Common Sense

A lot of people are taking an inordinant amount of delight in the recent rumblings and scandal now known as Kosola. The most recent being David Brooks of the New York Times.

The claim is that Markos is influenced by his friend Jerome, and Jerome is influenced by whomever is paying him to be a consulant. Ergo, politicians are hiring Jerome with the promise that Kos’ support comes with it. That would be corruption and influence peddling.

Brooks goes really batty, saying things like “The Kingpin waxed Cheneyesque on the evils of leaking, and this time the squeaking fury of the Kossacks could be heard (to those capable of discerning high frequencies) far and wide,” when talking about a leaked email.

A few things:

• I have no idea if Jerome is innocent or guilty of peddling his influence with Markos, or of the SEC allegations which keep sparking these rumors. What about that other SEC investigation, though?
• If Jerome is peddling his influence with Markos, that assumes that Markos’ help is a highly-prized item.
• Is it just me, or is it a little tacky for a columnist at the Times to be attacking a guy who is just a blogger? I mean, he is probably the biggest name in blogging, but he’s just a guy who started doing what he was doing to vent some steam, like all of us.
• Full disclosure: I’ve met Markos and Jerome, both were friendly enough it seemed.
• Has anyone explored the possibility that both Markos and Jerome might just agree that Gov. Mark Warner would make the best nominee for the Democrats?
• Jerome believes in astrology? Does that mean I have to make fun of Nancy Reagan again?
• Does anyone else find it odd that more people probably read Markos’ response than the actual column, if only because of the Times Select wall?
• More disclosure: I don’t read MyDD or DailyKos.

It seems to me that some people are taking delight in this story because they get to try and put Markos and Jerome in their place, as it were. Others, like Brooks, are just making an ass out of themselves because it is readily transparent how jealous they are of the influence Markos and Jerome have. And they do have influence, for better or for worse, this is somehow a movement and those two are at the forefront.

But, like any really good movement, if the two of them are lost due to any of this, it won’t matter. If tomorrow, Markos just stopped posting, his readers would go somewhere else, the same with Jerome. And if scandal tarnishes the two of them from now til eternity, it won’t stop me or the millions of other people who write their own blogs everyday. I don’t look to Markos for marching orders and whatever influence the secretive “Townhouse” list has over what left-leaning blogs discuss, no one has ever told me what to do. I pick and choose based on my own tastes and my own time what I write about from tips in the ol’ email box.

The long and the short of it, and the thing that most politicians have yet to grasp is, Markos and Jerome themselves are actually sort of insignificant. They have influence, but because they are the most visible and most widely read bloggers. Whatever “direction” Kos gave the people on that list, I’m sure they did it more as a favor to a friend than as footsoldiers. The two of them don’t do anything very dissimilar from the rest of the 30 million of us who write blogs and the loss of the two of them isn’t going to change very much, just the facade.