Trying to collect my thoughts after the recent big tent discussion, particularly the latest scolding from Ed Kilgore, I ended up here:

The way I see this playing out:

1) Senator Clinton wins the Democratic nomination

2) Senator Clinton wins the Presidential election by a very tight margin. She gets the votes, but not the enthusiasm or support, of the liberal base of the Democratic Party

3) President-elect Clinton purges Howard Dean and Democratic National Committee, installing a chairman and staff controlled by Rahm Emmanuel

4) President Clinton appoints Joe Lieberman to a Cabinet post, possibly Homeland Security. Her Administration in general is heavily staffed with conservative DLC/Third Way-ers

5) When the Radical Right begins their long-planned counterassault in mid-2009 (primarily over Iraq but also health care, Social Security, and Supreme Court nominations) President Clinton gets no support whatsoever from the netroots or liberal base and has no way to counter the traditional media's Republican perspective

6) President Clinton is utterly astonished by this outcome

7) White horse Republican takes the White House in 2012

sPh

Just saw this over at Max Sawicky's blog MaxSpeak:

With regret I have to announce that my blogging days will end on September 3. New professional responsibilities will preclude any public pontificating. Aside from professional articles, the scope for my publishing activities is not yet clear. There may turn out to be none.

.

Authors on this site, along with a couple of exciting new faces, will be migrating to a new one that is being set up. You won't see me there. I will not be posting anonymously, so don't bother looking for that either.

I was disappointed to read this, as I think Max made great contributions to the discussion here and on other blogs (including his own).

.

I am curious as to where he is going that won't allow him to publish or comment on blogs. To one of the Presidential campaigns? I can't think of an academic, magazine, or publishing industry job that would prohibit the occasional blog post.

.

Best wishes Max wherever you are going.

.

sPh

Over at Talkingpointsmemo, Josh Marshall posted the following Letter to the Editor he received:

Mailbag:

.

Soooo tired of bloggers jumping on the bash Clinton bandwagon.

.

A loser...?

.

If you'd stop for a moment, you would be exposed to the reality that Clinton is dominating the debates, dominating the polls. On the ground here in California, she has in place a growing organization that I guarantee you will crush any opposition - Democratic primary, or general election against the Repugs.

.

It's time the blogosphere, and people like you, began to clean up your act. Stop acting so reactively. And perhaps realize that your unique hits aren't necessarily a measure of your credibility.

I am having a hard time figuring out how to unpack this. The first thought that springs to mind is that this is a false flag operation, and that an anti-Hillary person sent it in the hopes of generating reaction and anger against Senator Clinton.

.

On the other hand, this statement is very typical of what I read from Hillary supporters - just a bit stronger. And it is the kind of thing that is starting to lead me to think that Senator Clinton would be a very bad choice as the Democratic nominee.

.

So I am curious what Cafe'ers think: is this an actual pro-Hillary statement, a false flag operation, or something else?

.

sPh

From time to time the question arises as to whether or not there are paid trolls working the liberal blogs. One argument against is always that there are no such things as paid trolls period, whether on political blogs or elsewhere.

Here is a flat-out advertisement on Craigslist for a paid trolling position.

Since this will disappear fairly soon, I have also captured a bit of it below:

$1000/month to blog! - top users on digg, technorati, reddit, etc

Reply to: job-xxxxx@craigslist.org

Date: 2007-08-21, 10:00AM PDT

.

WE ARE LOOKING FOR AN EXPERT USER OF DIGG, TECHNORATI, DEL.ICIO.US, SLASHDOT, REDDIT, FURL, MYSPACE, FACEBOOK, ETC.

.

ABOUT THIS PROJECT

.

You will be working as an independent contractor for two companies: one is Public Interest. The other is Michael Franzini.

.

For Public Interest, your task will be to build online "buzz" about The Knight News Challenge.

.

For Michael Franzini, your task will be to build online buzz about his book, One Hundred Young Americans.

.

Basically, we want to get as much attention as we can all over the Internet for both of these.

.

When you Google terms relevant to either of these, we want to come up with a ton of (content-rich) relevant hits.

.

And we want to rise to the top of the Google search rankings as a result of all the sites linking to us.

.

Some of this work will just entail getting people to link to us. It could be as simple as getting people to put a link on their MySpace page (especially people with tons of friends).

.

But it could also mean writing in-depth posts on all kinds of sites to draw people in.

.

We are looking for someone who has a proven track record of getting attention in the blogosphere and beyond. For example, if you are a top user on Digg, that definitely qualifies you.

.

The basic requirement will be 150 stories a month, some of which need to be in-depth. We'll pay a bonus for stories that get a lot of attention. We're also open to figuring out some combination of blog posts and MySpace/Facebook/etc links each month.

