Riding The Tiger Is EasyIt's getting off that can
be a bit tricky, as even a darling of the netkooks finds out:
Boxer was clearly among friends at YearlyKos. She got a standing ovation when she mentioned her consistent opposition to the Iraq war and enthusiastic applause when she bashed the idea of a federal constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage.
But she also found herself having to tiptoe around ideological land mines, such as parrying a question from the audience demanding to know why the Democrats hadn't pushed to impeach President Bush.
In interviews afterward, Boxer was grilled about her support for Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., who has been pilloried by many on the left for his pro-Iraq War stance. Liberal bloggers have been raising money for Lieberman's primary opponent, an anti-war Democratic businessman.Get it? You can be "right" on nine points, but if you don't go along with the kooks on the tenth, you'll be pilloried.
For another example, consider this
post over at Booman Tribune (strong language) on Armando, the Daily Kos front page diarist who was recently outed by National Review (
or was he?). Because the issue of the day was RFK Jr's ridiculous Rolling Stone interview, Armando got savaged because he didn't go along with the Sore Loserman routine from Kennedy. Now remember, Armando is one of the stars of the liberal blogosphere, but he recognized that Kennedy's article was a bunch of hooey and as a result he's getting castigated.
Reading the comments on that post, you can tell that there's a tendency for the bigger liberal bloggers to try to tone down the silly stuff. And you can also tell that there's no interest in going along with that effort from the readers. In other words, Armando and Kos themselves are now trapped atop the tiger.
