The only credential that matters is the one you get either at birth or through immigration- you are an American citizen. You have as much right to be a part of, critize, support and/or donate as any other individual or group. That's the only thing that they need to understand. Not your credentials.

The folks inside the beltway look at our elected representatives and the say 'if these are the best and the brightest God help this country'.

I don't think anyone, even Sawicky, was claiming that netroots members are uneducated, poorly read or stupid.

His claim is that as a community we don't talk intellectually. It's not that you or Matt couldn't discuss Marcuse, it's that you don't, which is true.

I'm agnostic on the question of how much theory matters (it's something I struggle with routinely in my classes), but I'd love to see a thread on whether the left should have a canon of theorists and why or why not (plus what should be on it)

Here's what he's missing: especially among those running the major netroots institutions, it's much more about encouraging partisanship than it is about fealty to a particular set of progressive talking points.  Winship's fundamental premise is that all we care about is who's most liberal, and that's not the case.

However, on the other hand, there are many many who contribute to the netroots who are so politically oblivious it makes me amazed.  Just say the words "gay marriage" and you get a whole bunch of people who are simply unable to comprehend political reality.

That is who these people are talking about - the mindless single issue folks who are totally unable to comprehend another view of the universe.

As someone who was a student around 1970 and was a left critic of the New Left, I find the comparison of DKos, MyDD, etc. to the New Left totally misplaced.  They are doing pretty much what people like myself then criticized the New Left (and to a lesser extent the "New Politics" movement) for not doing.  

I was really surprised and disappointed at Max's response to Matt's post.  It was utterly arrogant and unproductive... if the Netroots lacks qualities that Max would like to see it have, he destroyed his own ability to encourage their development - nobody listens when you start with the insults.

Matt had much more to do with recent electoral victories than Max did, and it is primarily through those victories that we can we get anything done.  Max's comment was really beneath him and drove away an audience that would otherwise value his input.

"handed the nation to the Republicans" ?

Is he referring to the civil rights movement that allowed Nixon to devise his southern strategy, so we should not have aided M L King?

Is he referring to the nacent women's movement, and so we should have dissed Betty Friedan?

Is he referring to Vietnam war opposition and so we shoud have allowed the 55,000 dead soldiers to be 155,000 before we were drummed out of there?

Who is it, once again for the dummies out here, that lacks historical persepctive?

There's a broad and general trend among most experts to think that people in general are dumb. And they're partly right. If you isolate the average individual (blog commentor or just plain citizen) and quiz them up and down, they'll underperform an expert more often than not.

What they fail to take into account is that this isn't an incoherent mass of individuals. Being on the receiving end of criticism can make it feel that way (nobody likes hate mail), but, to borrow a phrase, it's the network.

Online activism is a conversation. Ride the cluetrain, bitches.

" Still, to claim that the netroots suffer from a lack of historical appreciation..."

The origional thread on "60's left" clearly demonstrated that...most online were totally clueless as to the epic accomplishments of the left in the 60's and 70's...from Civil Rights to EPA.

A second US civil war was fought and won by the "60's left" and most of the netroots were unaware of it.

Come on, you guys!

We all need each other. The netroots are good. The Old Lefties are good. The SDS/SNCC people are good. The Marx/Marcuse study folks are good.

There is no single approach that covers all bases or makes all the rest 'bad' or useless.

Let's spend our time on better concerns -- like how to organize to get out of Iraq fast!!

Studies have shown that the more educated one is, the more one is likely to believe in evolution (and, presumably, be more likely liberal).

As a blogger with a master's and a J.D., I'm grossly offended by the Kewl Kids' portrayal of the netroots as dumb.  Moreover, there's no valid comparison between '60s activists and 21st-Century netroots (if you buy Winship's argument that the '60s activists "handed the country to the Republicans" - which I don't) ... we are far better organized, more sober (generally), and indeed we are part of the mainstream, in force.

Winship and his ilk better get used to it.  The days of the DLC wank-fest (like in 2004) are over, baby.

I suspect it would be much more useful to compare the netroots to the labor and socialist press of 100 years ago, rather than to the 1960s.

The similarities are greater.  At the turn of both centuries, a sharp drop in costs of entry to the media allowed previously excluded points of view to be expressed.  (Excluded by "capitalist press" or "mainstream media" as the case may be.)  A side benefit is that since nobody can speak about the past from their own experience, the discussion will probably involve more open minds.

