Leadership

In the Beltway’s eyes, Markos leads a movement of progressives in the blogosphere. But this is inaccurate, and Markos would be the first to tell you so. Markos doesn’t lead the movement. He stands in front of it and is symbolic of it, but the movement’s direction and interests flow directly from the people who compose it. The movement is a bottom-up thing, not something that a guy leads from the top.

It’s probably comforting for Democratic politicians to believe that Markos leads the movement in the progressive blogosphere. That being the case, all they have to do is soothe the savage breasts of Markos and other rabble-rousing bloggers and then get back to business as usual. That’s why Democratic politicians are so unfailingly solicitous of the liberal bloggers.

I have this to say about the radicals: I love you. But you don’t have to look to hard to find examples, among us, of some of the same things being rightly criticized in the Brittney Gilbert blogswarm referenced above. An example:

It’s a fine thing to slam someone for writing something you find offensive. It’s another thing to slam someone for not writing something the way you would have, or for writing about a subject other than the one you think they ought to have picked.

It’s a fine thing to criticize someone moderating comments on their blog in a way you don’t agree with, but it’s another to slam someone for not moderating comments on their blog 24/7.

It’s a fine thing to decide that your blog has a specific mission. It’s another to decide that your blog’s mission is the only mission any blog should have.

In short, it’s one thing for you to be disappointed in or angered by bloggers with whom you share some political viewpoints.

It’s another to assume they owe you anything other than basic human respect because you’ve done them the favor of reading their work.