Everything you said was true--and very clearly put.
But I still think there's something more to be asked.
Such as why--with all the remarkable self-organzing we've shown the blogosphere capable of--we ended up waiting for someone (Senator, major org, whatever) to do something, rather than the next thing simply happening as either (a) an emergent function of what we were doing already, or (b) the direct result of some very specific action taken by someone (or several someones).
In other words, I think you've described quite succinctly what we were doing--which was considerably more than meets the eye. But it does not address the gap between that and what we needed to be doing--and, more importantly, how we could have addressed that gap in time to do something about it.
Being the first to step into the light makes you very vulnerable to attack.
I believe that when a "big enough" leader finally steps forward, they give people tacit permission to join in. The leader can't be just anyone, though. He or she must be someone that people recognize as a leader - someone with enough stature to provide sufficient protective shade from the harsh glare of public attention.
People who aren't yet recognized as having sufficient stature may come out first, but they are not likely to block enough of the sun to give those waiting in the wings the protection they feel they need in order to step forward.
They are leaders, but small leaders. The protective shadow they cast is not long enough.
i would certainly like to see less waiting and more doing. in fact, i think the blogosphere is very capable of "more doing", and that's been proven.
from where i stand, this fight was different. on an order of magnitude, i don't think that we bloggers alone could have stopped the nomination even if every "big" lefty blogger stepped up with a game plan. we just aren't that powerful yet. and because the SCOTUS fight was so, well, huge, we needed everyone from NARAL to the green party to our entrenched leadership to our lobbyists to the netroots be on the same page, working from the same game plan, with the same end goal.
now, i think we had the same end goal: stop the alito nomination. but the middle part was not well coordinated or mapped out. it's like that southpark episode. step one: steal underpants. step two: ??? step three: profit!
nobody really put forth a real plan for stopping the nomination until it was too late, and from what i saw there (and granted, i may not be privy to some things) was very little behind-the-scenes coordination between the big lefty orgs and activists like us. now, there was a significant amount of coordination and information sharing between the netroots. and i must give senator kennedy and his staff a TON of credit for working with the netroots during the last minute push.
but i do think that some netroots folks tried to step up and lead (armando comes to mind). but on top of that, i also think that many of us feel empowered, but not quite powerful enough without the backing of our democratic leadership.
there's something i've written so often on the blogs, and that's that if we want our leadership to stand up and fight we have to show them that we have their backs. but i also think the reverse is true, that if our leadership wants us to have their backs, they have to stand up and fight for what's right. and that's what i was trying to hit on in my comment late last night. when someone finally stood up (kerry and kennedy), we were there instantaneously. we took all the information that armando and chris and everyone else had been putting out there, and used it when we executed kennedy's game plan.
it didn't work this time, and i just hope people learn their lessons and do better next time around.
I think it bears mentioning that while BlogPAC had gone out of its way to announce its intention to fight the nomination with "scalito.com" as early as November 1st, the site remained inactive until fewer than two weeks remained before the hearings.
markos and jerome disbanded it back in the fall. it is supposed to be replaced by another project run by stoller and others.
scalito.com was brigham's idea, and he's become toxic, apparently.
you can email me if you wanna discuss more details.
