Keeping the little people in line

Billmon takes a long look at the Capo de Koso brouhaha and comes to much the same conclusion as I have. None of this has anything to do with trying to hurt Markos or the blogosphere. It's all about keeping the Democratic pols in line. I posted about this myself back on the 12th, just after YearlyKOS, when this column by Byron York hinted at what was to come:

One theme of coverage of the YearlyKos convention is that Moulitsas and his followers are playing an active role in the 2006 and 2008 campaigns. Left unsaid is whether they will be an asset or a liability for the candidates they support. It seems reasonable to expect that any Democratic candidate who allies himself with Moulitsas, or accepts DailyKos support, will be asked, by Republican opponents, whether he or she endorses some of the things Moulitsas has written and said.

Here's part of what Billmon has to say about the latest shot in this battle:

Seriously, though, I suspect the real objective here is to try to scare away the Democratic pols who have been cozying up to Kos and the liberal blogosphere. The sight of all those powerbrokers -- Harry Reid, etc. -- lining up to kiss Kos's ring in Vegas must have really set the klaxons wailing at DLC HQ. ...

... The Lieberman Dems don't hate and fear Kos and the Daily Kos "community" because they are too far to the left. They hate them because they represent an emerging power center within the Democratic Party that they don't control -- what's more, one that is now much closer to the public mainstream on the central issue of our time (the Iraq War) than they are.

Democratic leaders, not just backwater also-rans but people who actually have words like "Leader" in their title, are starting to take bloggers seriously as an effective source of political power. That is a threat to the established political order and one way to defend that order to is to put the fear of God into those leaders. Politicians are cowards compared to your average blogger (if, for no other reason, then they have a lot more to lose). The elites know this and will use that knowledge to their advantage. Be prepared for many more shots to come.

Interesting Times indeed.