He actually said that Cindy Sheehan and 'Swift Boat Veterans for Truth' were the same thing? And then he accused us of being propagandists? That dishonest sack of shit!

Mr. Chait may have steered his bumper-car of intellectual inquiry into a wall by focusing on "special credibility", whatever that may be, as opposed to just ordinary credibility, based on whether somebody's actually telling the truth or not, but his original point stands. It is understandable that the press not treat Cindy Sheehan's story seriously, given the existence of "many parents of fallen soldiers with strong views on Iraq". Once you're committed to resolutely ignoring all the fallen soldiers and their families because many of them have not mounted public protests, it's not at all fair to start paying attention to any among them who do mount public protests. And if one of them camps out near the President's ranch, and the President would rather ride his bike than meet with her, it's not fair to notice that, because then you'd be noticing that one parent, which would be unfair to all the other parents you're ignoring, given that their losses are purely individual and unrelated in any way like, say, the consequences of that President's policies.

It may also warrant pointing out that Cindy Sheehan was elevated onto the national stage by members of the netroots via blog posts describing and supporting her actions. The Swift Boat Veterans for Truth were elevated onto the national stage via massive donations from political operatives directly associated with the Bush Campaign. May be hair-splitting, but there is a difference.

Just another bullshit peddler, in this Administration's followers they are LEGION. A woman who speaks up and questions such a horrific loss of her child is to be commended for her steadfast bravery. WE NEED TO ALWAYS QUESTION WHAT WE DO AS A NATION. We are now the giant on the earth and have to be careful where we step.

What the fuck? Is he serious? Why should they give her views such weight? Maybe because millions of people expressed an interest, and she was, in addition to being a mother of a dead soldier, also at the head of a prominent anti-war campaign? Maybe it was because "many parents of fallen soldiers" didn't speak out with the same intensity and determination that she did? Maybe? "Many parents of fallen soldiers" don't share the stage with Hugo Chavez. How much more fucking obvious could it get? Fucking Christ, what a dick.

"Take the case of Cindy Sheehan, the mother of a slain soldier who camped out at Crawford, Texas, in August 2005, demanding to meet with President Bush."

Damn but I love an ambiguous sentence.

So a slain soldier camped out at Crawford, Texas, (but not "in" Crawford) in August 2005, demanding to meet with President Bush? That's some soldier, that slain soldier. Most dead people camp out in the boneyard.

no,no,no- he was slain AFTER he camped out at Crawford. The Bush crime family is ruthless that way.

I read the whole TNR piece, all the time growing more and more irritated with the constant baseless accusations.

When Chait says "In the netroots, though, the measure of an idea is its rhetorical effectiveness, not its truth."

and

"The notion that political punditry ought to, or even can, be constrained by intellectual honesty is deeply alien to the netroots."

and

"To ... journalists, the relevant metric is true versus untrue. To [the netroots], the relevant metric is politically helpful versus politically unhelpful."

and

"Most people concluded from these failures that liberals simply didn't want partisan vitriol of the sort offered up by Rush Limbaugh and Fox News. They wanted high-minded discussions of the sort found on National Public Radio. Nonconservatives, wrote The New Yorker's Hendrik Hertzberg in 2003, "wouldn't think it was fun to listen to expressions of raw contempt for conservatives."

This analysis, shared by nearly all observers just a few years ago, turns out to be completely wrong."

I just have to assume that it's all because TNR was a target of Markos Zuniga at some point, and he's just being defensive.

I was thinking that perhaps Chait was overstating the case against the netroots, exaggerating the hysteria and partisan oversensitivity of bloggers - but then your little rant proved that point nicely.

Chait claimed in your "favorite part" of his article that the blogs did for Sheehan what the right wing media has done for marginalized voices for years. An obscure layperson's lonely crusade was picked up and promoted by the mainstream media, after it caught fire among partisans.

The Swift Boat Vets are perhaps a bad example, in that they were well-funded, but the point he made, which is that the right wing apparatus which have moved fringe figures to the national stage has worked for the left through blogs, is valid.

He wasn't calling Sheehan a liar. You guys need to take a deep breath and get over yourselves.

