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January 14, 2005
South Dakota?
According to the WSJ it is some sort of big deal that the Dean campaign paid DailyKos and MyDD consulting fees during the campaign. Here is the link. I seem to clearly remember both sites reminding their readership on a daily basis that they were doing this, and anyway it was during a primary and Democratic sites certainly have the right to advocate for the candidate of their choice in a Democratic primary.
What is much worse is what the Thune campaign did. Two South Dakota "independent" bloggers, one with a site even deceptively named Daschle v Thune, took over $34,000 in 2004 to write "objectively" about the race. Read about it here.
Posted by Chris at January 14, 2005 10:10 AM
Comments
I'm not sure what the big deal here is. Is the WSJ just trying to use fear of not knowing what a blog is to scare people into thinking Dean did something wrong? or are they just bored?
Posted by: Tim ![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.chrisishardcore.com//nav-commenters.gif)
at January 14, 2005 12:13 PM
The comparison of Daily Kos to Armstrong Williams is ridiculous on its face. But there is an issue here which Chris Suellentrop discusses in an otherwise hysterical article on Slate, and that is whether Kos recieved money from any of the candidates he was hyping in the Kos Dozen. Were the frequent pleas for money paid advertising, or grassroots activism? There doesn't need to be a bright line between these two roles, but I do feel a bit of discomfort when I don't know whether or not the line is being blurred.
Incidentally, this reminds me of the hooplah surrounding Andrew Sullivan's acceptance of a donation from PHRMA in 2001. Though Sullivan's money came in the form of ad revenue, it was given because of his (wrongheaded, in my view, but honest) support of the drug industry. (find the whole mess at http://www.andrewsullivan.com/print.php?artnum=dish&dish_inc=archives/2001_07_08_dish_archive.html Kos and Armstrong seem to have also been retained because they believed in the product.
In general, this is just more evidence that the right wing is completely uninterested in being a moral exemplar; they are only interested in proving that they're no less bad than anyone else. This is a moral value?
Posted by: LeftTheCapitol at January 15, 2005 04:01 AM
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