How exactly do you follow this:

"I could start listing credentials in response to this. Hell, I studied at Oxford University, and Matt studied at Harvard. I don't know a single blogger without a college degree, and the vast majority of bloggers I know have advanced degrees. This is similar to our readership, 41.1% of whom have advanced degrees, 38.5% of whom have college degrees, and 6.4% of whom are in college."

with this:

"But this isn't about credentials, and it isn't about demographics."

And maintain a straight face? Also, do you think any normal people who aren't products of the ivy league care about this, and is it worth elevating to such a level of high importance? I don't direct the editorial of anyone, but this is the kind of navel gazing why the left lost power while the right took control.

political pundits are the ones in peril for ignoring the netroots. last i checked, political candidates are increasingly turning to internet communities for grassroots support. the netroots may not be a monolithic force in politics, but it's nothing to scoff at either. i think the pundits are a little jumpy cuz we're encroaching on their turf.

Because he clearly doesn't care to fellate the netroots, as offensive and unfair as that might be.

Gotta say, at this point, this isn't debate - it's drama.  It's by turns amusing and tedious, and it's more unflattering than anything Sawicky could have said, and certainly more unflattering than anything Sawicky has said.

Reading Swacky--made me remember if not for their generation, US  wouldnt enjoy many of liberal ideas then--civil rights, women's rights,  race relations, environmental policies, etc.

Today's movement I think is connected to them.  This administration, we see and feared that the gains their generation have gained for us are being reversed and we need to fight back to preserve it.

So I do have gratitude for their activism and feel optimistic that people are guarding it.

"Hell, I studied at Oxford University, and Matt studied at Harvard. I don't know a single blogger without a college degree, and the vast majority of bloggers I know have advanced degrees. This is similar to our readership, 41.1% of whom have advanced degrees, 38.5% of whom have college degrees, and 6.4% of whom are in college. Frankly, I think it is a bit much to state that people with this level of education are somehow unaware of recent American political history, and / or don't understand "political imperatives" in our system of governance."

The 60's was the last time the educated middle class tried in it's half-assed way to fight for those below it. These days the middle class defends it's prerogatives and calls it politics.
Still this rant is about you more than the "roots."  Middling liberalism is more to the left than it's been in years, and thst's a good thing. I take it seriously, for what it is. What its leadership pretends to be, I laugh at.

my quick take on winship's reference to political imperatives: he's stupid if he thinks we're unaware of them.  we are perfectly aware of them, and we've been getting more aware of them as time goes on.  we've worked on campaigns.  we know they're dirty places, and we walk a fine line between campaigns and real life.  we've worked in political offices, for issue advocacy groups, etc.  we know the fucking score.  we just don't like it.

the thing of it is, we don't have to operate within the same boundaries that machine apparatchiks do.  yes, we know, we know, you have to raise money, compromise one's positions and morals, whatever (at least i think this is the sort of thing he's referring to) in the service of imperatives higher than mere issue-based principle.  what we're doing is attempting to rewrite the rules.  the 60s left preferred to rage against the machine, while we're trying to re-engineer it to the people's benefit.

he basically thinks we're naifs who don't understand that you can't just move on a dime to position oneself the way the netroots would like.  we do understand that, which is why we understand that sustained pressure and attacking the right pressure points are the strategies worth pursuing.  the exigencies of politics aren't that fucking complicated.  in fact, i'd say human self-interest is just about the one thing everyone on the planet understands innately.  

now that i get into writing this i get angrier at this winship fellow.  what a douchebag.  yes, political professionals might have the nuts and bolts of this shit down better, but they also don't understand US.

Winship seems to be the one who is a little bit light on the history.  "The government" has more than one branch.  Democrats continued to control the House and usually the Senate and remained an important presence on the Supreme Court.

As for 1966, the gains were pretty much standard for the "out" party during a war (check FDR losing 42 House seats in 1942, Republicans taking the House in 1952 after the Korean War started, or even Lincoln getting hammered in 1862).

And as for the 'decades" bit:  Republicans did not gain a majority of southern House seats until 1994, exactly 3 decades after Barfry Goldwater ran for President.

Seems like we know our history alright, Winship.

My "serious," Marx-fed, all-natural, vegetarian, chain-smoking college friends spent their time planning the costumes they were going to wear to the protest rally. And yes, some of them never grew beyond that. Others just dropped out.

