The Rude Pundit: Unsolicited Advice to Markos Moulitsas on His Newsweek Column

[meegbear]

My, my, hasn't Newsweek created a crazy little ideological war. Lookie here: it's eeevil Karl Rove on the right vs. nasty blogmaster Markos Moulitsas on the left. Commenting on the presidential election. Ooh, the gloves're gonna come off now. Let's watch the blooding...

Except, of course, in their opening salvos, it's such a punk ass wet noodle slap fight that you just stare and wonder, "Is this all ya got?" Rove jumps into the fray by saying that Hillary Clinton is a cold, brittle woman, so she's beatable by a strong but huggable Republican, before offering a brochure for his services (leaving off his price of two souls and three fat babies). Markos begins his attack by saying that Democrats are gonna win because Bush is such a 'tard and he's fucked it all up and Democrats should just keep sayin' that and it'll all be good. Texas vs. Frisco, baby.

Joan Walsh over at Salon is wrong: Rove didn't win the first engagement. It was a draw in that neither of them said anything surprising, revealing, or important. In fact, both offered a list of shit that added up to "well, that's fuckin' obvious."

Here's the dirty little secret that anyone who has read Daily Kos over the years knows: Moulitsas has never been the strongest writer on the site. On any given day, Hunter (Michael Lazarro), georgia10 (Georgia Logothetis), DavidNYC, McJoan (Joan McCarter) or others are writing more stirring, incisive, and insightful posts. That's not to mention the non-fronted diarists.

This, however, is not to disparage Markos. He is a mad genius in that he created a space where progressives, silenced as public voices by the major media, could express outrage and pain at the strange, violent turn the Bush administration was heading into. Later, it became (and remains) a place for strategy and truth-seeking, along with the anger. This whole grand pseudospace we occupy here in the ethereal realm of the Internet exists in large part due to Markos. Even after purging permanent links to this and other more rambunctious blogs from the front of the Daily Kos, the Rude Pundit can still offer nothing but his admiration and respect to Markos. But just because you're Edmund Woolley, it doesn't mean you're also Benjamin Franklin.

Still, Markos is the face of Left Blogsylvania, and he knows that we're a community. So here's some advice, Markos:

Remember that the Republicans are liars and that Americans have a short-term memory that makes the guy in Memento seem like a talking encyclopedia. And the thing about good liars is that they can say their lies with a straight face, say them so it looks like they believe the lies with all their hearts and who are we to dare question them. You have to treat them like the liars that they are. The way to do this is not to politely tell everyone how incompetent the Bush administration has been. The way to do it is to say they are liars and make their lies plain. You want to revise the story that Americans believe about people like Giuliani and Romney. If you wanna invoke the Bush administration, do it to show how, say, Giuliani is intimately tied to it. Make their failures his failures, not the failures of nebulous Republicanism.

Remember who your opponent is: Karl "We Will Fuck Him...Like No One Has Ever Fucked Him" Rove. Anyone who's paid attention to politics for the last decade knows that this depraved demon always has an ace in his back pocket, that he's never telling you everything, that he's always calculating where to place his camouflaged holes, like a trapdoor spider. What's his game with his Hillary obsession? Is it a masterful triple cross, where he says the truth but he wants everyone to think he's lying but he's really telling the truth? Or is it merely that he wants to destroy a Clinton, as the Rude Pundit has said before?

Finally, c'mon, Markos, stop sounding like a fuckin' Donna Brazile wannabe. You're a goddamn blogger. Remember your roots. Represent a little bit, for chrissake. We actively look for asses to kick because there's so many that deserve the tender pain of a shoe-shaped bruise on their hinds. Put your Doc Martens back on.

Oh, and leave Reagan out of it. Americans are too deluded to believe anything other than that senile bag of fuck was a demigod.

http://rudepundit.blogspot.com

[cali]

1. yes!

good advice. Let's hope Markos listens to the RP.

[yodermon]

2. "Markos, stop sounding like a fuckin' Donna Brazile wannabe" Ouch! n/t

[Cha]

8. I know..Toufreakin'che!

I hope he heeds this.

[lala_rawraw]

3. all i know is

had they put me in opposite Rove, all of my columns would be an exercise in making him cry.

[cali]

4. which is exactly what it should be about

if markos is just going to be timid and try and demonstrate he's a good boy who can play well in the MSM league, what's the point?

[lala_rawraw]

6. dunno

...markos is interested in getting a dem elected and i am interested in making Rove cry... that is likely why is playing it saferthan I would:)

[Justitia]

5. I LOVE the Rude Pundit. Why can't HE be the one to take on Rove?

The RP is my not-so-alter political ego.

[Cha]

7. Give 'em, Rude!

You wouldn't think a lefty blogger would need advice on how to debate rove for newsweak but there it is.

Wasn't it newsweak that had koch, d'amato, and Mark Green snapping around each other on the political spectrum? And now they've come up with rove and markos?

Rude is full of sage advice..Rec'd!

[K Gardner]

9. They'll pick us off, one by one

I hate seeing good, feisty, hard-hitting progressives - people who can and have made a difference against the Republican machine - being co-opted and essentially silenced by fame and propulsion into the mainstream media. Then we have to start all over looking for a voice, then THAT one gets demonized by O'Reilly and once again propelled into the mainstream.. its a circular clusterf***. Hopefully Markos was just playing it safe on his first foray.

The only true answer is for ALL of us to quit infighting and demonizing each other, find our OWN voices and keep them raised. That way when one of us gets picked off, the rest will still be shouting.