Charley called to my attention an NPR story about a speech that my former boss, Sandra Day O’Connor, gave in Washington the other day. In it, she reportedly lambasted the attacks on the independence of the federal judiciary by Republicans in general and by disgraced ex-House majority leader Tom DeLay in particular.
From the reports, it sounds to me like O’Connor at her best: not afraid of anyone, and far more loyal to her country and to the institution of the judiciary than to her party.
And if you need yet another reminder on why the left keeps losing elections, head on over to this post at DailyKos recounting the same speech. The post itself is fine – but the comments! My goodness. I understand being angry about Bush v. Gore and disagreeing with some of O’Connor’s decision on the Court. But a semblance of human decency is nonetheless required. Here’s the reaction of one commenter in the thread (edited to be work-safe):
Bunch of f*&$%d-up, disgusting people in this thread. I’ve seldom seen such ignorant vileness. I’m ashamed to be a member of the same community as these people. This may be the episode that turns me off of DKos forever.
Grow up, people. Show some respect for a great American woman, regardless of her political affiliation. If you can’t manage to do that, I don’t want to man the barricades with you.
Hear hear.
the comment
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And if you need yet another reminder on why the left keeps losing elections, head on over to this post at DailyKos recounting the same speech. The post itself is fine – but the comments!
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is semi-retarded. Kossacks are no more nor less intelligent and logical than the religious right rank and file or the union rank and file or the freeper rank and file, etc.
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Don’t read Kos for the comments. Check Kos to get a pulse on what media the Kos community is reading, and to get some decent left-wing analysis from the bloggers themselves.
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The meyhem in the unmoderated comments has nothing to do with why the left “keeps losing elections” — which, by the way, it hasn’t been doing in an admittedly small sample size since 2004, picking up seats in assorted state legislatures throughout the country.
Check out this abomination on the UAE ports deal, inexplicably front-paged at Kos. We may agree to disagree on the bottom line – as I’ve written before, I think Bush was right on the deal, though possibly for the wrong reasons; others disagree. But the post’s bottom line is this:
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Yeah. I’m sure Tom Friedman is shaking in his shoes about “our further anger.” Meanwhile, everyone who thinks bloggers are screaming fanatics – and everyone who wants other people to think that – has been handed more ammunition.
David, you of all people should be aware that operatives can purposfully derail discussions on these large, unmoderated websites. I am not saying that this is what happened in this case, but one should never take too seriously anything that is posted in the comments anywhere, unless the identity of the commenter can be verified (either by name or by reputation).
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It’s funny that you use Dkos as an example of why ‘the left’ is losing at the same time that people (even in comments on this very blog) point to BMG posters as why the Mass Dems can’t win back the governorship.
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In any event, the web is about 97% noise and 3% signal (if that) the comments of a Dkos diary are no exception.
..that the people who live in the most fragile houses are always the first to start casting stones?
The web is full of loonies. Kos attracts many of them. But that’s because our country is full of loonies.
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When I hear Hillary Clinton or John Kerry or Barack Obama sound like the loonier commenters on Kos, I’ll understand why the Dems keep losing elections.
His observations about the Kos community follow my own from a few months back when I criticized the NY transit strike (which I still think was a disgrace) and received all manner of abuse along the lines of “fuck off” and almost no reasoned disagreement. More important than the comments, my observation is that the posts — and the ‘diaries’ that get promoted — increasingly represent an intolerant, extremist viewpoint that is motivated first by self-interest (defend the importance of the blogosphere), second by ideology, and third, if at all, by utility. The comments, in this sense, and I think on many if not most blogs, follow the leaders. My conclusion is that that community does not represent a credible opposition, if it ever did. Maybe it will in the future. As to our own house, I was intrigued by .08’s comment, “It’s funny that you use Dkos as an example of why ‘the left’ is losing at the same time that people (even in comments on this very blog) point to BMG posters as why the Mass Dems can’t win back the governorship.” Do you have any off-blog cites? I’d like to see them. As I have said before, the only way for the Blue to win is to co-opt the best ideas of the Red, and choose effectiveness over ideology. Kudos to Charley especially for adding the right-wing blogs to our blogroll this week.
From Under the Golden Dome:
By the way, I don’t mean this as a knock on either blog. You guys are doing great work, as is UtGD. I’m just pointing out how silly it is to blame the failings of the ‘left’ on a small-subset of blog readers.
