[Dean's World] Dean: Daily Kos and the Company You Keep

[notify at powerblogs.com]

Posted by Dean:
Daily Kos and the Company You Keep
http://www.deanesmay.com/posts/1153777256.shtml


   Ann Althouse has an [1]interesting look at Daily Kos, and also a
   rumination on what responsibility a blogger has for comments left on
   their blog.

   I've long taken a pretty strong stance that bloggers have a
   responsibility for what happens in their comments, and that they will
   be judged by the company they keep. There are limits to that, and they
   aren't well defined, but I know I keep to a higher standard than most
   bloggers, which is why I require comment registration and permission
   to post. That's why even though this is a very high-traffic blog we
   tend to have many fewer comments here every day than blogs of similar
   traffic.

   I don't know exactly what the limits are, but I do know that having
   billed itself as the "top liberal blog" and the most powerful and
   influential, Daily Kos is going to have a fairly miserable time during
   this year's election season. You can fully expect GOP operatives to
   scour Daily Kos looking for the nastiest, most inflammatory, most
   paranoid, most hateful rants, and to use that heavily against any
   Democrat they can. In 1998, Democrats made Newt Gingrich the
   running-mate of every Republican running for office, and most believe
   it helped Democrats make major gains nationally that year.

   Expect Republicans to make Daily Kos diarists the running-mate of
   every Democratic candidate nationwide. Indeed, they'd be dumb not to.

References

   1. http://althouse.blogspot.com/2006/07/kos-and-israel.html