Jerome Armstrong

Once again, I find myself marveling at the ability of the right to repeat the same talking points in every media channel known to man. What we're presently seeing is a repeat of the practice of swiftboating, which I'd define as the rendering unacceptable of any serious challenge to rightist power by a concerted mud-slinging campaign. It's been done before, for example, to Michael Moore, derided as a 'radical' for accurately pointing out the Bush administration's failures in confronting terrorism, and that the Iraq war was based on lies; to Richard Clarke, a dedicated civil servant and counter-terrorism expert in four administrations, who morphed into a greedy hack interested only in notoriety and book sales; to Paul O'Neill, the former Treasury Secretary, over his exposé of the inner workings of the Bush administration; and most consequentially, to John Kerry, who was turned in a matter of weeks from a war hero into a craven traitor. There are more examples, of course, including attempts that failed, such as the one on Eliot Spitzer.

Today, a similar effort is directed at the most powerful and consequential challenge to the right to emerge in decades: the Progressive blogosphere.

This is the post formerly known as : Jerome, honey, do you really want to be called "Baby Turdblossom"? Instead become the next Chuck DeFeo. It was edited for the sake of brevity.

[via American Prospect Online - Hard Sell]:

“Absent Gore, the person people favor is Feingold,” explained Kenneth Bernstein, a.k.a. TeacherKen, a white-bearded social studies instructor at the Eleanor Roosevelt High School in Greenbelt, Md., who also advises congressional candidates on education policy and spoke at the conference. On Sunday morning, Bernstein gathered for a final coffee with MyLeftWing’s Maryscott O’Connor and NYU cultural anthropology professor Jeffrey Feldman, who writes a column he calls Frameshop. The consensus at the table was that Warner had come off all wrong, from his extravagant party to his slick campaign video to his speech, which focused too much on autobiography and not enough on acknowledging the importance of the netroots -- a mistake Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid did not make in his Saturday night address, which heaped praise on the bloggers and their new medium.

[...]

all the griping was clearly having an impact on Warner's internet strategist Jerome Armstrong by Sunday morning, who dismissed the snipers as "ideological" and "pretty left wing."

"It wasn't going to be a love-in to begin with,"Armstrong sighed as the final brunch session of the conference wound down. "This was a great opportunity for bloggers to meet Warner. But also, the whole blogosphere and broader press was focused on this event. Coming here was a no-brainer."

I find it very interesting that you co-authored a book that focuses in part on the scourge of politicals consultants while becoming a political consultant (actually, Online Strategy Director, correct?) for presidential hopeful, Mark Warner. I honestly cannot wrap my head around that one yet.

What I find more fascinating is the way you and your crew at MyDD.com have been streering the blog towards proving : (1) You represent a monolithic constituency called "the Netroots(tm)"; (2) Because you represent this constituency, said Netroots is neither ideological nor left-wing.

Which is why when I coincidentally read the following Karl Rove quote after reading your abovementioned, I just felt sick to my stomach.