Blog P.I.

Unintended amusement abounds at this GOP press release, which is either an attempt to damage the Lamont CT SEN campaign by linking it to Daily Kos or vice versa. To a devotee of attack journalism and smear campaigns, it’s a rather unsatisfying document; we carry no brief for Kos here, but when the slings and arrows are this poor — or this poor — it’s hard not to remark upon it.

After a puzzling focus on the fact that Markos Moulitsas apparently went on holiday this summer and has recently returned, the release warms up by collecting a few of Kos’ pricklier comments — the infamous “Screw ‘em,” etc — and chides him for calling Joe Lieberman a “sore loser.” If you recall the “Sore Loserman” meme from 2000, they’re not really on very firm ground here.

As is typical of the form, the sourcing varies from overzealous to non-existent: the Las Vegas Review-Journal is invoked to establish that there might just be some kind of a connection between the blog “Daily Kos” and the convention “Yearly Kos” — or, possibly, to establish the unthinkably controversial statement that dKos is “left-leaning” — whereas the statement

MOULITSAS’ NEW JOB: CO-CHAIR OF THE DEMOCRAT PARTY

just sort of hangs there in space. At best, we get deft mischaracterization, whereby

“I know it’s not the most popular thing to say, but the French are right. You don’t win wars against terrorism on the battlefield.”

is summarized as:

Moulitsas On Fighting Terrorism: “The French Are Right.”

and the fun game — good for any high-traffic site of any political affiliation — in which the site’s proprietor is criticized for the ridiculous or offensive statements of their commenters or diarists. The rest of the time we’re left with their amusingly obstinate refusal to say “Democratic Party,” the assertion that two thirds of the “Democrat” leadership “fled to” Yearly Kos, and the off-message allegation that dKos is an “out-of-the-mainstream blog,” which is less defensible even than it is comprehensible. As far as the leftosphere is concerned, dKos built the mainstream — and that’s exactly the criticism the RNC would presumably wish to wield against blogs of the left.

Of course, the point is not that the RNC shouldn’t be trying to drum up bad publicity about Kos and his blog. The point is that they really should be doing a much, much better job than this. What’s more, if they really are intending this as the first shot in an ongoing campaign (see “Lieberman v. Lamont” halfway down the page, see also here) then it’s especially alarming. One assumes their next salvo will include an informative paragraph explaining what “web log” means.