Once again, I find myself marveling at the ability of the right to repeat the same talking points in every media channel known to man. What we're presently seeing is a repeat of the practice of swiftboating, which I'd define as the rendering unacceptable of any serious challenge to rightist power by a concerted mud-slinging campaign. It's been done before, for example, to Michael Moore, derided as a 'radical' for accurately pointing out the Bush administration's failures in confronting terrorism, and that the Iraq war was based on lies; to Richard Clarke, a dedicated civil servant and counter-terrorism expert in four administrations, who morphed into a greedy hack interested only in notoriety and book sales; to Paul O'Neill, the former Treasury Secretary, over his exposé of the inner workings of the Bush administration; and most consequentially, to John Kerry, who was turned in a matter of weeks from a war hero into a craven traitor. There are more examples, of course, including attempts that failed, such as the one on Eliot Spitzer.

Today, a similar effort is directed at the most powerful and consequential challenge to the right to emerge in decades: the Progressive blogosphere.

The strategic challenge posed to the right by the blogosphere - the netroots - is profound on several levels. Most importantly, the netroots have successfully established, in an organic process, Progressive dominance in an entirely new media channel that did not even exist a few years ago. Previously, when it came to new media - specifically, talk radio and cable television - the so-called 'conservative movement' was in a class of its own. To this day, Air America Radio and Current.tv aside, they still rule the roost in those channels. When it comes to online media, however, conservatives are eating our dust. One theory has it that this is because of the essentially top-down nature (and embryonic authoritarianism) of present-day 'conservatism', but the reasons why this is so are less important than the sheer fact in itself. The Technorati rankings tell the story.

Most importantly, however, the netroots are largely driving the rebirth of the Democratic Party as the dominant force in American politics. This is evident, just to pick one example at random, in the role the netroots – we – are playing in the battle for control of the United States Senate. The extent of the online contributions in cash and kind to the contests in question – Pennsylvania, Ohio, Missouri, Montana, Rhode Island, Nevada, Virginia, and Arizona – is open to debate; what is not is our sheer will to win. In the age-old left-wing contest between power and purity, dating back at least to Samuel Tilden, the netroots have opted for the former, though there is some internal dissent. Decide for yourself which of these contributions is most unsettling to the right.

The challenge we present is clear. So is the counter-offensive: an attempt to paint the netroots – or 'nutroots', in a coinage probably originating with Michelle Malkin - as unhinged radicals. Malkin in particular is very concerned about the weakness of online conservatism, as in this post. A Google search for 'nutroots' reveals 64,100 links. The gist of related articles – such as this one from National Review or this commentary on remarks by David Brooks is that the Progressive blogosphere is composed of unhinged radicals pushing a dangerous left-wing agenda. More importantly, the wider goal of the 'nutroots' is said to be the radicalization of American politics and the punishing of people deemed 'disloyal'. Brooks declared in the New York Times, in reference to the challenge against Joe Lieberman, and under the headline 'The Liberal Inquisition':

But over the past few years [Lieberman] has been subjected to a vituperation campaign that only experts in moral manias and mob psychology are really fit to explain. I can't reproduce the typical assaults that have been directed at him over the Internet, because they are so laced with profanity and ugliness, but they are ginned up by ideological masseurs who salve their followers' psychic wounds by arousing their rage at objects of mutual hate.

Prime targets in this swiftboating endeavor – or attempt at definition, if you will - are, of course, Markos of DailyKos and Jerome Armstrong of My Direct Democracy or MyDD, the highest-profile bloggers out there. Markos – or Kos, as he is more commonly known – is being painted as a shadowy puppetmaster of us all, and as someone who 'hates America' for some misconstrued remarks regarding Blackhawk contractors killed in Iraq; Armstrong has some FEC issues in his past, long since resolved. Notably, neither of these smear attempts has really had much effect, simply because neither Kos nor Armstrong in any meaningful sense 'lead' the blogosphere; they are valuable assets, no doubt, for their respective pioneer roles alone, but in the end, both are expendable, because the blogosphere is not about any single individual. That's the crux of any populist movement, which this one is.

