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While most of the city was partying down at Lollapalooza this weekend, a different type of party was going on just a few blocks south of Grant Park: YearlyKos, the annual convention hosted by DailyKos, the netroots weblog started by Markos Moulitsas Zúniga, and filled with content, news and views by a motley crew of bloggers from around the nation (including Dick Durbin!).
Saturday was a big day for the bloggers by the lake, with most of the day’s events revolving around the presidential election that is coming soon to a voting booth near you. While a morning "Meet the Leaders" panel, featuring Senator Harry Reid, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senator Chuck Schumer and Congressman Rahm Emanuel was cancelled "due to the people's business in Washington" (apparently the people's business is caving in on FISA), the show kept going at 9a.m. as scheduled, with workshops that ranged from the politics and policy of Hispanics and immigration to Volunteer Recruitment and Development. By noon it was time for a breakout session with NY Senator Hillary Clinton.
Starting off with a brief address to the packed room of bloggers and activists, she opened the floor up to questions. Like anytime that Hillary speaks, especially to voters, she comes off a lot like John Kerry with balls: nuanced in her response to questions, senatorial in the points of her plan to solve just about anything presented, while still taking potshots at the Bush administration. When asked about the war in Iraq, she starts a lengthy soliloquy on rule-of-law and habeas corpus, and talks about putting America on the road to shutting down Guantanamo Bay. Looking around the room it becomes clear who supports Hillary, who will be volunteering on her campaign: middle-class suburban soccer moms and the daughters that they raised to head off to small liberal arts colleges in nowhere towns out east. She closes her session by telling the crowd that she "has been on the record as against 'Don't-Ask-Don't-Tell" since 1999."
By the time she wraps up her session, it's time for the "Presidential Leadership Forum", a de facto debate moderated by Matt Bai, writer for The New York Times Magazine, and Joan McCarter, contributing editor at Daily Kos. In attendance were all of the Democratic candidates for president, excepting Joe Biden. Before the actual debate starts, Bai points out that Saturday was Barack Obama's birthday, prompting the crowd to sing a few lines of 'Happy Birthday' as the Illinois Senator chuckles amicably.
The largely cordial forum ran on a simple format: 24 minutes each of questions on Domestic policy, Foreign policy, and what Bai termed "Personal Philosophy and Experience". Each candidate got the opportunity to answer and rebut questions running the gamut from Supreme Court appointments to health care, budget deficits to ending the war in Iraq. While Bill Richardson and Chris Dodd make good points about the mechanics of governance, it's Hillary and Obama that duke it out over tougher questions about broader issues. When asked about ending the war, Hillary says that she voted against the last appropriation for war funding to "send a message" to the Bush administration. She tells the crowd that getting out isn't that easy because the Senate rules make getting to 60 votes quite difficult. On the question of Pakistan, she notes that she has a three-point plan for dealing with Pervez Musharraf, and explains that she wants to use the power of the presidency to put pressure on the Malaki government in Iraq to step up the fight against the insurgency there.
When asked if the US bears responsibility in the role of breeding anti-Americanism abroad, Obama won't come out and answer the question with a straight yes or no, instead condemning the 9/11 hijackers, and talking about a growing role for diplomacy in the Middle East. Barack Obama did talk at length about publicly financing campaigns, and offered that he had bills in the Senate with both Durbin and Fiengold to help fund presidential campaigns. In fact, the staggering amount of money needed to run a campaign and its impact on the presidency was something that nearly all of the candidates agreed on, with all but Hillary raising their hands when asked if they wouldn't take money from Washington lobbyists.
After the Forum, Chicagoist headed off the catch the John Edwards breakout, passing a nearly deserted Chris Dodd breakout, and a closed door Bill Richardson breakout. Arriving at the Edwards breakout, we flashed our media credentials and squeezed into the back of a packed room to catch the closing sentence by a local woman, introducing John Edwards: "I may never get the chance to say this to any of you again, but I believe in this man. Ladies and Gentlemen, the next President of the United States of America, John Edwards!"
Emerging from a side door, Edwards grabs the mic and heads to the center of the packed room of supporters and press. "Before we start, just on a personal note, I just spoke to Elizabeth and she wants me to tell all of you that she's doing great!" Without missing a beat, Edwards goes right into his abbreviated stump speech: Do we want change? Do we want massive change? Cause I believe we need it in the worst possible way. Like in the Presidential Leadership Forum, his message is clear and concise, that change isn't predicated on electing someone, but that voters must hold their elected official, especially Democrats, accountable. He talks briefly about turning down money from Washington lobbyists, and then opens the floor up to questions. As the rowdy, ecstatic crowd stands to cheer and raise their hands, a man in the back of the crowd shouts something, and Edwards turns around. Laughing, he tells the group in the back of the room "I'm too well trained at this; the cameras are over there. But I'll talk to you guys." He takes a question on the death penalty: how can he support capital punishment when all of the evidence indicates that it doesn't work, and is applied unjustly. Edwards tells the crowd that he can appreciate the moral implications of executing someone, but that he "just isn't there," and wants to work to fix the death penalty process, rather than abolish it.
