... but let me offer another perspective as to why.

It's not so much that the Netroots, as individuals, suck; rather, it is that the system of blogs served to pacify and rechannel the energies of a political movement. Whether political blogging was, by design, used against the populace to derail action is questionable. What is undeniable is that the Netroots, from the most obscure lurkers to the A-list bloggers, were co-opted by the political establishment in order to cut the movement off at the knees.

The 2008 primaries divided, Obama for America conquered, and the Netroots either lost or gave away any legs they had to stand on. We were sold a line that we had to change the system from within, and that was DEAD WRONG. Making nice with the most powerful stakeholders was a MISTAKE.

Blog readership is WAY down as many of us have woken up to the fact that blogging about politics from within the system is like playing poker with all of your cards face up on the table, like telegraphing a pass in football or basketball, like leaving home with your front door wide open, etcetera, etc. In the Bush-Cheney era, it was, initially, for emboldening ourselves and finding strength in numbers. It was a way of pushing news that wasn't being reported, of speaking truth to power. It had the potential to change the world for the better, and in many ways did force outcomes that were undesirable to the Establishment. But by moving out of the street and working at our separate nodes, we made it easy for foes both foreign and domestic, Republican and Democrat, to marginalize us.

It took a few years, but it was done. The organic movement that was political blogging in the early/mid-2000s will never happen again. Some other unknown mechanism will need to manifest itself in a different set of circumstances none of us could possibly foresee from this point in history. So, yes, the Progressive Netroots suck, but not just for the reasons you point out.