This one is hard to explain. First, you need to know about the very real video made by a Hillary supporter named Gene Wang. The New York Times wrote a good article about it but here’s the video, which much be experienced…
So here’s something I did very quickly, a quick little sketch of what a follow up might look like.
It wasn’t just ‘old media’ or ‘main stream media’ who ignored the John Edwards story or got it totally wrong. Unfortunately, it was also the left wing blogosphere who overwhelmingly let their readers down. Many sites didn’t cover the story until it burst like a dam on cable news. Only one site censored it, however.
I don’t know Markos Moulitsas Zúñiga, the founder of Daily Kos. I’m still banned over there for discussing the Edwards story and I get letters and tweets asking me if I’m unbanned yet. I wrote Kos days ago to see if he thought banning me was a good idea and I haven’t heard anything.
Up until now, I’ve assumed it wasn’t personal. Then tonight, I remembered that Kos himself actually had written about the Edwards story on DailyKos before I did.
Now I think I know why I’m still banned. It’s not just that I got the Edwards story right. More significantly, Markos got this story totally wrong. I mean, 100% totally wrong. And his wrongness set the tone over at Daily Kos for everyone who attacked me and who continue to attack me to this day. Look what the leader of Kos told his followers.
Seriously, I can’t believe this is even subject to debate, but for the crazies, no source is too disreputable if it validates their warped world view.
Daily Kos: Why won’t the “MSM” cover Edwards love child story????
You nailed it, Kos! It’s telling that Markos quoted Richard Blair from All Spin Zone in that post. However Richard has done something Kos still hasn’t; admitted he was wrong.
I’m sad about this, because I was and am a very firm believer in the issues on which John and Elizabeth Edwards have led, especially since his first run for the presidency in 2004. I’m further saddened because no doubt their voices will now become silent. They have more important things to attend to.
I’m disappointed - no, hopping damn mad - about this, because I’ve been a supporter since 2004. He’s received my very vocal support, as well as financial contributions. I
No such reality from Markos. While mainstream news outlets like The New York Times are doing a bit of hand wringing about the case, Markos published a new diary actually congratulating himself and the whole community for being so darn swell to Elizabeth Edwards. It’s stunning that the Kossacks are so happy their echo chamber got the story so wrong but boy are they happy.
No wonder the Edwardses chose the Daily Kos as the place to launch her homespun manipulative PR deception piece, which helped push the falsehood of the 2006 ‘no affair anymore’ date four times in three short paragraphs. She knew she’d have a receptive audience of Kossacks whose critical thinking skills have atrophied.
In the middle of the Kos groupthink hug, someone brought up unbanning me. That didn’t go over well.
Here’s the comment.
Stranahan is the worst kind of so-called journalist. He only wanted to be right, and to “break” the story. Markos has a great site here, inspiring thought-provoking, reality based discussions. The community banned Stranahan because he was an idiot opportunistic jerk. This site has made such a difference and serves as a community townhall, and we (the community) need to keep it humming.
When Markos brought up the Edwards scandal he wasn’t an idiot opportunistic jerk, right? Even though he mentioned the story first he wasn’t trying to “break” it, correct?
The commenter is right. I don’t belong in the Daily Kos community. I only wanted to be right. Guilty as charged. That’s exactly what I wanted. Now if only we can figure out what Daily Kos wants to be.
Cool picture from florian.b who also features this quote…
“Restriction of free thought and free speech is the most dangerous of all subversions. It is the one un-American act that could most easily defeat us.” — Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas
Please DIGG my new john Edwards piece right now
BREAKING UPDATE: I made a new name to comment on a thread someone started about me getting banned….I used my own name. 3 hours later, banned again!
Update. We’re getting a lot of traffic, so I should mention one thing - a few reports have said I was a longtime blogger at DailyKos but it’s more than that, really — if you visit my YouTube page you’ll see that DailyKos founder Markos Moulitsas called one of my videos ‘the best YouTube parody’ of 2007. So this whole thing is really a pretty big turnaround.
Someone on Kos noticed I was banned and they discuss it. Short version - I had it coming! This completely get wrong what my posts were about, but it’s nice for them to be able to do that where I can’t comment. Any of you Kowards care for an actual discussion, I’m here.
Also, the Gawker wrote about my banishment and turned up the ultimate answer to the idea that I was banned for citing a tabloid — a 2005 diary someone wrote with Kos commenters praising the National Enquirer when they ran a story about George Bush. (A story that wasn’t sourced with first person accounts the way the Edwards hotel story was.) The Kos Community banned me because of the subject matter, period.
If you want the best roundup of posts, facts, and reporting about this story the gossip site Deceiver has gone above and beyond the pale in covering this.
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.)
Here are the pieces I wrote on Kos that caused the problems…if you look, I’m not writing about anything that isn’t being written about already.
Dissent, Disloyalty, And Disappointment
Irrefutable Proof Of The John Edwards Scandal
Erin Kotecki Vest also wrote this piece about me getting banned. Editors from Kos contacted her. I haven’t heard a thing.
MoveOn.org is having a contest to do an ad for Obama that’s thirty seconds. I’ve been flailing about for like three weeks trying to come up with a concept and I just fucking hated every idea I had. All very typical - kids, the future, and so on. The deadline just passed four minutes ago. I had a bad cough all day, I think my read is weak in some places and I threw together the edit in twenty minutes after going out to drop off my taxes. I came up with an idea today and this is it. It’s really raw but it’s also really honest and so for that reason, I’m proud of it.
Here’s the video I co-produced for Brave New Films, with great character design and main illustrations by Kirk Anderson, additional illustrations by Patrick Bobllio and lip sync animation by Dave Ciaccio. The awesome voiceover is by Alan Berhoft. I did a bunch of stuff on it - concept, co-scripted, edited, animated and things like that. Thanks to Brave New Film’s Paris and Leda for all their hard work on this, too. It’s supposed to get a big rollout next week.
This is the piece that was mentioned in the Los Angeles Times article last week.
If you want to get a detailed, extremely well put together look at the Hillary Clinton / Bosnia story / stories - watch this from Talking Points Memo and make up your own mind.
Lee Is Also...
February 18th, 2008 at 8:38 pm
I like turtles!