alternative hippopotamus

progressive cyberdadaism from our nation’s capital

February 2, 2008

Department of Credit Where Its Due

by AltHippo @ 1:15 pm. Filed under Uncategorized, Jingoism

This weeks winner in the category of people that tend to make me cringe who just said something I agree with: Ann Althouse.

( Warning. The following contains Dangerstein. Readers should exercise disgression. )

Ann Althouse: (emphasis mine)

Kos worked on getting Ned Lamont to beat Lieberman for the Democratic Party nomination. As Gerstein puts it now, the “hope” candidate — Lieberman — won. You can see how this idea applies to the 2008 race for President:

Mr. Edwards, after running as the sunny son of a mill worker in 2004, returned last year as the angry spear carrier of the hard-line left, running on a dark, conspiratorial form of populism and swapping in corporations for Republicans as the villain in his us-versus-them construct. Mr. Obama, on the other hand, has not just been selling possibilities and opportunities, but reconciliation and unity — and, god forbid, promising to work with Republicans to meet the country’s challenges. (Not surprisingly, throughout 2007, Mr. Edwards was the runaway favorite in the regular Kos reader straw poll — besting Mr. Obama by 21 points as late as Jan. 2, 2008.)

Now that Mr. Edwards has formally dropped out of the race, we can say it’s official — hope and unity crushed resentment and division.

Gerstein is pleased, not just because hope is good, but because his enemy Kos is crushed:

The best evidence that Kos-ism is about kaput, though, comes from Kos’s mouth himself. Yes, the most delicious irony of this campaign is that the supposed hatemonger is supporting the hopemonger.

Markos Moulitsas will — after “a process of elimination” — have to vote for Barack Obama.

You know, I missed the part where Gerstein established that Kos is a “hatemonger.” I don’t like Kos too much, but calling him a “hatemonger” sounds at little… hatemongerish.

I wanted to bring this up for a couple of reasons. First of all, I think it’s interesting to see the preconceptions we all have about various bloggers. At this point I’ve met a fair number of the big bloggers. Some of them are terrific folks. Some of them are jerks. I was expecting to dislike Kos. In my imagination I thought he would have the temperament of a toy poodle at the Westminster Kennel Club. As it turns out, he’s very enjoyable to talk to, and is more grounded than I was expecting.

Second, I was encouraged to see Althouse acknowledge Dangerstein’s pettiness.

Finally, what the creatures of the right see as hopeful- and I really think what we’re talking about here is finding ways to feel good about post-invasion Iraq- is a form of psychosis. The glass isn’t half full, it’s half in denial. What Dangerstein calls being an “angry spear carrier of the hard-line left, running on a dark, conspiratorial form of populism” I would call solving the problems of our society. I believe that a normal person would call that “hopeful.”

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One Response to “Department of Credit Where Its Due”

  1. KCinDC Says:
    February 4th, 2008 at 5:43 pm

    Not surprisingly, Gerstein is misrepresenting the level of support for Edwards at Daily Kos. He’s apparently selected the most favorable week for Edwards and presented it as somehow typical. While Edwards often won the straw polls, he wasn’t a “runaway favorite” (the wins were often close), and Obama sometimes won as well. Also, he confuses Kos and the Daily Kos. Kos several times made statements that were close to Obama endorsements. His attitude toward Obama was never anywhere close to his attitude toward Lieberman (and rightly so). And of course Lieberman was never a “hope” candidate and has always been clearly in the “fear” camp.

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hip·po·pot·a·mus n. A notion, perhaps distinct from conventional wisdom, that needs to be verified by reality-based scrutiny.

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