The difference between now and the 60s is many (not enough) of the netroots do more than talk to each other and complain about "the man." We work on campaigns, work in party politics and we organize.

I come here to network with allies, people with ideas and real-world experiences in campaigns and effective political action. I need the information and ideas to use for the next campaign and the next floor fight, not to share at the next veggie pot luck.  

You read Trotsky? Sweet. Have you ever organized a congressional campaign?

whatever '60s activism achieved, it also handed the country to the Republicans for more than a generation. The netroots better be prepared to tell us what we'll get in return this time around to justify such a result.

The idea that there is a some Faustian bargain between success in 2006, and some benighted dark age to follow of (more or less) wingerdom for 30 years thereafter punctuated by compromised moderate Democrats, does not follow from his premises.  Even if that were true, there is no reason to impute the political misfortunes of the post-1960s conservative movement against the future of the netroots.

The netroots have not really done what the 1960s activists were infamous for doing: spitting on returning soldiers, espousing elitist "democratic centralist" ideas explicitly or implicitly (of which trait Sawicky and Wingard themselves seem benighted), tolerance for or yield as progeny violence, rejection of ordinary social norms like bathing, drug use, etc.  

Now most activists avoided these immaturities but they allowed themselves to associate with those indulged them.  It wasn't "overreaching" but selfish indulgence and failure - refusal - to reach that brought us Nixon, Reagan and W (horribile dictu.)  It was their failure to uphold principle and effectiveness above ranting and indulgence.  

Quite frankly, a liberal president has arguably never been successfully achieved since Roosevelt.  Clinton, Carter, Johnson, Kennedy and Truman all had to be dragged kicking and screaming to take and hold liberal positions.  So much for the 60s Golden Age.

Is Kos going to spit on a fellow Vet?  I bet not.  Jane Hamsher (upon whom rapid full recovery) may take a few personal fouls at old Kate O'Beirne but that's different from spitting on people outside of Walter Reed.

Essentially, Wingard's argument is "don't expect success, since my heroes failed to be, well, consistently heroic."  Since he provides little or no meaningful analysis as to why his 1960s heroes failed, I suspect that his worries are best handled by psychopharmacology rather than political analysis.

Never said dumb.  Very intelligent people can lack a historical perspective and be naive.

The real accusation made in Winship's comment is that 60s liberal activists were responsible for Republican gains over the next 30 years.

If I was a liberal/progressive blogger activist, being called naive would bug me far less than the implication that my actions today will lead to a Republican Counter Revolution in 2012.

And yet it's something to think about.

I personally think that between now and then that even the dailykos driven blogosphere network will fracture along a Revolutionary/Incrementalist faultline.  My Left Wing is already an indication.

There's never any shortage of Danton's to behead in any real movement.

The prowar liberals seem to be blaming the left for the collapse of the democratic party in the 60's and seem to fear a repeat today; they do not recognize that it was their intransigence in pursuing war that brought it down.  They seem to fear a repeat over Iraq.  If they want to commit suicide again over that issue, I for one will fight to stop them. Ignore the personal attacks, they  are getting desperate

Much ado about nothing from my perspective.

My perspective:

1) It's up to me to get what I want out of this technology that allows two-way communication.

2) I have access to much better research on the issues than is ever provided in necessarily "dumbed down" policy analysis in "netroots" diaries. Every bit of what is there is secondary source based and usually drawn from a very narrow, often self-referential group of sources.

3) There is no better laboratory for nuts and bolts activism than the netroots sites like MyDD. In this category we see real innovation, primary sources, and can speak directly with true experts. Not all of the experts. There are experts at communication, field, etc. who do not speak with us here, but there are many who do, and their number include the best and brightest of those who specialize in using 21st century communication technology for camapaigns.

4) My use of the netroots and contributions to it will be different than those of other people. They will have different needs and different interests.

Winship's money quote at the end:

Like other committed Democrats, we hope for their success and will work and fight alongside them on many endeavors, but we will also point out that whatever '60s activism achieved, it also handed the country to the Republicans for more than a generation. The netroots better be prepared to tell us what we'll get in return this time around to justify such a result.

That's rich.  Or else what?  You WON'T "work and fight alongside" us?  Is that a threat?  ROFL.

And how different is that statement from the Bush talking point of "you're either with us or you're with the terrorists," just substituting "Republicans" for "terrorists"?  Or try this one on for size:  "If [the Democrats] have an alternate strategy that leads to success, I'm ready to hear it."  Sound familiar?