Henry at Crooked Timber posted an essay discussing intellectual standards (or lack thereof) on display in analysis of Internet-based knowledge sources vs. traditional sources (e.g. Wikipedia vs. Encyclopedia Britannica). Kevin Drum at Washington Monthly also followed up.

Henry's essay generated this comment:

.> And I can’t stress how very standard

> Wikipedia is, in terms of the commune/cult

> pattern

which triggered my thoughts below.

Whereas I am always struck by how similar the goings-on at Wikipedia are to what acquaintances who have worked in commercial information publishing tell me happens behind closed doors at those entities. Very few encyclopedia insiders have ever broken the veil, but the essays by Asimov and Feynman tend to confirm what I have heard from much smaller players.

Does Britannica have access to substantial experts who can make definitive statements on certain topics? Yes. At the same time, topics where definitive statements can be made usually have pretty good entries in Wikipedia too. I have looked up Wikipedia articles on certain lesser-known electric power generation technology and found them more thorough and better written than Britannica's.

When you get to controversial historical and political topics, of course, Wikipedia's entries go crazy. But is that different from Britannica? Or just carried out in the open? What would a Britannica article on the Tuskegee Experiments written for the 1970 edition had said? Nothing. Yet some of Britannica's medical contributors _had_ to have known those experiments were going on. How would that compare to a crazy, "conspiracy theory" (parallel universe) Wikipedia entry on the same subject in 1970? Would the answer be different in 1974?

Perhaps this could be addressed by entities such as Britannica providing more of their reference and source information, and the identities of the authors of their entries. That would allow the concerned reader to dig deeper and judge the trustworthiness of the material (and the "experts") for themselves. Then again, wouldn't that make them more like Wikipedia?

sPh

The entire Fitzgerald sentencing memorandum is worth reading, but this sentence stuck out:

=== First, it was clear from very early in the investigation that Ms. Wilson qualified under the

relevant statute (Title 50, United States Code, Section 421) as a covert agent whose identity

had been disclosed by public officials, including Mr. Libby, to the press. ===

along with this one

=== Second, it is undisputed but of no moment that it was known early in the investigation

that two other persons (Richard Armitage and Karl Rove) in addition to Mr. Libby had

disclosed Ms. Wilson’s identity to reporters, and that Messrs. Armitage and Rove were the

sources for columnist Robert Novak’s July 14, 2003 column, which first publicly disclosed

Ms. Wilson’s CIA affiliation. The investigation was never limited to disclosure of Ms.

Wilson’s CIA affiliation to Mr. Novak; rather, from the outset the investigation sought to determine who disclosed information about Ms. Wilson to various reporters, including – but

not limited to – Mr. Novak. ===

Could we have another one of those 287 post discussions with input from certain parties who used to contribute here regularly on how there was "no crime", "Plame was not covert", and "Novak was the end of the investigation"? Or is the argument that Fitzgerald, with a security clearance and access to all the information from all parties including the CIA, was wrong about this?

Hey, that's it: Fitzgerald needs to be prosecuted for perjury as a result of this sentencing memorandum! That's the ticket.

sPh

In the course of the first Ford/DLC thread, I was asked:

=== At what point do you let this transgression of being wrong for 5 years go? ===

Since the reply will probably get lost due to the size of the thread, I am posting it here.

Unfortunately, this isn't a friendly dispute over whether the top marginal tax rate should be 23.7% or 26.9% - it is over failing to understand, and in many cases actually supporting, the Bush/Cheney anti-Constitutional agenda (e.g. Lieberman). So in my personal opinion the timeout should last at least two Presidential cycles, or 8-10 years.

You may very well disagree. But the clock doesn't even _start_ until the core DLC movers-and-shakers acknowledge that they made a series of unbelievably serious mistakes in misunderestimating (and in many cases actually supporting) the Radical Right. I have seen zero sign of any such acknowledgement and in fact just the opposite: "Time to move on. Here's your next lecture from your superiors".

It must be fun to be the teenager of a DLC member: "Well yeah Dad, there was the whole thing with the car and the alcohol and the police action. But that was last week and the important thing is to focus on how we can work together to move forward as a family; that sort of backward-looking vituperation and talk of 'responsibility for one's actions' is divisive to the family.".

sPh

Many have been speculating on whether there can still be an (early November) October Surprise, and if not why there hasn't been one for the 2006 elections.

My guess is that Rove is planning for 2012 at this point. While he might have preferred a Republican-controlled Congress, now that ist appears that the Democrats will take at least the house he isn't fighting it too hard.

The general plan will be something like this: A Democratic House for the next 2 years, leading to various Constitutional crises over the "unitary executive" all pitched to make the Democrats look weak and pin the blame for the Iraq situation on their weakness. A Democratic President in 2008 leashed by a Republican Senate. Total chaos and disaster in Iraq in 2009-2010, all blamed on the Democratic President. A white horse "strong father" Republican candidate in 2012 to take back the Presidency and sweep Congress and the states.

sPh