to the destruction of American Democracy for free.
How about those traitors in the ACLU going after the World Freedom Love President over a couple of wire taps that saved America from terrorism?
DougJ
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: how can we expect the government to know who to torture if they’re not allowed to listen to people’s phone conversations? It’s just common sense, something too many on the left seem to lack.
joshua
A paid shill is a paid shill, yes, but that entire post appears to only exist to toss out a “well, look who (might) have also done the same thing on the other side.” The Dean digression is irrelevant because it was disclosed at the time, a lack of which is part of Tacitus’ point about conservative bloggers which makes that line fucking stupid. The Unembedded argument doesn’t take into account whether or not Kos has ever pimped a book before on his blog (I don’t know because I don’t read Kos). If he has, then it’s just as possible that he’s pimping yet another book he likes and not some nefarious dealing. That aside, I hope Tacitus never makes the argument about arguing in good faith, because that’s some pretty bad faith he’s attributing to Kos. So, why even link to Tacitus’ post? You could have just as easily said “shills suck donkey cock” and I think we’d all agree.
John Cole
I didn;t see that as the point at all. He bashed the Daschle Thune folks, he discussed Kos and the Unembedded thing, he a whole range of stuff and how it was going to change and damage things in the future, possibly.
IN no way did he attempt to make a statement that ‘both sides are doing it, so our side is in the right.’
You guys sure do read into things whatever the hell you want.
Paddy O'Shea
You saw all that in the Tacitus piece, John? To me it read like the usual sanctimonious self-important twaddle that many bloggers reserve for conversations about themselves and the gifts they so generously bestow upon the world.
The Big Secret: The “blogosphere” is beginning to suffocate under the immense weight of its own self-importance.
srv
If Kos wants to shill books (mostly his own), that really isn’t the same as him being on someone’s payroll to be a double-secret advocate. I think mixing the two up is pretty disengenous, and it’s pretty lame of Tacitus to do that.
I expect more of him than the ala Cheney “9/11” and “Saddam” in every other sentence. It’s why I don’t bother with that site anymore. What was once a site with cogent debate has devolved into something much less so.
But I guess that’s what pays the bills.
(sorry, I couldn’t help myself)
DougJ
Obviously, Tacitus is pompous but I think those points are relevant. He’s not saying “the bloggers are just as bad”, it doesn’t seem to me — it’s natural for him to wonder about these conflicts for bloggers given that he himself is a blogger.
joshua
(Full disclosure: I’m a liberal. I don’t read Kos and I actually sound it out in my head as “chaos” but I assume everyone else sounds it out as one syllable with a long o like “Kosovo.” Also, I’m not interested in waiting until someone admits to having done something before I decide that they probably did it.)
My original point was that the piece seems unneccesary, because we should all, as sane people, be able to agree that shilling sucks and that’s all the piece, if arguing in good faith, says. But for shits and giggles, let’s examine the piece.
The largest section of the piece is about a possible hypothetical example of what may or may not have been a failure of Kos to disclose extracurricular activities surrounding his book deal. The paragraph following that is an example of an incident Kos was involved in where he disclosed the contract with the Dean campaign at the time of the contract. Tacitus doesn’t mention this disclosure in his piece, though to his credit he does link to Kos’ explanation.
Tac then bemoans the lack of real-time disclosure in the Thune-Daschle blog scandal fiasco, or whatever you’d call it, which is the only problem Tacitus seems to have with any of this, being the lack of disclosure. That negates the Kos-Dean argument, which was included to cast doubt on Kos’ defense of his pimping of the Unembedded bood along with the comparison to the 6,000 year old earth claim.
In fact, the entire part about Kos was unneccessary to the theme of the piece because it is argued from the perspective of assuming bad faith about Kos, not from the perspective of having solid evidence of wrongdoing on Kos’ part. The Thune-Daschle blog fandango, or whatever you’d call it, was a far better example of a blog version of Bandow and Ferrara’s print and policy-world acts, seeing as how we know the what and why without having to assign motive to it. Yet Kos received approximately 20 times more scrutiny in that piece than the Thune-Daschle blog watusi, or whatever you’d call it. So, you know, I apologize if Tacitus possibly reading into it, but you can go fuck yourself for acting like I’m pulling shit out of my ass here. Well, not really, but don’t be so goddamned obtuse.
RonB
Did he say that blogs are going to be the coming operational model for journalism? God, I hope not. I mean, I read the blogs to find out what is going on, sure, but most bloggers will frame something in their own way-they must, since all they are doing is using straight journalism or documentation as source material. If they didnt put things into their own context, theyd just be repeating the source story.