More serious is the reaction to the netroots-fueled challenge to Senator Lieberman of Connecticut. This challenge, centered on the candidacy of Ned Lamont, is perhaps the most serious effort by the netroots to date to change both the wider status quo and the balance of power within the Democratic Party. Lieberman, of course, is the Senator within the Democratic caucus to most relentlessly do the bidding of the rightist powers that be. The national conversation about this primary has been very effectively shaped by the Lieberman campaign, up to and including ludicrous charges of anti-Semitism. The strategic danger to the national perception of the blogosphere and the netroots (note that I use the terms interchangeably for the sake of convenience, which is only correct up to a point) is that Lieberman is defining 'the mainstream' as where he is. Given that the Senator has substantial support especially inside the Beltway, this characterization may stick, in especially as it ties in with previously established memes, such as, say, the obvious Bolshevism attributed to that gun-toting country doctor Howard Dean. Most potent in terms of understanding this danger is that the rightist fringe – the Malkins and Coulters of the world – is supporting the Senator's efforts at defining the terms of debate. The danger, to be clear, is that this quasi-bipartisan conservative attack could define the Progressive blogosphere as being outside of that mainstream. That would be a very consequential victory for the right; they know this, and so should we.

So there is cause for concern. We may find ourselves in that spot of the American political scene into which Michael Moore was very effectively smeared; the crazy fat guy who is not to be taken seriously. However, thanks in part to the smiling sun of fortune that lights this moment in history, that is only one possible outcome; the other is that we can thoroughly discredit the right wing. This in part because they've already done so much preparatory work for us.

Two factors will be vital in beating back the rightist attack: one, their miserable record in government, and two, the nature of those doing the attacking. The blogosphere has already played a vital role in exposing the former, helped, of course, by the staggering extent of the failure that is conservative government. On the latter, we have powerful allies in the rightist sphere itself, because of the underlying dynamics characterizing it.

The crucial characteristic of the right-wing noise machine, to use David Brock's phrase, is that it financially rewards radicalism, due perhaps to the fact that its main and sustaining target demographic, the one that pays the bills, is the far-right fringe, variously estimated at between 10% and perhaps 20% of the population. To be successful, as defined as moving product, the right in turn needs to create messaging that is abhorrent to the broader mainstream. Witness, say, Ann Coulter calling for a truck-bombing of the New York Times, or Michelle Malkin calling for the internment of Americans of Arab descent. And that's without plumbing the rich mine of lunacy that is talk radio, the depths of which achieve the unlikely result of making Coulter look reasonable.

In contrast to this agenda of, take your pick, concentration camps, domestic terrorism, death squads, endless war and endless deficits, the neutering of the constitution, and assorted other right-wing demands too outlandish to enumerate, the netroots agenda is majoritarian: a balanced budget, an exit strategy from Iraq, civil rights, the maintenance of the separation of powers, stem cell research, competence in government, and so on. In strategic-positioning terms, we occupy a far more centrist spot than, say, a pundit who says that liberalism is the political equivalent of HIV.

In short, if we counter the attacks on the blogosphere by characterizing our attackers as what they are, and are forced by market dynamics to be, which is grossly out of the mainstream, we can win this fight. Even better, we can use it to finally introduce a long-overdue characterization of the opposition. Or, to appropriate David Brooks' words:

But over the past few years [liberals have] been subjected to a vituperation campaign that only experts in moral manias and mob psychology are really fit to explain. I can't reproduce the typical assaults that have been directed at [liberals] over the Internet, because they are so laced with profanity and ugliness, but they are ginned up by ideological masseurs who salve their followers' psychic wounds by arousing their rage at objects of mutual hate.

As a textbook example of how this counter-attack can work, witness the re-definition Ann Coulter experienced after her recent remarks on the 9/11 widows. She made herself the story; fortunately for the body politic, and unfortunately for her, the radicalism she must embrace for commercial success proved unpalatable to the American public and even to republicans, who did some small-scale scurrying away from her. By now, all of America knows that Coulter regularly calls for the murder of Progressives. In consequence, she's radioactive outside of the 15% or so of the public that thinks as she does.

I have absolutely no doubt that there is a challenge here. I also think we can meet it, and inflict some substantial damage on the other side in the process. We'll see how it goes.