Posted on 03/09/2006 1:37:47 PM PST by .cnI redruM
When Markos Moulitsas Zuniga, the proprietor of Daily Kos, recently told The Washington Monthly's Benjamin Wallace-Wells, "I'm not ideological at all. ... I'm just all about winning," he could have been speaking for the entire left-wing blogosphere. If there's one animating idea that's shared by liberal bloggers like Kos and Atrios and all the others, it's, as Wallace-Wells called it, "the ideology of winnerism."
Which is why it's bizarre that these very same bloggers are always so eager to celebrate moral victories. After Howard Dean went down to defeat, they boasted about how they took a virtual nobody to the precipice of victory. Ditto for Paul Hackett. And the same thing is happening today now that Ciro Rodriguez--the former Texas congressman who became a blog darling after his Democratic primary opponent, incumbent Congressman Henry Cuellar, was shown hugging President Bush at the State of the Union--has apparently lost.
To take just one example, here's Jane Hamsher at Firedoglake:
We sent a very loud, long message to the Democratic party about what we're willing to fight for. It's extremely difficult to defeat an incumbent and we took a race that wasn't even close in January and made it competitive. That's huge.
But electoral politics in the United States is a zero-sum game and, at some point, these bloggers are going to have to make enough of a difference to actually win a race--something they've so far failed to do. (As Wallace-Wells pointed out, not one of the 13 Congressional candidates Kos endorsed in 2004--and raised $500,000 for--won). Yes, as Kos argues in his Rodriguez postmortem:
We're a nascent movement a scant two years old. The Right built theirs over 30 years. We won't take over the world in two.
But more often than not, these liberal bloggers (especially Kos) act like they already have taken over the world--writing manifestoes, issuing threats, and engaging in all sorts of chest-thumping behavior. But, like I said, their batting average is still a big fat zero.
P.S. And before someone points out that TNR's batting average hasn't been so great lately, either (cough, cough, Lieberman, cough), let me just say that, well, I think that endorsement--which was hotly debated inside the magazine--was made with the full knowledge that there was no way Lieberman was going to win the primary. In other words, the endorsement was basically a statement of principle, and that principle was almost the opposite of the ideology of winnerism.
It ain't just the GOP that's got a crack-up problem.
Well isn't that a shame, all that work for NOTHING!..LOL
Liberals act as if they haven't been in power for the past 50 years.
The only difference between today and 26 years ago, when the liberals really began to lose their grip is the Freedom of Information.
No, not the Act. The Fact.
Freedom of information via the Internet means that control of the MSM, which the liberals cultivated and still control to a large degree does not carry as much weight with the voters.
As for bloggers, the liberal bloggers have existed for as long as conservative bloggers. The difference is that conservative bloggers are not competing against a conservative mainstream media for readers, just as the radio sphere conservative talk show hosts aren't competing with conservative network news. Conservatives do well on the blogosphere and radiosphere precisely because it is the only outlet for their information and thus they have a fairly captive repeat readership and audience. Liberal bloggers and talk show hosts can't draw in large numbers except for the Far Left whackos who think the liberal MSM is too conservative. The rest of their potential audience just watches CNN and gets as much bang for their buck with less effort.
In fact, the wacko, leftist blogosphere, coupled with the crazies on Air America have probably brought more negative attention to moderates who used to vote Democrat/Liberal because they only knew what the MSM told them. Now that the Far Left has a venue for exposing their idiocy, the moderates have shifted to the center, and the Right has turned out to vote.
Somehow, I don't think that was their intent.
Or "BuSHIT".
Wait a minute, I've also seen the President called "BuSHIT" and "the chimp" on FR.
Children/liberals usually resort to name calling when they lose.
Apparently it's infectious.
We won't take over the world in two.
You won't take over the world in twenty or two hundred either. Your ideas are not only unpopular, but failed for everyone to see. The sad part is you're in your death throes and you think it's the spasm of birth.
Owl_Eagle(If what I just wrote makes you sad or angry,
"Moral Victory" another way of saying "I lost".
They're the ones who claim to be "true conservatives" and that everyone else (or around 90% of FR) are really liberals.
"After the behavior of the "conservative" blogosphere in this Dubai terminal debate I can't make fun of the self-destructive childishness of the liberal blogosphere anymore."
Yep, pot/kettle.
We can sum up the Angry Left in one sentence:
Full of sound and fury, signifying nothing
good analysis.
in fact, with your leave, I'd like to add it (with full citation) to my biobage.
They don't fool me and I have yet to see them change a single mind.
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