Certainly a milestone -- Kos Allows Vote Issue Back On Front page

[EMunster]

http://www.dailykos.com/section/gen_2004

[Paradise]

1. kick! n/t

[suziedemocrat]

2. I never understood why Kos didn't want talk of fraud

on his site. I guess he thought it might make him lose the hard-earned respect he had achieved.

[dogindia]

4. so many of the left bloggers and people like

Franken have refused to talk about it. Even Michael Moore. Al Gore. Moveon. These are people who have spoken out totally critical of this administration. It is still a mystery. I think it is an important subject because it speaks to the bigger problem of denial perhaps fear and the programing of cultural and political dialog. And particularly in the main press there was so much talk about vote rigging and unverifiable machines and the whole problem of control by partisans before the election. Is it that the problem is just to difficult to embrace with the Republicans holding so much power? Is it that such fraud on a massive scale is just to difficult to contemplate? Is it if an administration sets up such a sequence of lies and blatant misdeeds even without lies that the public gets hardened and frightened? Is it if you tell someone you are going to do something against their interests is such a consistent and continuous way does it create a kind of death of dialog...a dis empowerment?

[mattclearing]

12. Is it possible they have been threatened?

eom

[AntiFascist]

16. Very strange....

the idea of electronic voter fraud via Diebold became an issue in California a long time ago, well before the rest of the country began talking about it. I wonder if certain left journalists were caught by surprise, or worse yet, if they are counting on 4 more years of Republican control to up their ratings? :shrug:

[Casablanca]

19. I think RaulVB was spot on ...

... it's awareness of the psychological abstraction called "political capital". It convinces people to play tactical politics rather than bold, old-style principle-based politics to protect their power base. They become more concerned about their part of the movement rather than the movement itself.

Kerry is more worried about how he's going to get along with his colleagues across the aisle in the Senate than in ensuring a clean election. Franken is more concerned about how a tarnished image will affect his career and fortune than ensuring a clean election. Kos is now acknowledged as a political force in the blogosphere, credibility he will do less and less to risk, even when risking it is called for.

It all goes to show how the Borg is made up of people who once wanted to overthrow the Borg from the inside. Fear of losing what capital they've gained sucks them in further.

[RaulVB]

20. Good analysis

I suscribe it entirely. That is the key component of their reaction to the fraud. Fear of losing what they have "gained."

[RaulVB]

5. "Hard earned respect"?

He wants to RUN FOR OFFICE!

He didn't want to spend "his political capital," that's all.

[suziedemocrat]

6. Oh - Thanks for telling me.

I was really confused when someone posted a comment he made - I've pasted it below. That's when I started coming here. But - I was always puzzled by it.

Here is his post - unformatted:

Vote Fraud Insider talking? | 193 comments (193 topical, editorial, 0 hidden) | Post A Comment

This is embarrassing (4.00 / 2)
Really, You guys are doing a great job of discrediting this community. Keep it up. Piss away everything we've built the last two years in a fit of blind rage.

So "r.g. in North Carolina" becomes Sen. Bob Graham. Nice...

Some of you want to believe SO FUCKING BADLY that this thing was stolen that you'll jump on anything that smells even remotely like proof. And then you drive this diary to the top slot on Recommended Diaries.

A fucking joke. I don't think I've ever been more disappointed during my tenure at this site. It's probably a good thing I'm going on vacation on Wednesday. I'm feeling mean right now.

by kos on Mon Nov 15th, 2004 at 23:13:30 PST

[Woo]

9. Ya know ...

It's a damn shame that people operate this way -- I read Kos -- I still read Kos occassionally -- I came here after I found out how the issue of fraud was being treated there... because I felt so strongly something with seriously wrong.

I'm not only speaking of Kos -- but all of them -- democrats with 'political capital' -- congressmen/women -- Senators-- I try to put myself in that position... risk everything -- or play it safe.. I keep thinking I would do the noble thing. I keep coming back to what would I do -- but I'm not sure... and in the face of what possibly took place -- to write it off... or let it sit on fringes until I'm sure it's safe to jump on the bandwagon -- it saddens me that I'm not sure what I would do.

Is there something wrong with us... that we would just let it slide and hope against hope someone else might fight for what's right?

[goldengreek]

13. You would cover the potential fraud.

Even if you had political capital. You'd make sure to display a healthy dose of skepicism, but that's what you'd do. Virtually all of us would have. There are just too many red flags to pass that up.

Air America Radio -- on the other hand -- they took the totally opposite track. If fraud becomes provable enough to at least convince a critical mass of Democrats, the network will be riding high for years to come on that.

[RaulVB]

14. Yes, KOS and other bloggers were not responsible

And they have lost TONS of credibility.

[understandinglife]

3. It is sorta "ironic"...especially the last paragraph....

....check:

http://www.dailykos.com/comments/2004/12/10/8412/7131/38#38
http://www.dailykos.com/comments/2004/12/10/8412/7131/41#41
http://www.dailykos.com/comments/2004/12/10/8412/7131/59#59

The key would be that a news item gets a bunch of google hits.

Well, just wait until early Monday morning for a news item that will likely have the google news search server needing a backup or two ;-)

Peace.

"When Did Bush Know?"

[texpatriot2004]

7. Good, now I will go back to reading KOS I quit when he wouldn't

cover the issue.

[bleever]

8. I don't have enough time to go back to Kos at this point;

I don't have enough time to spend at DU as it is.

When he dropped the ball -- "big time" -- I wasn't interested in taking part in the extended game of "blame the victim" going on over there. But I still wish him and other Kossacks well.

[glitch]

10. I feel the same about everyone who dropped the ball on this.

If they don't get this, they are not my go-to guys for info.
This is so blatant and so basic, what else don't they get?
And if it's lack of guts that keeps them from discussing it, well, don't need that either.

[goldengreek]

11. I remember posting on this a couple of weeks ago.

About left wing sites not covering the (potentially) stolen election. It's good to see Kos changing his strategy. While it may not have been stolen -- I'm still open to that -- there are too many strange things going bump in the night to totally blow that possibility off.

[warbly]

15. it wasn't Kos who put it on the front page

It was Hunter, a weekend fill in front page poster. Kos would prefer to talk about anything else and most of his posts are just reprints from the MSM. If i sound like i'm down on kos, i am. he is chickenshit and/or malinformed about evoting fraud issues. I still go there for the diaries and i think that site has a great format, but i don't go there to read the pablum kos posts on a daily basis.

[Casablanca]

17. Oh good, just in time for the corporatist Repug press to hijack the issue.

Which I'm convinced has been the game plan all along - ignore the story until the elector vote or the joint session in early January, then use the concerns to push HAVA II - new and improved with even MORE black boxes.

ES&S and Diebold will do limited hangout with admissions of computer bugs that they've already fixed (in the Mafioso/Microsoft Security Pack sense), having built-in several more security back doors to replace the ones they closed.

Building the evidence to challenge the vote was as time-critical issue with a window of opportunity that is closing. And Kos was part of missing that opportunity. I will take nothing he says about it seriously from here on out.

[senseandsensibility]

18. Didn't Kos

also come out shortly after the election against Dems using ecomomic issues in elections. I seem to remember that, and it made NO SENSE WHATSOEVER. He may have called it class warfare, like the repukes do, or some similar term. It was ridiculous and kind of scary. If we don't start appealing to poor whites and others with the truth about the ecomomic "policies" (ie. treasury raiding) of this administration, we will never win elections.:-(