Why can't you just point out that he has his house adorned with posters of the GOP on his wall, and leave it at that? Why respond tit for tat?

why not push a filibuster?

""The bloggers and online donors represent an important resource for the party, but they are not representative of the majority you need to win elections," said Steve Elmendorf, a Democratic lobbyist who advised Kerry's 2004 presidential campaign. "The trick will be to harness their energy and their money without looking like you are a captive of the activist left."

Hey, harness THIS Steve.

We have seen this from the very beginning "Oh aren't those bloggers so cute and feisty! And they have money too!! Tell them they are welcome to the Party as long as they sit quietly in the corner."

Well no, if we can't step over to the stereo and change the music we are not hanging around. Not we will be leaving either the figurative or literal Party, but we will find a vacant bedroom and crank up the noise. And frankly Steve Elmendorf does not have to like the tunes we are playing.

I could stand the condescension if we were winning ala Clinton, I could grit my teeth and support the Third Way as a necessary evil for winning and holding power so that we could push through some of the progressive agenda and support portions already enacted and now under active threat. But Steve and his buddies have just delivered three defeats in a row. Why he is still willing to present himself as an expert on winning elections is beyond me. But neither he nor anyone close to him is going to get my dollars this year.

Harness MY money and MY energy! Sorry this Democratic donkey was not bred to simply take the bit in my mouth and pull the wagon at the bidding of the Beltway "smart" boys.

Very odd and distorting article.  Why would we be against Tim Kaine responding to the State of the Union?  I haven't seen many people criticize Kaine on MyDD.  Quite the opposite since he won a tough election in a Red State.

Bsides, nobody pays attention to the person responding to the State of the Union.  It is one of the most overhyped, unimportant media events.

I think you are to something here. I attended a forum at the Kennedy Library which featured Ben Bradlee and Don Hewitt as guests.

In the question and answer period that followed the host led discussion an audience member got up and commented about the coverage of the leadup to the War in Iraq and the coverage of the our occupation. The audience member was extremely critical of the New York Times and to critical to a lesser extent of The Washington Post.

Bradlee"s reaction was borderline angry at the criticism but definitely defensive.

He questioned where the person got their news and was sneering at the internet. I remember he said "Who are their editors?"

The MSM is very threatened by the bloggers who follow "their beat".

The Kennedy Library event was last year - before the Judith Miller stint in jail.

I have seen criticisms of the choice of Kaine to rebut the SotU, but I've also seen moderate Reid lauded many times.  The concern of the lefty blogosphere tends to have less to do with ideological purity than it does with the degree to which Bush's immoderate policies -- something Democrats of all stripes should be able to agree on -- are opposed.

Which brings us to the real elephant in the room -- the Iraq war.  The media has turned the Iraq War into the all-out benchmark of liberalism, garnering a moderate anti-gun conrol ex-governor of Vermont with the reputation of a raving leftist.  Opposition to the war on the lefty blogosphere has less to do with liberal ideology than the fact that it was stupid execution of a stupid idea, and as a result, it hasn't gone very well.  Now Dem politicians may be struggling to deal with the political miscalculation that led them to vote for the authorization of force in 2002, and the DLC may keep ranting that only support for this war can gain national security cred, but the reality is that most people oppose this idiotic, badly-managed war, and it doesn't take a dyed-in-wool liberal to point to it as the key folly of an incompetent president.

Extremism has nothing to do with Kaine.  Those who wanted Murtha to give the response didn't want him because Kaine was too religious.  They wanted him because they thought he'd be better able to attack the president on the war.  And that's where the conflict in the Democratic party exists.

In every case, they have portrayed party leaders as gutless sellouts.

While the concrete falsehoods represent just the tip of the disinformation iceberg, you are exactly right to call them on it.

If the Washington Post is going to run what is essentially an op-ed as news they should at least take care to get their facts right.

The piece is low on concrete details and high on sensationalism.  This "reporter" appears to have an agenda and an axe to grind that simply doesnt belong in the Washington post news section.

The Huffington Post, although an excellent blog is hardly the most popular blog.

Much like Ana Marie Cox of Wonkette, who used to be trotted every time there was an issue regarding bloggers, for VandeHei to only refer to one blogger hardly lends statistical reliability to his rant.

As a Virginian who fully supported and still supports Kaine and thinks folks will be plesantly surprised when they hear him next Tuesday, I was one of the voices that rejected Arianna's take on the subject.

And although most posts on her blog bowed down to the queen in chief, sort've speak, a look at Tristero of Digby will show that many liberal bloggers took issue with Arianna.

Unlike our Republican bloggers, as I've noted many times over, liberals do not always drink the kool aid for the same kitty dish; and when they feel someone is wrong, they take a cat walk.

Now at least we know when he says "democratic activist" that its Mr. Steve.

Mr. Steve is concerned that his power base in DC is being eroded by the blogosphere.
Anything to hold onto power, even untold lies to the WaPo (who is all too happy to print any Dem is disarray story.)

Put Stevie on the list with Donna Brazile and JAmes Carville as living in the past and irrelevant.

JIM BRADY? Ha. Worse than no editor, I'd say. Here's a man who lied, censored, colluded in personal attacks by Hugh Hewitt, and then lied AGAIN. And, Ben Bradlee should just go away. His own "pool boy" stabbed WaPo in the back so he could sell a book and lied to the public on Larry King about his involvement in the Plame outting. Meanwhile, real journalists are risking life and limb in Iraq to inform the public. The juxtaposition of these "Pampered Pompous Press Poobahs of Pontification" with real journalists is clear enough. Why doesn't VandeHei go serve where he's needed most--in the desert--if he feels so strongly about THE CAUSE?

I read this and few other sites every day, usually several times a day, and that I get to WaPo only if time allows.

I think folks like VaneHei, with a whole career invested in the traditional press, have no idea -- none at all - how little they actually matter, even (especially) to politically well-informed readers.

Curiously enough Tim Kaine is very popular with Virginia Democratic Bloggers.

but it is told from a very biased perspective.

There IS a tension between the netroots and the Dem establishment - and we are seeing it right now in the demands for a filibuster.

There HAS been criticism - I have been one - of the party for choosing Kaine to deliveer the SOTU reply.

But He wasn't criticized because "He was too willing to drape his candidacy in references to religion and too unwilling to speak out aggressively against Bush on the Iraq war."

He was criticised for, as his first act,  signing a bill calling for amending VAs constitution to be the most discriminatory against gay people in the nation.

What a perfect story for the Pentagon Post -- it allows them to call Democrats both "flaccid .... gutless" and "fiery liberals .... bitterly partisan" in the same story.

Going from being ignored to being maligned is a quantum leap forward for the netroots. Next stop: being feared.

What, was Jim Vandehei on vacation?