In Bloggers On The Bus Eric Boehlert, despite being a big fan of the netroots, doesn't pull his punches when talking about some of the sorrier episodes of the 2008 election season, including the way the Obama/Clinton primary got ugly and the rumors that flew about the blogosphere regarding Sarah Palin's last pregnancy and whether or not she faked it. The former is too big a topic for one blog post, but the latter raises some interesting questions.

The problem for liberal bloggers is that while we automatically have better ethical standards than the mainstream cable news media by virtue of not using Matt Drudge as our guiding light, we don't get the benefit of the doubt the way they do, because we're not as shiny or expensive. But a lot of bloggers, particularly smaller ones trying to make a name for themselves, feel the same pressure that the cable news networks do to scoop everyone else. The cable news can afford to take the risk of being wrong in order to get to a story first, but since establishment media and politicians are eager to discredit the bloggers, we can't afford goof-ups like promoting the false story about Palin's pregnancy.

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The future of liberal blogging is an issue I've been perhaps surprisingly unconcerned with. It's something that arose organically, and as Eric documents it evolved from venting, to community, to media influence, to fundraising and activism, to, in some sense, a networked interest group and coalition. While one shouldn't discount the contributions and efforts of individuals in all of this, I think it's fair to say that no one blogger has been critical to the strength of the blogosphere. And while its role and influence will continue to evolve, as it has since the beginning, it's difficult to imagine its key features and strengths fading away.

To me, since the beginning, the blogosphere's key feature has been to provide a sustained and cohesive unapologetic liberal narrative not found elsewhere. While I certainly hope that the Obama administration moves the country in a more progressive direction, and I will continue to push for this, like Amanda I don't have any sense bloggers are owed some sort of seat at the table.

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Perhaps like some others, I've run short of time this week, trying to keep up (at Editor & Publisher, and via Twitter etc.) with what's going on in Iran, including the media crackdown. So just a few words for now.

First, I've read Eric's book and can certainly recommend it. I was especially keen to read it as my own recent book, Why Obama Won, highlights Web/blog influence and claims it one of the real keys to his victory. So rather than take a broader look at the future of liberal blogging, as some have done here, let me briefly return to the campaign and try to guess what will happen in future elections.

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I think the 'now what?' question for the blogosphere remains paramount, as it faces a real two-fer. The first was the completely expected exit of W. Bush from the national political stage and what that would mean to an online movement that was essentially created to oppose him.

The second is more unexpected: the rise of Twitter and other more immediate communications. For context, I finished writing/reporting the Bloggers book back in December and at the time very few people (relatively speaking) were talking about Twitter. This week it's on the cover of Time.

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First, a word of praise for "Bloggers On The Bus"---I'm so used to reading hostile reactions to liberal bloggers from the mainstream media and so many instances of exploiting some of the worst episodes or worst blog comments to smear us all that I'm slobberingly grateful to read an account of liberal blogging that's accurate and respectful (while not shying away from talking about some of our uglier issues). There's a lot to address that he covers in the book: the Clinton/Obama blog wars, policing liberal bloggers who want to make like wingnuts and trade in conspiracy theories, pushing back against the Dirty Hippie stereotype, and the "where do we go from here?" question.

But I want to address the question Eric raised about how the Obama campaign and administration has, while using the larger netroots and social networking structures already in place, put the bloggers themselves at a distance. As he details in the book, this upset a lot of bloggers, especially since the blogs themselves mostly broke for Obama and had a lot to do with raising his profile above Clinton's. Despite this, while Edwards and Clinton had blogger outreach, Obama didn't.

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Eric lucked out. This is an auspicious time to discuss his book on networked politics -- you can't scan Google News without coming across reports of how blogs, Twitter and cell phones are channeling political protest in Iran. Tuesday's New York Times, for example, reports on how the Iranian government's repression has focused on technology.

The crackdown on communications began on election day, when text-messaging services were shut down in what opposition supporters said was an attempt to block one of their most important organizing tools. Over the weekend, cellphone transmissions and access to Facebook and some other Web sites were also blocked. Iranians continued to report on Monday that they could not send text messages.

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In his post kicking off the discussion of his book, "Bloggers on The Bus: How The Internet Changed Politics and The Press, Eric Boehlert writes:

I wrote Bloggers on the Bus because I wanted to help tell the story of the rise of the liberal blogosphere. . . .I thought the liberal blogosphere deserved respect and I felt it was important to document its rise.

Eric performs an admirable job in the telling of that story. If you care at all about political blogging, you must read Eric's book. At the end of his book (and in his post), Eric basically poses the question what now? I would hope that the question is answered by remembering why it came to be at all. It was not just a question of available technology. It was issues that spurred the birth of political blogging. No political party invented it. No political party owned it. It truly was bottom up - driven by concerns about issues - not the fortunes of political parties or individuals.

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In the introduction of my book, Bloggers on the Bus: How the Internet Changed Politics and the Press, I highlighted a YouTube clip from 2006, right after the mid-term elections, when blogger Chris Bowers is talking into the camera (I think) of Matt Stoller and Bowers answers the question: What does it take to be a liberal blogger? He starts listing all the requirements: "If you have no children, no one to support, and no career ambitions, then you too can become a full-time progressive blogger, as long as you're wiling to do nothing else in your entire life."

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This week at Cafe, Eric Boehlert joins us for a discussion about his book Bloggers on the Bus: How the Internet Changed Politics and the Press. Boehlert, a senior fellow at Media Matters for America, looks back at the 2008 presidential campaign and how key players in the liberal blogosphere shaped important events.

Joining the discussion are Jay Rosen, professor of journalism at NYU and author of PressThink; Amanda Marcotte, Pandagon blogger and blogmaster for John Edwards' 2008 presidential campaign for a time; Greg Mitchell, editor of Editor & Publisher and author of Why Obama Won; Duncan Black, also known as Atrios of Eschaton Blog; Armando Llorens, who posts as Big Tent Democrat at Talk Left; and Ari Melber, correspondent for The Nation and columnist for Politico.

I would like to offer a few thoughts on Geof Stone's question about how best to express disagreement with a policy decision. When you are on the inside of government, you argue your case privately as best you can. But if you do not prevail, you support publicly what is decided. That is the bargain of serving in government. When you are on the outside, you have the freedom to disagree publicly, which is what I have done. Hence War of Necessity, War of Choice and the other work I have produced on this subject.

As I noted in my earlier post and in the book, I argued against the decision to go to war with Iraq in 2002 and 2003. I did not, however, resign. Many people, both at the time and since, have asked why. There are two reasons for leaving. The first is when you disagree with a major decision so fundamentally that you cannot live with the outcome. The Iraq War certainly qualifies as a major decision, but I did not resign because my disagreement was not fundamental. It was, as I explained earlier, 60/40, given my assumption from the available intelligence that Iraq possessed biological and chemical weapons. Had I known then what is now known, i.e., that Iraq possessed no weapons of mass destruction, I would have resigned had President Bush proceeded with the war. However, that was not the situation as I understood it at the time.

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