Banned in Kos-sackstan
A very interesting story developing in the leftist blogosphere, as one Daily Kos member was banned for having the audacity to talk about John Edward’s marital infidelities:
About a week ago, I posted a piece on the Huffington Post called Say It Ain’t So, John. I didn’t think it would have much more impact than my usual posts…maybe a dozen comments or so, a couple of people linking to it. To my surprise, it became the most read blog the Huffington Post for a few days.
I cross posted on DailyKos, which is probably the best known and biggest progressive blog. I’ve been posting at Kos for a long time. As more news about Edwards has come out, I followed up with more posts which were also the subject of a large number of comments. All of them looked at the Edwards situation from my point of view; that is, a liberal who is concerned about the implications this story may have in November.
Now I’m banned. I can’t write about ANYTHING at Kos. Can’t comment, can’t post a non-Edwards piece. Nothing.
And I stand by my title – it’s largely John Edward’s fault that I’m banned. I’m now personally a small piece of fallout from the scandal. That’s because Edward’s defense is shoot the messenger, not answer the questions. The rabid response of the people on Kos is directly related to Edwards and his own response. That’s exactly why I’m saying this has the potential to hurt the Democratic brand.
So answer the effin’ questions already, John. For everyone’s sake.
I’m not sure if the DailyKos is going to take down my writing and make me a complete un-person there. Of course, real progressives are against censorship so Maryscott O’Connor’s blog MyLeftWing is my new community home. (Maryscott was the lead actress in my film Breathing Room about 13 years ago, by the way.)
We have talked a lot before both briangriffiths.com, RedMaryland, the Conservative Refuge, the Word on the Street, and other places about the inability of liberals to take criticism, their inability accept dissent, and their default position to crush, vilify, or flush down the memory hole anybody who disagrees with their one view of the world.
But this is something above and beyond the pale. The Daily Kos crowd likes to talk a good game about how the Bush Administration tries to crush dissent, how mainstream Democrats tried to crush dissent, and how an open society accepts the fact that “dissent is patriotic.” But can anybody rationally explain why such a site, the biggest site in the leftroots, would ban a poster from talking about a legitimate news story?
If this kind of thing is widespread in Kos-sackstan, I think it is safe to say that the Daily Kos has begun its inevitable slide to irrelevance.
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