Burnt Orange Report

The idiocy of kos-gate

By Jim Dallas

This is not going to be a well-linked, well-worded post because the point I will be making is a simple one, and doesn't need lots of URLs to be self-evident.

Anyone alleging that the Dean campaign had an interest in surrepitously "buying" Markos or Jerome as a sort of fifth-column doesn't understand how Democratic politics work.

Do I think that the hiring of two well-known, well-read bloggers was calculated to improve Dean's standing among bloggers and grassroots activists. Obviously! When you hire consultants, you are not just buying a service, but also a bundle of things like respect and the power to intimidate. That's why, given two consultants (or lawyers) with equal talent charging an equal fee, the one who is better-known and more "intimidating" to others will be hire. It makes a statement about your intentions, gives your candidate more leverage within certain "in-groups", and garnishes more free media coverage. These things, while intangibles, do have economic value. Would you hire Johnny Cochrane or a no-name defense attorney, if both wanted the same amount of money?

Moreover, this is why, for example, Kerry and Edwards fought over Bob Shrum (who, presidential record aside, does carry with him a certain prestige within consultant circles).

With that said, it only makes sense that there'd be a strong positive incentive for Kos and Jerome to - at every point - note their connection to the Dean campaign. And for the most part, that's what they did.

To me, it's self-evident that this was the Dean campaign's motive for hiring them, because that's what big-time campaigns do; they're not looking for propagandists, they're looking for people who are, shall we say, connected. And from what I've read, I think Zephyr's statements can be inferred to mean that.

What's really at issue is whether employment should (ethically) bar 1bloggers from writing about their employers. This is really a matter of following procedural ethical norms, not one of substantive honesty. Reading both kos and zonkette, I think that's the issue, and rather than addressing it I think Kos is wasting a lot of time and effort trying to fend off what he perceives as a huge attack on his credibility using the "vigorous arm-waving" technique. I'm almost - almost - upset about the fact that this is being treated as a highly-personal issue by Markos, particularly as it regards a lot of dissing of Zephyr (who I met once, and who I know Andrew thinks highly of).

That point, stemming from the ancient bromides of the most-holy church of journalistic objectivity, is a debatable one. But the fact that the MSM is spinning this as a "truth-gap," implying that people were being lied to, is completely fabricated. I dare anyone of sound mind and body to come forward and say, "I read DailyKOS a lot in the late fall of 2003 and early winter and I didn't know - had not one single clue - that Markos was working for the Dean campaign."

Moreover, as noted above, you can explain this entire situation away without resorting to insinuations about dishonesty; a simpler explanation is that hiring Kos was done to get somebody who knew what he was doing as well as somebody who had a relatively-high level of prestige. It's a simpler explanation because you don't have to assume people are lying to you (are they or aren't they? and did they know they were? etc.); rather, straightforward economic motives explain people's behavior.