After taking a few more questions about public financing of campaigns, and global warming ("I think you have to ask people to sacrifice, but you have to have a plan to go with that sacrifice"), he takes a question from a World Can't Wait delegate about impeachment. How can Edwards not support the impeachment of Bush and Cheney when what they have done in office is so clearly illegal? John Edwards acknowledged that many people feel the same way, he included, but that the work of the Congress, and therefore the nation should be focused on rebuilding the American Presidency, rather than tying up the congress with divisive trials and prosecutions.
As he closed his breakout, Edwards encouraged the crowd to get on his website and send him the questions he didn't get to answer, promising that he will respond to all of them. He thanked the crowd, and asked that they get involved and stay involved, not just in his campaign, but in working to build the Democratic Party from the ground up.
If Hillary's breakout session was about policy points and measured debate, the Edwards breakout was about ideas, optimism and hope, focused on the future of Democrats in the American political landscape. In fact, everything about the Hillary camp at YearlyKos has felt like inevitability; she's running, she'll get the nomination, and she'll be President for the next two terms. The Edwards camp, and his supporters seem far more excited about his candidacy. Yeah, sure, he's running for president, but his message is about changing the tone among Democrats, and the culture in Washington. If, as the Economist has suggested, Edwards is setting the agenda for Democrats, then it's a sure bet we'll see a return to the kind of broad coalition progressive politics that characterized the party in earlier eras. Other Democrats have already sat up and taken note, with Obama and Hillary releasing platform positions and policy statements on the heels of Edwards' more detailed plans and proposals.
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Richardson gave a great speech in his breakout session on his experiences in dealing with Dictators. Richardson for Secretary of State.
filled with content, news and views by a motley crew of bloggers from around the nation (including Dick Durbin!).
Once again, Chicagoist politics coverage is misleading.
Durbin didn't attend the convention.
guest #2: Actually, what I wrote was "YearlyKos, the annual convention hosted by DailyKos, the netroots weblog started by Markos Moulitsas Zúniga, and filled with content, news and views by a motley crew of bloggers from around the nation (including Dick Durbin!)."
I never said that Durbin attended the convention. I did say, however, that he has written content for DailyKos before. If you click the link on Durbin's name in my post, it'll take you to Dick Durbin's DailyKos blog post on Jan 23, 2007.
Good coverage, Kevin. Thanks.
Kevin;
You forgot to post on Kos's opening speach, the one where he promised to "Cleanse" the democratic party of candidates who aren't "progressive enough". But you really forgot the most enthralling part, where the nutroots faked support and practiced full censor of military personnel.
http://pajamasmedia.com/2007/08/soldier_censored_at_kos_conven.php
And, why didn't you give the real reason for Pelosi, Reid etc... had to cancel on Friday? ya know, the night that the dems try to change and erase votes in the house, after votes were tallied and counted, and then decide not to put their abismal performance on the official record??
Do you have proof that Dems tried to "erase" votes?
Ferdy, for you? No problem!
http://washingtontimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070803/NATION/108030110/1001
lol..fishunderice,
Sourcing from the washington times, let's see what the moonies opinion on all this is...
This is not the way democracy should be. I'm appalled, but at least there was an acknowledgment of wrong-doing. They better not do it again.
Oh, thats right; politicians these days apologize for no reason, and papers make up qoutes...
and I guess Kevin actually does make full reports on dailykos, and doesn't cherry pick lame stories.
Damn that Bush, it's all his fault
fish,
That soldier was breaking both the uniform code of military justice(political activism while in uniform) and the rules of the convention. Active duty personnel on the panel (who outrank the sergeant) reprimanded him for doing so.
Did the yKos folks display contempt for the 1st Amendment? Perhaps. But that soldier also displayed contempt for the service and his uniform. Seems like a wash to me.
'But we support the troops'-Bullshit Ontology
"As the Military and Progressives panel came to an end, a young man in uniform stood up to argue that the surge was working, and cutting down on Iraqi casualties. The moderator largely freaked out. When other members of the panel tried to answer his question, he demanded they “stand down.” He demanded the questioner give his name, the name of his commander, and the name of his unit. And then he closed the panel, no answer offered or allowed, and stalked off the stage.
