One Last Time

This is the last post I'll be doing on the Kos-Armstrong/TNR debacle. In fact, the way our side has responded has made me seriously consider dropping participation in and (except for Digby and Billmon) following the blogworld. No great loss to anyone but me since I've been reading the Ted Barlows and Chris Andersens since there were only three of us online. But the reaction to this mess has been too similar to a National Review approach for comfort, with no apparent recognition that there is a world outside the blogosphere that may catch glimpses of this and not see at all what our insular colleagues see.

The stuff about Kos paying people, blackmailing, whatever. If it's not true, he does need to sue. It would be called for. But he better win and he better outdo the Pravda on the other side. If he was worried about giving oxygen to this story, that would do it. And it would encourage even more digging. ("Was he really even in the Army? There's a guy who served in his unit at the same time who swears he never saw him.") And laughing off the "Kos is gay" stuff will go the same way. His is not the face that should be leading the way, even in his uniform. That face is Jane Hamsher's. Frankly, I think the outing of bloggers that hit his Armando would go nuclear, but it might anyway. I'm a firm believer in taking the offensive and not letting challenges go unattacked, but be ready for the battle. Don't think it won't be brutal.

But, as someone more outside than inside, I just want to warn people that the case that seems so apparent to all the insiders, the Yearly Kossers, is not clear at all. Right now, if anyone is paying attention at all, it comes off as he said/he said, and everybody looks like people we should change the channel on. Gilliard says he never sent the incriminating memo and Greenwald backs him? So f******g what? Zengerle says he did. Are we going to claim that bloggers aren't journalists so shouldn't protect sources? Really want to go down the "outing sources" road? It happens that I believe my side on this, but that's because I respect Greenwald from his blog. The people who don't know him from their school board member just hear "blah, blah, blah."

The fact is that this is primarily just a flame war, but it's setting some precedents and showing some predilections that I am very concerned about. There are two questions here that, if either is answered "yes," the progressive blogs are making a big mistake in their approach:

1. Did Armstrong accept a settlement that punishes him in his civil suit with the SEC?
2. Did Kos try to organize a blog effort to keep that very relevant point about an A-lister's credibility from the rest of the community?

We know the answers. With all due respect, the "I was too poor to get an attorney" and the "You haven't heard my side" laments are weak and embarrassing. We depend on the demonstrated integrity and honesty, the willingness to admit mistakes and take responsibility for them, to distinguish us from the other side. If we don't or can't, then, when we need to win our arguments based on the evidence and cases we can provide in the external society, we can be impugned on our own histories. Armstrong needed to say, as soon as this came out, "I'm older and wiser now than I was then, and I pledge to everyone that I will commit myself to open and transparent dealings with my community and the larger society." The transparency is key, which is why Kos' effort to cover it over is not wiped away by "he knows I'd kick his ass" or "I've pissed him off before." It's the effort, not the response. From now on, to those who do pay attention will either have this in their minds or reminded to them every time push comes to shove over whose issues or positions or candidates are right. Our side has not been wrong in asserting its independence, but it's done it in that snarky, smart-ass way that sounds cool before the long-term damage of it becomes known.

I've run campaigns, I've been elected to local public office twice, I've taught election techniques and political communications, I've held relatively important policy positions. Not an A-list blogger, but I've had some experience. I feel there is a self-imposed ignorance of the impact and consequences of what's going on. It's the way GM responded to Nader, not the way Tylenol responded to the poisoner. I'm not saying not to fight back. God, there's way too much of that. But there's a way to do it, and it's not what's being done.

Kos and Armstrong needed to come clean and upfront, pledging commitment to total transparency and challenging Zengerle and his backgrounders to do the same. Without any of the sophomore snark. While they were doing that, following Steve Soto's "two-tier approach" that no one anywhere ever seems to see the brilliance of, the C-listers who will never be the serious focus of counterattack needed to do the dirty work, outing Zengerle on the e-mail problem and questioning the timing of the outburst right after the positive notoriety of Yearly Kos. "We're above the youthful exuberance of the '90s now, let's move on" and "Jason is a dishonest tool of a once-proud, now desperate screed" on different tracks. As it's been, we've had plenty of the latter and little of the former. People who might care or form opinions outside the blogosphere needed to get both in equal measure. That they've basically only gotten one speaks not just to the maturity of our side of the sphere but to our actual political talent.

Neither comes out well. And, as a long-time blog reader, one of the people who is there to be convinced and not to be lost, I just wish someone in the tempest right now seemed to care.