I happened to see a piece of viewer mail sent into MSNBC. The sender wondered what in heavens name the VP is doing hanging out with people carrying firearms.  What in heavens name is he doing carrying a firearm himself?  They freakin' put SS agents on bridges for 48 hours before a motorcade goes by.They scan everybody the veep sees.  How does it make any sense at all that his extremely sensitive presence is shared with firearms?

Chris Bowers at MyDD has put up a very interesting post about the unhappiness in the blogosphere about Hacket's withdrawal.  He reiterates the argument that the leftie bloggers are not all that left, or that ideologically driven as they are motivated to support people who speak directly and forcefully. 

Brown is to the left of Hacket. But Hacket is the guy that folks who post diaries at DailyKos support.  This isn't a left-right thing. it's a power thing; the self-styled netroots people think that the DC establishment is screwing up the message by excessive attention to polls and overweening concern for their own self-importance.

Bowers closes his piece by recognizing that as he becomes more of a player--Senators return his calls, rather than staffers sending him a form letter--he risks becoming a part of the overweening upper class of the Democratic party.  This whole status thing--the conflating of public servant with celebrity is something of an eerie force. It's one I've fallen prey to in the past. But it's a force to resist.