What I DID desire, was to see some tough questions asked, and answered, about her staunch support for the war, and for Joe Lieberman’s nearly disastrous (if we had lost one more senate seat in the mid-terms) turncoat campaign. And, even more than an Edwards-type, once and for all, repudiation of her vote to enable, the SPECIFICS of what she thinks she can, and should, do to end the war.

When NONE of that was forthcoming, and when it was obvious that Christy was going to defend it by stamping her foot, and then deleting a few of the more “strident” posts, then, speaking just for myself, it seemed like more of the same old MSM policy of:

“Come here and we won’t ask the hard questions, and we won’t let anyone else do it, either.”

And, I still would like to see someone among the site managers speak about how this little visit was arranged, and what it took to do it.

We all know that Hillary has been catching holy hell from the progressive wing of the party. We all know she’s worried about it.

She cannot be elected, possibly, even nominated, without us.

In this situation, I’d be astounded if, even with a brief “appearance” such as this one was, her handlers (At this point, I use the same terminology I’d use for bush, and why not?) didn’t want to have some control over the give and take.

Again, did the subject of what latitude for questions, even come up, and if it did, what, exactly, was the response of anyone speaking for the site?

We have been asking this of the warpimps in the MSM for, lo, these few years.

Why can’t we ask it of the site overseers here, especially after they tried to, and essentially, did, restrict us to questions about the entirely comfortable subject of equal pay for women, about which, it’s safe to say, practically everyone who posted on that thread, agreed?

Again, let’s just invert it:

If Edwards or Obama or any other candidates come on here, are we going to have the same “single topic” restriction? And if so, who chooses the topic?

I would suggest that if the FDL management gets one of them on, that you guys tell us, to the syllable, what agreement was made, if any, in the process of getting them to post here.

It would be good, if, in the case of Hillary’s thread, that was retroactive.

Thanks, TB.

————————————————————————————————-

One last reply from Pach, appended here since comments close automatically after 24 hours:

A couple of things:

I haven’t been involved in every invitation conversation but I know they have been invited to come and interact with the community under the same guest standards we’ve already explained to you. There’s nothing more to it than that, and I’m sorry you don’t seem amenable to accept that, but there’s no contract in writing, no special arrangement other than hosted chat as we’ve explained.

I’d also say that no one is entitled to get transcripts, etc., of private conversations. You either trust us, or you don’t. We speak with our actions and tell as much as we can, but some work has to be done in private for the work actually to get done.

The topics may be proposed by guests or sometimes we seek guest experts for topics we select. There’s no set rule on this, except that we have to feel the topic is either important or of interest to our readers.

For example, we often post content we know won’t generate the most commentary, but we think it’s important. Our regular labor posts sometimes fall into this category.

The editorial control of this site remains with the site host, Jane, who often consults the rest of us. That’s not, nor should it be, a purely democratic process. We don’t have recommended diaries here by community election, as that’s what is done elsewhere. We have no problem with that model; it’s just not what we do here.

You also said:

We all know that Hillary has been catching holy hell from the progressive wing of the party. We all know she’s worried about it.

She cannot be elected, possibly, even nominated, without us.

Actually, I don’t know that. Conversations I’ve had with some Hillary people suggest to me she does not believe she will win enthusiasm from the netroots under any scenario and doesn’t feel she needs to get it for the nomination.

She’s made no concerted effort to reach out to or win the ardor of the online community, and I don’t expect that to change, this appearance among us notwithstanding. Her campaign does not believe netroots = progressive wing of the party. I think they see us as a much smaller niche among many potential primary voters.

That, anyway, is how I read her campaign.

Let me start by expressing my understanding with anyone who felt confused by what could and could not be asked, per our community practices. Senator Clinton was a different kind of guest than others we’ve had: we’ve never had a presidential primary nomination frontrunner before.

What’s more, the nature of her schedule was such that we could not make an announcement in advance, though she and all the candidates have always been welcome. We did get a general idea of what she wanted to talk about, and the post was submitted to us in time to post it. We felt the topic was an appropriate one for the site because we focus a lot on gender equality.

Now, because we are in new territory, the confusion comes when we don’t have experience with what is “on topic” for a given discussion when the guest is a presidential aspirant. Such a person is not quite like the subject matter experts we’ve had in the past (book authors, Tom Matzzie as an organizer), but that doesn’t mean we’re going to create a context where spitballs are welcome.

Matt Stoller asked a very good question that was accountability oriented, getting to much of the activist base’s criticism of the Senator, that she has not fought for things the base cares about, so how serious is this post? That ws a perfectly good question, which used the post as a springboard, no problem. The same question could have appropriately been asked in a public appearance where the Senator might have made an address on this topic.

The fuzzier area comes when questions that are not based on the “opening remarks” or the blog post come up. We’ve erred on the side of not allowing those in this go round, and feedback is welcome. We were relying on past guest writer precedents, but we’re inventing a new model here in real time, as you can plainly see. We’re still developing as we go.

One thing people need to recognize is that our moderators worked furiously to keep back invective and disrespectful comments the like of which we don’t ever allow here to be directed at blog posters or community members.

