If I had to be relegated to the Dustbin of History, I'm glad it was in Vegas.
I, Old Media, came here to attend a New Media convention of progressive political bloggers aiming for a technological revolution that would dispatch mainstream media to the tumbrels. It was the journalistic equivalent of mingling with your own pod replicant in "Invasion of the Body Snatchers."
Old media and new circled each other "like kids at a seventh-grade dance," said Jennifer Palmieri, a Democratic operative.
Technology has enabled the not-meek to inherit the earth, and Democrats and others who refuse to drink the cyber-Kool-Aid will, Mr. Moulitsas said, go into the old "dustbin of history."
The fast-talking former Army artillery scout with the boyish demeanor and dark brown buggy eyes is no one to take lightly. Some may think the Internet messiah who put Mr. Dean on the map in 2003 is "a fame hound, a loudmouth nerd at the back of the room," as The Washington Monthly wrote. But others, including adoring conventioneers who called the scene at the debut YearlyKos gathering "magic" and "a rock concert," see him the way Ana Marie Cox, nee Wonkette, described him this week in Time.com: "He's the left's own Kurt Cobain and Che Guevara rolled into one."
If I were Kos I'd watch my back. Those guys are deader than a coupla carps!
Mr. Moulitsas assured me he didn't see himself as a journalist, only a Democratic activist. "I don't plan on doing any original reporting - screw that. I need people like you," he said, agreeing that since he still often had to pivot off the reporting of the inadequate mainstream media to form his inflammatory opinions, our relationship was, by necessity, "symbiotic."
Were the revolutionaries simply eager to be co-opted? Mr. Moulitsas grinned. "Traditionally it was hard to get your job," he said. "Now regular people can score your job."
Fine. I'll be at the Cleopatra slot machine pondering a career in blogging, which will set me up to get back into mainstream media someday.
I don't think blogs and bloggers need to 'replace' the old media. If we could wheedle, cajole, or shame them into doing what they're supposed to do, I'd be happier than a pig in shit. At least the blogosphere is finally on their radar as a force that needs to be recognized instead of pooh-poohed. That the MSM sent a lot of people to cover this convention shows that.
I did, however, detect a very slight odor of disdain and maybe a little sour grapes coming from my favorite b-t Irish redhead. Never fear, darlin', we still need ya.
Maybe when the Blogger Party takes the helm, she'd like to intern for the Secretary of the Interior...
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