As for the theme of the piece, comparing blogger practices with those of policy advocates is useless. You know where Kos is coming from, and no one would be surprised if he were being paid to push a book favorable to his politics. The people at Cato arent going to be so forgiving. Sure, gig him if you want for a lack of disclosure, but an ethics violation? Nah.
joshua
Shit. Last line should be “I apologize for possibly reading into it” and I’d like to clarify that the argument I’m making isn’t that Tacitus is saying “both sides are doing it, so our side is in the right,” but that he is using Kos as an example of how it also happens on the left so that it won’t look like all the shills are on the right even though Kos is a bad example and the Thune-Daschle whatchamacallit, or whatever you’d call it, was a far better example for the purposes of his piece. Which actually sucks, now that I think about it. Sure, disclosure is nice, but being paid to take a side in an argument is a bad thing regardless of whether or not you tell me.
Justin Slotman
I do wish one of the Cato blog mafia had something up on the Bandow thing, though. Justin Logan, Julian Sanchez, Gene Healy, Radley Balko, Wil Wilkinson–nuthin’. Maybe it really is a mafia….
ppGaz
“Find a need, and fill it!” (c) ppgaz 2005
That’s what we are paid for. Because nobody else in the publisphere is reading into things whatever the hell they want. Somebody needs to step up and do it!
Tacitus
One would never know there are comments on the actual site in question.
In fact, the entire part about Kos was unneccessary to the theme of the piece because it is argued from the perspective of assuming bad faith about Kos….
As might be expected, the lefties zoom in on the slight to one of their own, mostly ignoring the broader point, to say nothing of a rather large clue near the piece’s close.
John, I assume you’ve found by now that being afflicted with the condescending label of Reasonable Conservative mostly serves to attract a great many tedious idiots.
DougJ
John, I assume you’ve found by now that being afflicted with the condescending label of Reasonable Conservative mostly serves to attract a great many tedious idiots.
You sound like a parody of a pompous right-wing blogger.
Tacitus
No doubt!
srv
But John doesn’t get paid for comments at your site.
God and I’m glad I stopped wasting time at your site. Let’s see the paras:
Bandow
Ferrara-Abramoff
Journalists
Kos
Moulitsas (let’s mix it up!)
Moulitsas
Markos
Zephyr-Kos
Dean-Kos
Thunees
Disturbing harbinger…
Enough of your tedium already.
DougJ
Moulitas Ferrara-Abramoff is the favorite to women the women’s Australian Open in January if I’m not mistaken.
DougJ
I can’t type today. I’ll have to go over to another site where my inability to type only enhances my carefully cultivated sense of degrangement.
joshua
At the time I read your post, this was in the second comment from the top: “The blog world has become an impediment to discourse.” I stopped there.
Look, I don’t give a runny shit about Kos, or people attacking Kos. The broader point, opposing paid shills, is not something to be particulary proud of as it is the lowest point the bar can be set at. And fair enough, you said boo about conservatives failing to disclose. I got the point about your concern about conservatives making themselves look like greedy little piggies, but if that was your concern, why bring Kos up at all? And why give him twice as much scrutiny as any of the conservatives you mention?
And you, sir, well, your mother is a whore.
srv
Oh, well, I doubt any of the lefties, libertarians, traditional republicans and real conservatives here consider it condescending. I’m sure in the major-primate-wingnut world y’all chuckle (uncondescendingly) about this kind of tolerance.
Paddy O'Shea
Tossed and gored as Doctor Johnson would say.
Bring in the next wretch.
Kimmitt
Not that I find Tacitus’s insistence that half of his article isn’t relevant to its subtext persuasive, but Kos has been at least somewhat enamored of Chelsea Green for years. I have free books in my house from a promo they did on Kos two years ago, and he has been discussing books by that publisher for quite some time. I don’t find it surprising that he chose a publisher which puts out books of which he is fond to distribute his own work.
Jackmormon
The more interesting subtext is Tacitus’s departure from RedState. The overblown attack on Kos seems to me to be cover for outing that project as astroturf.
Steve S
Tactitus’ post would have had more integrity had he not chosen to bash on Kos. It’s not that I am defending Kos, as I happen to suspect Teachout’s accusation was very likely true.
But it destroys any moral point Tactitus might have made, by turning the post away from criticism of a bad form of behavior and into a partisan hack attack.
I’m sorry, John, that you see it differently. Perhaps if you looked at it from an unbiased point of view you might understand.