May I ask, if we have made this an open topic discussion, would the load on our moderators have been so extreme as to be impossible? How would the community have responded? Yesterday there was a blizzard backstage.

We are not DailyKos, nor do we try to be, nor do we denigrate their model. We moderate comments and community tone here in a way Dkos does not, that’s our niche, and we don’t apologize for it.

Now, as for concerns about Senator Clinton ignoring some questions, that’s her doing. If she is to be criticized for it, fine. Them’s the breaks. She ignored my question, too. As for her short stay in the discussion, ditto the above.

Had we had more experience with this situation in the past, perhaps we could have set it up better and prepared people better for the setting. But we all learn together as we go along.

Those are my thoughts. We’re listening, sorting this out, and frankly I think we’ve earned a bit of community trust on this to get it right. We may not do it exactly the way a given individual will like, but we’ll listen to the community and use our own best judgment, as ever.

I don’t know what you call a “deal”. Let me be specific, Christy:

Did you, or anyone else formerly connected to FireDogLake discuss with Hillary or any representative of hers, what subjects might or might not be covered on her visit? Did you discuss in any way, shape, or form, what tack YOU might take, in dealing with people posting on the thread?

Are you saying that your dealings with she or her rep, were simply: “Come on and post.” followed by: “I’ll be there.”?

I find that hard to believe.

And, the fact remains that I put up a post last night (which someone deleted before I got up this morning.) in which I criticized (and was sarcastic, about) you guys inviting Hillary on your site to do what amounted to a puff-piece Q & A cameo.

And three more posts I made, were also deleted. And the first three WERE repititious, because I couldn’t believe that posts as relatively mild as they were (see some of your regular guest bloggers for “strident”.) would be deleted.

In your #93 reply to Slothrop’s (and others) concerns that limiting the thread to one topic, as he puts it, “just doesn’t seem very bloggish”, you defend letting her come on your site for a SAFE discussion, with some clever footwork:

“Staying on topic is pretty much how we do every chat with any guest…because they prepare to discuss the topic of the post, and not every topic known to man.”

Me: I don’t recall you having anyone on here of Hillary Clinton’s stature before, but if one of the staunchest democratic supporters of Bush’s war, and of Joe Lieberman’s wretched posturing in favor of it, after he lost to Ned Lamont in the democratic primary, can’t do better than coming on one of the top antiwar blogs, and delving into a safe topic like equal pay for equal rights, while ducking (with your exquistely reasoned protection) the issues about the war and her support for it
(until the mid-terms spelled out the political cost for her) then, Christy, I would strongly suggest that your first two sentences on the thread should have been:

“Welcome, Sen. Clinton.” Followed by:

“Here she is, gang! Fire away!”

I mean, do we need ANOTHER president who, when asked an “off-topic” question, starts “farting and tap-dancing”? (Thanks, Kurt. :o) )

No one HERE had any interest in talking with her about “every topic known” to man, as you so straw-horses-assedly put it.
We wanted to talk to her about the issue which is just a little more important than anything else currently facing us, and which is going to define america for generations to come. I also happen to think that the fallout from it, is going to be one HELL of a lot more detrimental to, repititiously, my three granddaughters and the rest of the females in america, than all of the sexist Simon Legrees’ in the Congress of the United States.

I don’t even care if you cull out the repeat questions, but for you guys to allow her here, and then to ask (INSIST…on pain of having our posts deleted) the rest of us to treat her like a sacred cow, is unconscionable.

The only “off-topic” question of any substance that I recall her answering, was the one about Gonzales’ resignation. She said she had called for it a month ago.

Good.

But then:

Things Come Undone: “…it would be unfair if during your presidency, the republicans tore you down because you had to raise taxes to pay for G.W. Bush’s war.”

Which I thought was a hell of a good point, and to which Hillary said nothing.

And Albatross#35:

“Senator Clinton, please repudiate your support for the occupation of Iraq, and for Sen. Joe Lieberman. (I would think that all of the FireDogLake management team would be interested in going “off topic” on that one.)
“It’s time for principled, courageous, leadership that dares take a stand. Thank you.”

Again, Hillary decided not to take the opportunity to address THOSE concerns.

I just don’t see how you guys covered yourselves in this one, with anything but poop.

Hillary Clinton can’t get elected. Fact: there are practically zero repubs who
would vote for her, if Atilla the Hun was heading up the GOP ticket.

Conversely, we in the progressive wing of the party are increasingly appalled, to the point of nausea, at her little triangulating fandance. The sooner we can force her out of the race, the sooner we’ll get a candidate who CAN win.

Christy, you guys have a blogsite. You’re not MSNBC. NO appreciable percentage of the people who post here, ever voted for george bush. All of which means we have more leeway to ask the questions which the MSM has so studiously avoided, in helping to pimp the war to us.

It’s shameful for this good site to do the same.

She supported Joe Lieberman.

She was against Howard Dean’s 50 state strategy, which gave the Senate back to the democrats by a 1 vote margin.