I was thinking that perhaps Chait was overstating the case against the netroots, exaggerating the hysteria and partisan oversensitivity of bloggers - but then your little rant proved that point nicely.

Chait claimed in your "favorite part" of his article that the blogs did for Sheehan what the right wing media has done for marginalized voices for years. An obscure layperson's lonely crusade was picked up and promoted by the mainstream media, after it caught fire among partisans.

The Swift Boat Vets are perhaps a bad example, in that they were well-funded, but the point he made, which is that the right wing apparatus which have moved fringe figures to the national stage has worked for the left through blogs, is valid.

He wasn't calling Sheehan a liar. You guys need to take a deep breath and get over yourselves.

He wasn't calling Sheehan a liar.

Right. That's why I never said he did.

May I gently suggest you may want to take a deep breath of your own, and then read this again?

Don: Take your own deep breath and stop misrepresenting the article you are commenting about. The straw man fallacy lacks class.

I don't need to take a deep breath - I just think your comments are profoundly silly and oversensitive.

The Swift Boats Vets and Sheehan are not comparable in many ways. They ARE comparable in the way that Chait stated they were - as an illustration of a closer balance of power in pushing what would otherwise be marginalized figures into the mainstream media spotlight.

His statement was absolutely unexceptional. Somehow, however, it is apparently an example of intellectual dishonesty or demogoguing in your little world.

As to whether you are asserting he called Sheehan a liar, I think you are being disingenuous. You are explicitly stating that his comparison is false because the Swift Boat Vets are liars, and Sheehan isn't, and you point to the phase "no special credibility." It seems that your objection is along the lines that he has lumped Sheehan in with the Swift Boat Vets, in terms of their truthfulness. If that isn't your objection, then perhaps you could clarify.

Of course, "truthfulness" and "credibility" aren't the same thing at all. "Credibility" is the power to inspire belief, regardless of truthfulness. Sheehan and the Swift Boat Vets were figures of limited credibility - having no particular credentials other than being alleged to be private citizens with an opinion, as opposed to being a leader or policymaker.

It seems that your objection is along the lines that he has lumped Sheehan in with the Swift Boat Vets, in terms of their truthfulness. If that isn't your objection, then perhaps you could clarify.

Certainly in terms of truthfulness, but not only in that sense, Don. To say that Cindy Sheehan is somehow equivalent to the "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth" is to make a host of unwarranted assumptions.

Cindy Sheehan is one person. Before she became famous by camping out in Crawford Texas, she had no political influence beyond being a member of Code Pink, she was not recieving money from anyone, and especially not from a partisan political group. After she camped outside of Bush's ranch and really started to draw the attention of the media and of the wider Anti-war movement, she was still not affiliated with a partisan agenda, but instead with a group of people who were pushing an issue- ending the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. She had, however gained notoriety and could get funding from the Peace movement.

The "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth", on the other hand, were constituted specifically as a partisan group, meant to aid the Republican Party by attacking Kerry. They were, from the very beginning, well-connected with the political establishment. Some of them had been previously gathered by Richard Nixon to attack Kerry's character during the Vietnam war era. They were also, from the very beginning, well-paid by donors close to the Republican pary.

So, in addition to differing in their attitude toward truth, Sheehan and the Swift Boat Veterans differ in their connection to a political party, they way they got thier money, and the intent with which they came onto the media scene. That's why it's really disingenuous, on many levels, for Chait to say they are equivalent.

Finally, what are talking about, "in our little world"? We aren't in a little world, we're in the same world you are. Perhaps you think that because you see our comments on one web site, we are a cohesive group of people. But this is only your naivete. Actually we are bunch of semirandom people who decided to check out "A Tiny Revolution" today.

Thanks, Jonathan. You hit this one out of the park. That's one of the worst false equivalencies I've seen in a long time.

As to the Sheehan-Swifites comparisons, I see most people have refuted Don at this point. I must say, I missed the part where Sheehan appeared in television ads across the nation and where the Swifties were "marginalized" but only elevated because of rightwing blogs. And good lord, of course their honesty isn't an incidental issue, especially in a discussion of "intellectual inquiry!" Chait's analogy fails on so many levels, it would be wrong to criticize him for only one. ;-)

Frankly, this isn't even worth bothering with.