Oliver Willis calls this whole thread "navel-gazing" and he's right, but not in the way I think he means.  It's not the "netroots" gazing at their own navels, it's actually concern-trolling from the Democratic "centrists".  Be careful, netroots, or your activism may hand the Congress, which we just narrowly and with much toil dragged from Republican clutches, right back to those same radical Republicans!  Best not rock the boat too much, carefully consider the effects of your actions, keep your fingers in the wind and keep taking the pulse of the American people, like we do!

Winship is partially right.  There is indeed a chance that the netroots will push an agenda that is not backed by a majority of Americans.  But there's something called "having the courage of your convictions" that Winship and the rest of the DLC triangulators seem to have forgotten about.  The media lionizes McCain for "straight talk" and having the courage of his convictions; they do the same for Bush, talking about how he "says what is on his mind."  Well, we (if I may be so bold) are saying what is on OUR minds, straight up, no obfuscations.  I am not naive, and political considerations are always worth, er, considering.  But at some point you have to say politics be damned, this is what I BELIEVE, and people will either come along or they won't.

What will Winship get to justify taking the risk of handing the country back to the Republicans?  How about an agenda that puts people above commerce, that insists on open government to the extent practicable, that demands the government follow the rule of law and is a good actor on the world stage, and sets a course towards the United States being once again recognized as the moral leader of the "free world" instead of the biggest bully with the biggest stick?  Is all that (and more) not worth the risk?  If not, just what in the world does Scott Winship think is worth fighting for?

Full disclosure:  I am one week away from my 40th birthday, and therefore at least 5 years older than Scott Winship.  I have a B.A. degree in Political Science from the University of Kansas, known to some as "the Harvard of the West".  I graduated Lawdy How Cum with a sparkling 2.0 GPA.  If that disqualifies me from this rarified discussion, I could care less.  I am a citizen of the United States and a registered voter, and THAT qualifies me to hold forth on whatever topic comes to my mind.  And I has spoke.

I didn't study at Oxford or go to Harvard. But I'
ve read Marx (Karl and Groucho) and Sagan and Tuchman and Tacitus and Homer and Gregory of Monmouth and Chaucer and Froissart and Dogen and St. Francis and Benedict James and Sun Tzu and Lao Tzu and Chuang Tzu and Machiavelli and Jefferson and Madison and Hamilton and Paine and Clauswitz and Dr. King and Dick Gregory and my father and a boatload of other writers on a boatload of other subjects. And I'll bet my IQ is a bigger number then Sawicky's. Big whoop.

I also span the generation gap from my formative years during the Vietnam war and activisim during that time as a child to my adult activism today.

This pissing match is what is dumb. People letting their pride and ego get in the way are what is dumb.

Can't we all just get along and go kick some neo-fascist ass together?

We, "the activists," probably could use more regular intellectual depth and historical context in our writing, while I think the "intellectuals" could use a lot more focus on the sort of action and meta self-awareness that you regularly see at places like MyDD and Dailykos. --Chris Bowers

There's a revolution going on deep in the progressive blogosphere if you look for it. Max, if you're reading this, check out the Koufax nominations in the comments of this thread, especially the feminist and radical women of color blogs. The Koufax awards is held annually for the best of the left blogs. Last year, women broke into the progressive blogosphere and this year, it looks like minorities will this year. Click through these blogs and you'll find reincarnations of the New Left.

http://koufax.wabanaki.net/node/32

to hell with patience. to hell with jfk. lbj, nixon and bush. all murdering bastards. i'm 62 and i still don't have any patience. patience kills. patience kills. patience kills. still out in the weather.

I don't think he was saying that the netroots was "dumb" in the educational sense.  He seems to believe that the ideas and activism espoused on blogs like this and DK are naive and ultimately will be costly to the Democratic Party.  I beg to differ.  I consider myself the average jane citizen.  I am a 38yr old stay at home mom who has always thought of myself as a Democrat.  I wasn't "active", but I voted.  Over time I realized I was developing a sort of contempt for the Democrats that I saw on shows such as Meet the Press and the news in general.  I couldn't quite put my finger on it but I knew I didn't like what I was seeing and hearing.  This wasn't my Democratic Party.  There was no passion, there was just a sort of acquiescense with what was being put forth by the Republican Congress.  I associate the Democratic party with one that fights for social and economic justice.  It understands that the gov't should provide some basic amenities for those who are unable to provide it for themselves.  I watched with dismay as the Bankruptcy Bill passed, but the mininum wage increase languished.  I saw little or no resistance to the build up to Iraq.  I wondered why should I keep voting when these are the type of timid Democrats that is representing the party.  The Netroots restored my interest in voting and politics.  My DD, DK and sites like these tell us that indeed there is more to the Democratic party than what we've been seeing.  It tells the me not to give up and be part of the movement that is working for a change.  So Winship can call you guys "dirty fucking hippies", but the Netroots kicks ass.