Wes Clark took the mic and tried to explain what had just occurred: The argument appears to be that you’re not allowed to participate in politics while wearing a uniform, or at least that you shouldn’t, and that the questioner was engaging in a sort of moral blackmail, not to mention a violation of the rules, by doing so. Knowing fairly little about the army, I can’t speak to any of that. But it was an uncomfortable few moments, and seemed fairly contrary to the spirit of the panel to roar down the member of the military who tried to speak with a contrary voice."
—Ezra Klein
You'r little ideological notions about liberalism espoused by dailykos and rattled off by board members like you are riddled with holes of hypocrisy. This is just another example.
And you Ontology, are a hypocritical Pussy.
"But that soldier also displayed contempt for the service and his uniform. Seems like a wash to me." How? By offering a differing opinion than the incompotent washed up liberal propoganda brigade that was moderating? With no response to somebody actually thinking differently than him, the moderator responds by tattling, nice.
fish,
the argument appears to be that you’re not allowed to participate in politics while wearing a uniform,
You're not. § 934, Article 134 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice provides for the punishment of those who engage in political advocacy while wearing the uniform. It's the law.
How? By offering a differing opinion than the incompotent washed up liberal propoganda brigade that was moderating?
Pro-War, Anti-War - doesn't matter. Plenty of Iraq War veterans (both active-duty and reserve) have been prosecuted for attending anti-war events in uniform (Adam Kokesh being the best known). The specifics of this case don't matter. If he had spoken in the same vein as the panel while wearing a uniform, he would have been similarly rebuked (I would hope).
Additionally, I find it amazing that you can deduce my politics from my insistence that this soldier broke the law. I'm similarly shocked by the intimation that people like me are anti-military automatons, marching in lockstep with the dicta of His Holiness Kos (a veteran, fwiw). As a Navy brat who grew up in military housing and American Legion halls, I find this particularly odd.
But I'll let the ad hominem slide if you'll concede I'm right on the issue at hand.
You, along with all other kos kids, would be the first to hold this man up if he was wearing an army uniform with a hippie bandana proclaiming how this war is illegal and on and on. You would give him the absolute moral authority card and start shouting about how smart and wise he is. You would provide him with a team of lawyers and a hiding place to stop his deployment. The last thing you would do is ask for his name, unit number, or commanding officer.
Stop riding the coattails of your daddy and stand up for yourself. You are a hypocrite and a liar. There isn't a snowballs chance in hell that guy would have been rebuked if he agreed with the panel! Liberals have an orgasm when a serviceman refuses to go to war for political reasons, they hold him up as a hero and light candles in his honor while they pray for him.
Am I to believe that the next soldier who stands up to say something outside your thoughts, will be questioned by yourself?? Because I can point you in that direction; if you are going to uphold the law as you indicate.
Ontology; Whats that you said about officers being rebuked if they 'spoke in the same vein'???
Too bad you didn't pick up this story at the begining and report this officer (or dailyKos for that matter, they were one of the first to begin posting his stories); sure would have saved you and you'r liberal allies from shame and embarassment.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Weblogs/TWSFP/TWSFPView.asp
Hypocritical Liar
Fish,
I have no "liberal allies." Please stop saying so and please stop calling me a hypocrite and a liar. You have no justification for either label.
Now, could you be so kind as to note which story on the page you linked (the Weekly Standard's blog)you'd like me to check out. Thanks.
Here's another article from Michellemalkin.com
I'll cut and paste this list for you; its an entire list of the liberal hypoctrical bullshit that you don't think exists. a complete rundown of soldiers who were propped up by liberals, and then it turned out the soldiers were full of BS and making up stories about war... There are also videos of these soldiers, look it up on youtube or something.
The tale of Army Private Scott Thomas Beauchamp, the discredited “Baghdad Diarist” for the discredited New Republic magazine, is an old tale:
Self-aggrandizing soldier recounts war atrocities. Media outlets disseminate soldier’s tales uncritically. Military folks smell a rat and poke holes in tales too good (or rather, bad) to be true. Soldier’s ideological sponsors blame the messengers for exposing anti-war fraud.
Beauchamp belongs in the same ward as John F. Kerry, the original infectious agent of the toxic American disease known as Winter Soldier Syndrome. The ward is filling up.
U.S. military investigators concluded this week that Beauchamp concocted allegations of troop misconduct in a series of essays for The New Republic. “The investigation is complete and the allegations from PVT Beauchamp are false,” Major Steven Lamb, a spokesman for Multi National Division-Baghdad, told USA Today. The New Republic is standing by Beauchamp’s work. But Michael Goldfarb, online editor and blogger at The Weekly Standard who first challenged Beauchamp’s writing, reported Monday that Beauchamp had “signed a sworn statement admitting that all three articles he published in The New Republic were exaggerations and falsehoods — fabrications containing only ‘a smidgen of truth,’ in the words of our source.”