-

We cut no deal with Hillary — nor do we cut deals with anyone else who chats on the site — we use the same rules for every person who is a guest here, just go back and look at any of the Blue America posts and see, as well as the Book Salon posts or any other guest, including Joe Wilson when he was on.

And, we had Chris Dodd on earlier — and the topic he wanted to discuss was Iraq and his bill on the subject that was at issue at that point and time. It was his topic, what he chose to discuss, and what we did talk about in the comments. If you want to make factually unsupported accusations, be my guest. But there was no deal cutting — only a first step at conversation with the second Presidential candidate from the Democratic field that we’ve managed to bring in to chat with readers. We are hoping to do more of them in the future. Jane and I both think that more information is a good thing — and that seeing how a candidate deals with his or her constituents is also valuable.

Your impressions of Hillary were not improved by how she did or did not answer questions or the topic that she chose to address. And that is propping her up how, exactly? I trust our readers to be smart and informed and to make their own decisions based on all of the information — including how a candidate handles him or herself and what they do or do not answer. This has nothing to do with some sort of “site appeal” and has everything to do with getting our readers first hand information about all of the candidates instead of them having to get it through some media filtered narrative. We hope to have them all on at some point — that includes Dodd and Clinton who have already been here (Dodd for two sessions, actually) — and the rest of the entire Democratic field to the extent they will agree to come on and talk with our readers (and, frankly, we may not get all of them, but we’ve extended the invitation nonetheless because we think it is important).

All I did, and all I’m doing, is pointing out the simple truth that allowing one of the democrats most supportive of bush’s war to come on here and essentially duck that, while you scold people to “stay on topic” (or, in my case, delete them) is PRECISELY what Martskers said on #171:

“Forgive me, but maybe someone can tell me exactly what was accomplished by having Hillary as a guest. She didn’t say one thing that wasn’t part of her talking points, and she managed to duck answering any of the more important questions. What a waste.”

Let’s continue:

Mark H: “Is it really a democratic kinda thing to limit discussion to one issue? Was she really only prepared to discuss one issue?”

Slothrop:

“You can’t ask for commentators to keep it on topic here and then criticize Beltway journalists for having coy relationships with politicians.”

Krup: “Please remind me why “we” should “welcome” Hillary “If I knew then what I know now” Clinton? Sorry, but she has defaced your once spotless blog.”

That WAS #194, but it looks like you’ve deleted that, too.

And I’m telling you, Christy, this is some evil stuff to see going on here.

I’ve been on a bluegrass blog (my favorite music) fighting the good fight, practically alone, early on, for 4 1/2 years. At times, it was vicous and more rank than anything that’s gone on here. But I’ve never gotten banned, not once.

Let’s just flip this around, and if you get Edwards, or Barak, of Kucinich, on here, and they want to talk about their “economic policies”, will you be as eager to give them a free ride on Iraq and what we have to do there, as you were with Hillary?

Here’s what I think: I think that you guys were so eager to have a big name post here, that you cut a deal with Hillary, to damp down any questions about her position on Iraq.

If there was NO discussion of anything like that, here’s your chance to say it.

Of course, then you just did it off the top of your head, and we can leave it to your readers to decide which is worse.

You site is getting popular. You’ve done some fine work, for all of us, but you’ve got that decision to make, like a bluegrass band that’s getting popular: do you water down your “music”, to broaden your fan base (and pick up advertisers) or have you got the spittle to keep on speaking the truth and asking the tough questions, and let the chips fall?

A lot of us will be interested in your answer.

i wanted to acknowledge your unprecedented contribution to bringing the possibility of universal health care front and center into the national dialogue.

We aren’t selectively going to shut out one person or another because you or anyone else doesn’t particularly like that person. And we aren’t going to tell them what they should or should not talk about — because, honestly, we learn as much about them from the way they handle this interaction as we do from the answers they give.

But we are not changing the rules for guests to suit your personal needs or anyone else’s — we have refined this chat rule structure over time as a means to have an actual conversation instead of a shouting match, and we like it that way, thanks. Next time Sen. Clinton or anyone else is here, we will use the same exact rules — but if you can ask a question politely and on topic, you are welcome to do so, difficult or not, because that is how we always have and will continue to operate.

Martskers #171

Mark H # 187

Slothrop (several times)

and Krup #194…

Was “immoderate”.

I think you guys made a mistake, believing that you could INCREASE your blogpower, or readership, or whatever, by bringing Hillary in here; having her field a few sweetheart questions, and then having her waltz out with credit for making a “tough blogsite” appearance under her belt, without (just like the repubs are trying to do these days…) ever mentioning the word “Iraq”.

These days Hillary Clinton is saying a lot of stupid, wishy-washy things. If you want to keep your reputation intact, you shouldn’t bring her on here, and then scold or delete your people who want her to answer the hard questions about the bloody shitmire she helped create, and has done so much to sustain, or, how to end. These things pertain directly to her character and her intellect. More so than the “Can’t we all just get along issues of equal pay for women, or support for the Rutger’s women’s basketball team.