I don't like Winship's tone, either, but I think he may not be saying what you think.

He isn't questioning anybody's intelligence when he talks about naivete.  He is suggesting a lack of cynicism.  To people like Winship, politics is about winning more than about substance.

...we will also point out that whatever '60s activism achieved, it also handed the country to the Republicans for more than a generation.

And here I was thinking that the Voting Rights and Civil Rights Acts did that. I guess LBJ didn't know what he was talking about.

Someone tell Winship to be careful with his pretty hands.  He's going to need them to pump my gas.

I don't think that Max meant to say that the netroots are "dumb" in an individual and intellectual sense, but that as a collective entity, they functioned as little more than a new, more dynamic means to raise money for the Democratic Party in the last two cycles. I'm not sure I totally agree with that portrayal, but that was my sense.

However, I do completely agree with Max that the netroots and the activist liberal-left (for that is, after all, what the netroots mostly are - we are not talking about anarchists and communists here) is almost totally lacking in "critique." What I mean by this is that the netroots left has plenty of criticisms, of individuals, practices, policies, etc., but it has no overriding critique of how society functions, and why it is that things turn out the way that they do, other than that certain individuals (ahem - republicans and joe lieberman - ahem) are immoral, or idiotic, or grossly selfish. What the netroots lack is a critique of institutions and society considered in its totality (cf. much-maligned theorist Theodor Adorno's eminently readable "Critique")

This is the same, I suppose, as saying that it has yet to develop an ideology, a set of guiding principles and a worldview that allows it to process information, fit that information into preexisting theories of society and history, and then formulate a means to act based on information plus theory. Perhaps that is also the netroots' strength - it eschews ideology in favor of action, which allows diverse worldviews to hold together without bitter argument and divide, and allows it to concentrate on practical things, like raising money and defeating Republicans.

It is, in short, pragmatic. However, as even Rorty (another theorist) would tell you, pragmatism can itself be simply another form of ideology, and a particularly counter-productive form at that, because in declaring itself "practical" and "pragmatic" it leaves its own assumptions unanalyzed. This may seem like a call for navel-gazing, and perhaps it is, but how does one figure out one's place until one examines it?

I would argue that if the netroots wants to become more than an online wire service, and a fundraising arm of the Democratic Party (which are not bad goals, which may be what it wants to be), it needs to think a little more about critique, and a little more about ideology, where it stands in relation to these two things, whether it wants to develop them, and whether it is willing to stake its future on arguing for a fully-fledged ideological position (no matter how "practical" and "commonsensical" it might be). Because otherwise there are two essential problems.

One, what institutions has the netroots built? Josh Marshall rightly clued in on this. Websites are not institutions. They are not like trade unions, or organized activist groups, that can sustain political commitment over a long term, can connect to the history of political struggle, can formulate new problematics, strategies and solutions on more than an electoral level. How can the netroots move beyond becoming yet another pressure group to making real the democratic promise of the internet? Is the netroots willing to push for truly radical democracy - politically, economically, socially and culturally?

Two, what are the netroots politics? Is it opposed to war? Is it opposed to global trade agreements? Is it anticapitalist? Is it pro-equality, as well as pro-liberty? What makes it Left? More importantly, will it oppose the next war, the crux of Sawicky's polemic? Will the netroots support a Democratic war if Hill or Obama are elected in 2008? What if it is as misguided as previous wars? This is a question that people like me, on the left, have to ask, as we witnessed Democrats and liberals cheer on Clinton's wars of choice, and those of us with longer memory, remember that every Democratic president of the 20th century, including Wilson (Haiti), FDR (Nicaragua), Truman (Korea), Kennedy (Cuba, Vietnam), LBJ (Vietnam, Indonesia, Dominican Republic), Clinton (etc.), with the exception of Carter, were involved in unnecessary, imperial wars of choice. Are the netroots anti-empire, or are they just anti-Bush empire? Do the netroots consider their support for the war in Afghanistan a mistake, now that it has emerged that 1. we cannot win that war either, 2. it has since emerged that there were other options than going to war, and 3. that despite their cruelty and repression, the Taliban was the only stable government Afghanistan has had since the days of the Khans. I worry about with Max about this also, because I remember the anti-war protests of the Clinton years to be very lonely indeed.