To illustrate the soul-deadening impact of war, Beauchamp had described sitting in a mess hall in Iraq mocking a female civilian contractor whose face had “melted” after an IED explosion. “I love chicks that have been intimate — with IEDs,” Pvt. Beauchamp claimed he said out loud in her earshot. “It really turns me on — melted skin, missing limbs, plastic noses.” Beauchamp recounted vividly: “My friend was practically falling out of his chair laughing. The disfigured woman slammed her cup down and ran out of the chow hall.” It wasn’t true. After active-duty troops, veterans, embedded journalists and bloggers raised pointed questions about the veracity of the anecdote, Beauchamp confessed to The New Republic’s meticulous fact-checkers that the mocking had taken place in Kuwait— before he had set foot in Iraq to experience the soul-deadening impact of war.
Military officials in Kuwait tried to verify the incident and called it an “urban legend or myth.” Beauchamp’s essays are filled with similarly spun tales. How much of a bull-slinger was Beauchamp, an aspiring creative writer who crowed on his personal blog that he would “return to America an author” after serving (which he told friends and family would “add a legitimacy to EVERYTHING I do afterwards”)? The very first line of his essay “Shock Troops,” which opened with the melted-face mockery, was this: “I saw her nearly every time I went to dinner in the chow hall at my base in Iraq.”
“Nearly every time.” At “my base in Iraq.” Complete and utter bull.
Defenders of The New Republic, a left-leaning magazine infamously duped by another young and ambitious fabulist, Stephen Glass, say the Beauchamp saga has been 1) blown out of proportion; 2) perpetuated by sloppy, rumor-mongering bloggers; 3) used as a distraction from the troubles in Iraq; and 4) exploited by “chickenhawks” who deny that war atrocities happen.
But the truth is, you won’t find a single Bush Kool-Aid drinker among the military bloggers, embedded independent journalists, and active-duty troops who prominently questioned the Beauchamp sham. They know it ain’t all going swimmingly overseas. But unlike Pvt. Beauchamp, they’re committed to telling the whole truth about the war, not just approximations and embellishments that will score easy magazine gigs and future book deals with elite New York City publishers. The doubters of Scott Thomas know atrocities when they see them. But, unlike the TNR editors, they know steaming bull dung when they smell it.
Ever since John Kerry sat in front of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and accused American soldiers of wantonly razing villages “in fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan,” the Left has embraced a small cadre of self-loathing soldiers and soldier wannabes willing to sell their deadened souls for the anti-war cause.
Think Jimmy Massey, the unhinged Marine who falsely accused his unit of engaging in mass genocide against Iraqis.
Think Jesse MacBeth and Micah Wright, anti-war Army Rangers who weren’t Army Rangers.
Think Josh Lansdale, the anti-war Army medic who attacked former GOP Sen. Jim Talent by spinning a bogus health care tale swallowed whole by Dem Sen. Claire McCaskill, Gen. Wesley Clark and the far Left VoteVets.org crew.
Think Amorita Randall, the NYTimes-championed former naval construction worker who told the Times magazine that she served in Iraq, was in a Humvee that blew up, and was raped twice while serving in the Navy–but, in fact, had never served in Iraq.
Winter Soldier Syndrome will only be cured when the costs of slandering the troops outweigh the benefits. Exposing Scott Thomas Beauchamp and his brethren matters because the truth matters. The honor of the military matters. The credibility of the media matters.
Think it doesn’t make a difference? Imagine where Sen. John Kerry would be now if the Internet had been around in 1971.
***
More:
Scott Johnson at Power Line points to another Winter Soldier Syndrome candidate profiled in, you guessed it, The New Republic
Ontology; Thanks again for pointing out § 934, Article 134, please disseminate this info the the liberal press and all of these soldiers if you are going to be such an upstanding citizen.
"If he had spoken in the same vein as the panel while wearing a uniform, he would have been similarly rebuked" Is that not BS? Is there a nicer way of saying it's a lie?
Is that not BS? Is there a nicer way of saying it's a lie?
I'm not sure how a hypothetical can be a lie ("if I write this, you will read it" - it's not true or false until it happens/doesn't happen), but that's not the point.
If the soldiers mentioned attempted to make political statements while in uniform or while attempting to represent the US military, they should certainly be punished - just as our friend at yKos should/will be (will you concede that?).
However, it seems these are all accusations of fraud or making misleading statements - while similarly illegal and offensive to the honor of the military, they seem to constitute another matter altogether. And are you really surprised when the media run with these sensational stories of war, no matter who they paint in a nasty light (e.g. SwiftBoat Veterans for Truth, the Bob Kerrey dust-up in 2001) or how un-true they are? It's not a partisan or ideological thing - it's a stupid-media thing.