All the respect in the world to you guys, but you’re kidding yourselves. It is possible, but I think extraordinarily unlikely, that the comments in that particular post contain any significant amount of trolling. Much more likely, it is bona fide members of the “daily Kos community” venting their anger that remains almost blinding over 5 years after Bush v. Gore. There’s been a lot of talk of the “netroots” lately, but if that’s who they really are, I agree with the comment that I quoted above – I want no part of them. I mean, did you read those comments? They’re castigating O’Connor for retiring because her husband is gravely ill with Alzheimer’s disease. They’re beyond angry – they’re psychotic.
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As for your suggestion that I only read the posts and ignore the comments, that’s usually what I do at that site anyway. (Who has time to read 400 comments on every post?) And often, as Bob says, the posts are nearly as bad – thank God Armando is no longer on the front page. I read the comments on this particular one because I was curious as to how that “community” would react to news of a famous Republican taking on DeLay et al.; needless to say I was greatly disappointed.
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But the broader point is that stuff like this speaks very, very poorly of the “netroots,” which is supposedly what we are a part of. The rest of the world doesn’t distinguish between what’s in the posts and what’s in the comments – and, like it or not, DailyKos is the standard-bearer for lefty blogs because he (and maybe Atrios, whose comments are even worse) gets more traffic than the rest of us put together. So comments like those make it laughably easy to dismiss all of left blogistan as a bunch of foaming-at-the-mouth communists who are so ideologically driven that they can’t manage the smallest bit of compassion for a fellow human being.
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I admit to having some personal interest in this; as you know, I clerked for Justice O’Connor and have the greatest respect for her, and I know her husband. Nonetheless, my larger point stands. Those people are not “loonies.” They are “the DailyKos community,” the “netroots,” whatever. And they’re kinda scary. And that makes it really, really easy for the mainstream media, candidates for office, and the public at large to write them (and us) off as a wacky fringe movement.
Is what happens when ordinary citizens are given an opportunity to speak their mind and not be shushed for the good of the party. You hear things you don’t want to hear from people you don’t want to think are out there. But they are.
Going off half-cocked, with knee-jerk denunciations of all the Kossacks as looneys because of the remarks of a limited number of individuals in a public form. As it turns out, most of the offensive comments were promptly zapped into oblivion by the “loony” Kossacks. I’ll bet you went around feeling smug all day at how superior you are to “them.”
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You are in no position to throw stones.
I have far better things to do with my time than worry about whether I am or am not “superior” to the Kossacks I spoke about (and, for the record, there’s still a lot of bad stuff in that thread, which is now over 700 comments). You, no doubt, have spent your day considering yourself superior to me. Hope you enjoyed that.
…over what I read there and here.
The speed with which the Kossacks eradicated the first obnoxious comment from the site with negative ratings (over 150 gave it 0 = Troll before it was pulled) was, as far as anyone can tell, a DailyKos record.
“As I have said before, the only way for the Blue to win is to co-opt the best ideas of the Red, and choose effectiveness over ideology. Kudos to Charley especially for adding the right-wing blogs to our blogroll this week.”
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Bob – THIS is your idea of a blue renaissance? Co-opt red ideas? I was hoping for fresh solutons.
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On the other hand, ask Charley whose idea it was to do the Link Exhcnage of the Differently Winged (FULL credit for the great name, however!) Maybe the co-option has begun…
Credit where credit is due — Mr. Porcupine suggested it to begin with. And it’s a good idea.
Look
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O’Connor Gave Us W.
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If she truly understands what a terrible turn the country has taken, and from her speech she seems to understand, then she has no business retiring during W’s administration. That is the same as saying she puts her own situation above all the items she identified in the speech.
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Maybe she will take care of her husband, but the cost may be the elimination of choices for scared pregnant teens in South Dakota. And God knows what else.
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A bad, selfish choice, given what she realizes.
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I saw the movie “Good night and good luck” last night. It’s not a great movie. But it has some great stuff in it, most of which comes directly from the original shows in which Edward R. Murrow took on Senator McCarthy. And one of the best moments is when Murrow said that the whole red scare thing really wasn’t McCarthy’s fault – he didn’t create the fear, he just exploited fear that was already there. And then he quoted Shakespeare: “the fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves” – by which he meant that all of us bear some responsibility for the situation in which we find ourselves.
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Thus, to say that “O’Connor gave us W” is just not correct. The Supreme Court was the last link in a long chain of events that gave us W. Al Gore gave us W – by not running as good a campaign as he could have, and by stupidly not asking for a recount of the entire state of Florida. Ralph Nader gave us W – we all know why. Democrats (and I include myself among that number) gave us W, by failing to work as hard as we could have to convince our fellow citizens not to vote for Bush. And the country gave itself W, by voting for him in such huge numbers that the election was as close as it was. To put it all on Sandra Day O’Connor is neither accurate nor fair.