Essentially, then, are the netroots progressive and pragmatic, or just partisan? This is the question that I suppose I will have to wait on.

As for the general denigration of theory, and the bursts of anti-intellectualism: depressing and of piece to Republican criticisms of the academy. Is theory totally useless and opaque? No. Do you need to read it? Not necessarily but it might be helpful.

For instance, Marx has many interesting pages which illuminate the current direction of the global economy. The Marxist writer Giovanni Arrighi had a wonderful two part piece in the New Left Review a few years back on the Iraq war and the US' crumbling hegemony.

The much-maligned Marcuse still offers many interesting things about the consumer economy. He developed social-psychological explanations as to why, perhaps, someone might feel that they not only want, but need, a Hummer.

Guy Debord's writings shed much insight on the sad state of contemporary politics, culture, and the culture of war.

A current debate between two high-falutin' theorists, Slavoj Zizek and Ernesto Laclau, over the meanings of populism would be worth a read both as an insight into the American right, but also as a warning to the American left.

Hannah Arendt on evil remains crucial to this day.

If you don't like the Europeans, what about those good ole Americans like Michael Harrington, C. Wright Mills, Noam Chomsky, Richard Rorty?

Without a theoretical approach to the world, it is my experience that complex issues are reduced to issues of morality and ethics (cf. Alain Badiou's metapolitics) rather than issues of politics, ideology, history and struggle. And that is a dangerous road to go down, for either left or right.

Sorry for the hodge-podge nature of this comment - had a lot to cover.

I consider being called brainless a real plus. I love being underestimated.

That fact is, the netroots in North Carolina are already having an important and palpable impact on politics and media.  We call it the Kissell Effect, and it's not about fundraising at all.  Its about community, activism, energy and watch-dogging.

"I would argue that if the netroots wants to become more than an online wire service, and a fund raising arm of the Democratic Party (which are not bad goals, which may be what it wants to be)"

The effect of the internet on politics (which is what "netroots" is) doesn't really have a "philosophy" or "strategy".  It evolved and is evolving from the technology and how people use it. Kind of like when a new "wonder drug" is out and it's going to cure all kinds of things...then side effects are discovered and beneficial results they thought were from the drug are from something else entirely and it settles in as an effective drug for certain conditions.

One of the uses of the internet for politics is discussion and debate and that may be its real sleeper quality. We lost of lot of the community political interaction due to the urban/suburban development of the last 60 years.

Internet forums likes this provide a chance for people to build communities, to discuss the issues, to debate the issues something that we've lost over the last 60 years.  I think it gets more people involved in politics and that's a good thing...especially for Democrats who always do better the more people vote.

The Netroots aren't dumb and I don't care if Chris Bowers studied at Oxford..my husband has a degree from Oxford and a PhD from MIT and from time to time he can be pretty dumb.  I have a high school degree.  Degrees mean nothing and don't add to the argument at all.

The netroots are useful.  The most famous are young and they suffer from hubris...or shall I say that we suffer from the results of their hubris.  

Max gets it.   Helping get a congressman into office is laudable, but what Mr. Bowers doesn't do is accept criticism well.  The Blue Dog he refers to only won by about 1500 votes in a gerrymandered district outside the county.  Bowers hubris could help lose him the seat in 08.

Bower's defensive stance here and the defensiveness of some of the responses simply demonstrates to me that Max has struck gold..."truth."

Bowers needs to acknowledge that it is possible that the Democrats would have taken Congress because the voters are pissed off about the war and Chris Bowers, while making a valuable contribution, had little to do with it.  He and Kos are not the main story.  Ask any Joe Sixpack the kind of guy Bowers wouldn't know how to talk to (but the guy who put the Democrats over the top) what the Democrats stand for and he'll tell you.   Their not Bush.

Hubris is what G.W.Bush stands for.  Kos, Bower, Atrios, etc. could use some humility and some acknowledgement that everything isn't about them.

As the the credentials posturing I see here.  Shove it...this Jane Sixpack ain't impressed.

To follow up on my last post....Bush is a graduate of Yale and Harvard.