There's something in what the newly-unmasked Digby (and I pictured her so, and just as eloquent) says about the reaction the progressive blogosphere stirs in mainstream media and Beltway consulting types. We are an enigma, she said yesterday, that stirs an irrational fear of passion and discourse - and freaky hippiedom - in our economic rivals, which is to say, those whose livelihoods are threatened by an unwashed horde of hemp-wearing, knuckle-dragging English lit types with free lovin' access to mind-bending drugs and keyboards.
Digby's unveiling yesterday as a charming, reasonable, erudite woman in her middle years from Santa Monica (but didn't we already know this?) was the most dramatic event at a conference of liberals marred only by the offensive booing of the likely Democratic nominee by Republican operatives who had infiltrated the hall. Okay, some may have been Naderites - or Bloombergers as they're more currently known - erstwhile liberals who don't really give a damn about electing more failed conservatives as long as they have their say. [The catcalling cadre apparently wore Give Back America buttons - so clever.]
Digby believes that so many insiders think of progressive bloggers are an intolerant, tightly-knit brigade of control freaks marching in lockstep with whatever they believe to be the conventional wisdom of the moment. Funny how that's what we think of the mainstream media, in general.
I'm an unabashed Digby fan. I read her blog most days, and it rarely fails to get me thinking (or writing, for that matter). Here's a quite from her speech at Take Back America yesterday, which I'm lifting from Glenn Greenwald:
We may argue about tactics and strategies, or the extent to which we are partisans versus ideologues. And believe me, we do.
But there's no disagreement among us that the modern conservative movement of Newt and Grover and Karl and Rush has proven to be a dangerous cultural and political cancer on the body politic.
You will not find anyone amongst us who believes that the Bush administration's executive power grab and flagrant partisan use of the federal government is anything less than an assault on the Constitution.
We stand together against the dissolution of habeas corpus, and the atoricities of Abu Grahib and Guantanamo.
And we all agree that Islamic terrorism is a threat, but one that we cannot meet with military power alone.
And yes, a vast majority of us were against this mindless invasion of Iraq from the beginning, or at least saw the writing on the wall long before Peggy Noonan discovered that George W. Bush wasn't the seocnd coming of Winston Churchill.
Sadly, we also all agree that the mainstream media is part of the problem. Democracy sufferes when not being held accountable by a vigorous press.
