I just clicked on Christy’s name (offered in her above comment), and now my Firedoglake site is restored.

Problem seems to be fixed!

As far as Ian’s comments are concerned, Hillary lost me when she supported the Iraq War resolution and then compounded that mistake with another: voting for the Kyl Lieberman amendment.

Most of the bloggesphere was antiwar from the beginning and, I think, that Obama’s clearly stated opposition to war generated support for him among the bloggers.

I am still disappointed that he backed Lieberman over Lamont, and I don’t think that, if elected, he has any intention of governing as a true liberal, but at least he isn’t wholly owned by the DLC.

And, for me, that’s a good thing.

BargainCountertenor June 3rd, 2008 at 9:42 am

For the last two days when I have gone to Firedoglake, instead of getting the blog, I get a large black and white “test pattern” that says: Please Stand By.”

I have sent an e mail to Jane asking for infomation but haven’t heard anything yet.

Anyone know what’s going on at the Lake?

Clinton is personally racist and her husband is so racist he essentially a southern cracker, not the president who liked African-Americans so much he set up his office in Harlem.

Hey, some of his best friends are black!

Seriously, in writing the story of this campaign, one of the things that will be pointed to as a major blunder by Clinton will be the way she took Bill’s wide and deep well of goodwill with black folks and ended up going from 60% of the black vote to 10%. No, I don’t believe that she’s racist. But by proving that she was willing to pander to racists in order to get votes, she alienated a group of people that are essential to a Democratic victory.

you say:

There is no possibility that 5 to 20 million netrootizens are going to be invited to ask questions on conference calls.

of course not. that’s not what i mean.

with regards to conference calls, which wasn’t what i was referring to but can be used as an illustration: why are they handled with such lack of transparency? why aren’t they announced in advance and questions solicited from blog readers? why are (usually) no recordings made to be posted for blog readers to listen to? what are the big secrets that must be kept from us? why are so many bloggers acting like gatekeepers instead of gate openers? that is what i meant about access that extends to readers. it’s something that bloggers could be doing – but aren’t.

p.s. bloggers don’t have to have a chosen candidate in order to be supine. our politicians are incompetent at almost all aspects of governance – but the one thing they are very, very good at is manipulating people to do and think what they want them too. maybe i’m wrong about this – but i think i see signs of that manipulation everywhere.

I have read their public papers on both issues, in detail. But they have large gaps. So if I can’t get answers, and if the media won’t even ask, which most of them won’t, those questions never get answered, and imo those policy questions were very important questions, mostly ignored.

If bloggers are to act on behalf of blog readers it is helpful to have some access. It’s really just that simple. It’s not necessary for everything, I did almost all of my blogging without any access to speak of, but it is extraordinarily useful to do certain types of stories.

And frankly, I don’t see how most blogs could have been more supine before their chosen candidate than they were. Access can’t corrupt people who are already kissing the leader’s feet. And those who weren’t won’t be massively corrupted anyway.

Most bloggers aren’t corrupt, or even close. They’re fan club leaders. I’m not sure which is worse.

the game i want to see changed is the gatekeeper game. i’d rather you bloggers get no access, unless that access extends to the rest of us. because what i’ve seen happen is the people get manipulated when they trust politicians. just like the MSM. so when i say i want the game changed and not the players, what i mean is that i don’t want the blogosphere driven by insider access. i’d rather see the blogging equivalent of knight-ridders instead of the nyt.

i agree we have given away our voice this past year – we could have been using it to hold our dem leaders accountable. instead, with very few exceptions we have not done than. in fact, too often we have made excuses for them that were not consistent with the evidence in front of us.

That bureaucrat had no reason to lie. There is actual paper showing that Obama’s campaign lied, whereas the stuff about Clinton’s campaign is he-said, she-said.

My judgement, as it happens, is that both campaigns lied about NAFTA. But there’s more concrete evidence that Obama’s campaign lied.

The followers of neither campaign can see the sins of their own nominee. That’s the point.