The real question in my mind is what the attack puppies are trying to accomplish. Surely they must understand that in the end, there is no such thing as bad publicity for a blogger. Ann Coulter has built an extremely lucrative career out of being attacked in print by her opponents. Does the TNR really think Daily Kos’s traffic and ad revenues are going to do down because of this? If so, it may explain why the fucking rag is withering away: an absolute lack of business sense.
Seriously, though, I suspect the real objective here is to try to scare away the Democratic pols who have been cozying up to Kos and the liberal blogosphere. The sight of all those powerbrokers — Harry Reid, etc. — lining up to kiss Kos’s ring in Vegas must have really set the klaxons wailing at DLC HQ. It isn’t that Kos is particularly liberal or progressive (the right wingers only yell that he is because they understand that he isn’t.) Go where the real lefties hang out, and you’ll learn mighty fast that the name Kos is a dirty word in those circles — right up there with those other well-known fascist running dogs like Howard Dean and John Kerry.
But in the end it doesn’t matter. The Lieberman Dems don’t hate and fear Kos and the Daily Kos “community” because they are too far to the left. They hate them because they represent an emerging power center within the Democratic Party that they don’t control — what’s more, one that is now much closer to the public mainstream on the central issue of our time (the Iraq War) than they are.
BY TOM TOMORROW