There are a whole HOST of reasons why Sheehan is different than the Swift Boat Vets, from being male vs. female, to being funded vs. unfunded, to being honest vs. dishonest.

The point the article made was that the left wing blogosphere was performing the same function as the right wing infrastructure in elevating someone of no particular credentials to the mainstream media spotlight. That is a pretty simple observation, and even if you may dispute it on some level, it isn't absurd or offensive. Typically, money helps get into the right wing infrastructure - but the point is that there used to be just a right wing system of getting marginal figures into the mainstream and now there are two competing systems, and the left is largely dependent on the blogosphere. Really, not a hard point.

Listing other points of divergence just diverts the point you originally made. The author's point had nothing to do with whether anyone had money, etc: you referenced truthfulness.

To take an analogy, say the author said "Michael Moore and Rush Limbaugh both struggle with their weight." The reply "but Rush is a liar" isn't a valid criticism of the comparison. But, that is exactly your rhetorical point, and it implies that there is some allegation contained in the comparison that makes the truthfulness of the two a legitimate basis to critique the analogy. When called to defend your comment, you then talk about how one does films and the other does radio, etc.

It's a waste.

The point the article made was that the left wing blogosphere was performing the same function as the right wing infrastructure in elevating someone of no particular credentials to the mainstream media spotlight.

I replied to you in that way because you were still focussing on the 'equivalence' issue. But there's a lot more in Chait's article that is tendentious. How can Chait say that a woman who has lost her son in a war has no 'credentials' to criticize the instigator of the war? Shes not the only one by any means- does that make her somehow suspect? Is Chait expressing jealousy about Sheehan's ability to gain media attention?

Chait also seems to believe that people who talked about Sheehan were 'intellectually shabby'. What does he mean by that? What is 'intellectually shabby' about talking about a woman who lost her son in a war? Isn't the effect of the war on the families who have lost children important?

You say this it is a wast of time to talk on this blog. I don't know what to say to this. If you think it's a waste of time, then stop.

BTW, there are lots of assumptions and generalizations that Chait makes that are open to debate and criticism. He confines his discussion to liberal bloggers who are consciously attempting to create a progressive movement using some of the same techniques as those who created the right wing noise machine. Although there are some bloggers that take that tack, he doesn't name names, and it is by no means clear that they dominate the left blog universe. Moreover, he neglects to mention differences - like the fact that the right wing infrastructure is dependent on common donors and that blogs allow open comments - that may make the blog system less likely to be a lock step movement than the right wing network of think tanks and talk radio.

Instead, he takes them as largely the same, when there really isn't any proof that in the long run they will be.

Lots of interesting ideas for comment. But "How dare he compare Sheehan to the Swift Boat Vets" isn't one of them.

I will stop, because, frankly, you're an idiot.

Yes, we need to focus on the real heart of the matter: whether people who disagree with Don are idiots. I am also glad that Don, a random commenter on a blog, can decide for everyone which ideas are interesting and which are not. What would we do without him?

----How can Chait say that a woman who has lost her son in a war has no 'credentials' to criticize the instigator of the war?

Obviously, she had no more credentials than any of the other 4,000 parents, who held 4,000 opinions about the war, none of which are automatically more informed than the average person on the street. To have credentials, such that the mainstream media will notice you, is to hold some title, have some experience in the government, etc.

He could say she had no credentials because by any standard, especially the mainstream media's, she had no credentials. He said it because it's self-evident to anyone but a blogger.

To say otherwise is intellectually shabby, at best, and at worst a failure to understand common English - which appears to be your main challenge here.

---whether people who disagree with Don are idiots.

Does intellectual dishonest just grow like moss on the posters here? I said one person is an idiot. That is my opinion, and it is amply supported by what he stated. One idiot is a veritable sea of people who disagree.

But, you couldn't deal with that, could you?

Calling ANYONE an idiot over a difference of opinion is school yard childish.

The guy from Halloween is right, although in our defense, recess-age children are way too smart to compare a protesting lady to a well-funded propaganda group. That's for babies like my dumb sister.