When Words Come Back to Bite You -- That Time Markos Moulitsas Actually Told The Truth About Hillary. His Criticisms of Her and the Democratic Party Are Still Valid Today, Even If He Won't Admit it.

The Clinton Civil War (Archived version and NOT a direct link to Daily Kos) Anything in bold is my own personal comment. Anything in bold italics is my personal emphasis on something someone else has written

Markos starts this diary by quoting Al Giordano in a posting on ruralvotes.com which is no longer available on the web.

Al Giordano, on the laughable Clinton-supporters "strike" of this blog:

"There was always something incongruous about the self-proclaimed “Hillary Bloggers” trying to use Daily Kos for their purposes. DKos has been defined as a meeting ground not for every Democrat, but for the kind that wants to change the party to be more grassroots oriented, adhere to a 50-state strategy, stop the war in Iraq, and blunt the influence of lobbyists, PACs and the neoliberal Democratic Leadership Council (DLC). That’s the glue that has always held the DKos community together and made it so large and strong.

Given that candidate Clinton is a member of the DLC, voted to authorize the war, accepts federal lobbyist and PAC money, clearly thinks that a lot (if not most) states “don’t matter,” and epitomizes a 1990s style top-down form of doing politics, it’s no surprise that for all of 2007 Clinton never exceeded 11 percent support in the monthly Daily Kos users straw poll.

Not only does Markos agree with Giordano, he goes on to add an additional reason as well.

I would add one more item to the list above -- this site has also been hostile to the corrosive consultant class that gave us our timid and weak party until Howard Dean shook it up in 2004.

Boy, how things have changed.

Now I'm willing to stipulate that on the consultant front, there's likely not much difference between the Obama and Clinton campaigns (I don't know if it's true, but I assume it is). But on everything else, Clinton fails the test of the guiding principles of this site, and of my first book, Crashing the Gate.

Clinton isn't just a member of the DLC, she's in their leadership. Obama, by the way, repudiated the organization three times (it's a great story, which I tell in my forthcoming book).

Clinton hasn't just rejected a 50-state strategy, she has openly attacked it.

Markos then goes on to post a quote from an article about a question Mark Warner had about the Democratic Party back then.

As [former Virginia Gov. Mark] Warner asks, how many more times will the Democrats run presidential campaigns where they abandon thirty-three southern and western states and "launch a national campaign that goes after sixteen states and then hope that we can hit a triple bank shot to get to that seventeenth state?"

Markos then answers is own question.

Well, given Obama's map-changing 50-state mindset, it's clear that the answer to Warner's question is "one more time" if Clinton is the nominee, and "never again" if Obama is the nominee.

Well...never again until 2012. And 2016 was even worse, but of course it was because of Clinton and the DNC Russia.

Markos isn't done bashing Clinton.

Clinton didn't just vote for the Iraq war and refuse to apologize for it, she voted to give Bush the same authority on Iran.

And if we want to talk about which party is the most grassroots-oriented, it's no contest. We've seen it in the caucuses, we've seen it in the netroots, and we saw it in the Iowa county convention this Saturday. The party's activists are busting their butts for Obama, while Clinton's campaign is counting on low-information Democratic voters selecting Clinton based on little more than name ID.

Oh. My. God. Did Markos really use the phrase "low-information Democratic voters?" When Bernie used that phrase he was called a racist. And by the way, Hillary Clinton herself has blamed low-information voters as one of the reasons she lost. Markos and Hillary are both racists? Who knew?

Markos still isn't done.

First of all, the only path to victory for Clinton is via coup by super delegate. She knows this. That's why there's all the talk about poaching pledged delegates and spinning uncertainty around Michigan and Florida, and laying the case for super delegates to discard the popular will and stage a coup.

Yet a coup by super delegate would sunder the party in civil war. Clinton knows this, it's her only path to victory, and she doesn't care. She is willing -- nay, eager to split the party apart in her mad pursuit of power.

[SNIP]

It is Clinton, with no reasonable chance of victory, who is fomenting civil war in order to overturn the will of the Democratic electorate. As such, as far as I'm concerned, she doesn't deserve "fairness" on this site. All sexist attacks will be dealt with -- those will never be acceptable. But otherwise, Clinton has set an inevitably divisive course and must be dealt with appropriately.

The only thing different in 2016 was she got the superdelegates ahead of time - before there had even been a debate, let alone a caucus or primary, and this time around she had help from the DNC in rigging the election.

Meanwhile, Clinton and her shrinking band of paranoid holdouts wail and scream about all those evil people.

People like me have two choices -- look the other way while Clinton attempts to ignite her civil war, or fight back now, before we cross that dangerous line.

Clinton sure does love to play that victim card, doesn't she? And back then, Markos let there be "silly little strikes." This time around there weren't so many "strikes" as there were "bannings" by Markos and his administrators minions.

Honestly, it wasn't a difficult choice. And it's clear, looking at where the super delegates, most bloggers, and people like Olbermann are lining up, that the mainstream of the progressive movement is making the same choice. who have "turned" on Clinton and are no longer "honest power brokers" or "respectable voices" or whatnot, wearing blinders to reality, talking about silly little "strikes" when in reality, Clinton is planning a far more drastic, destructive and dehabilitating civil war.

Too bad the Progressives only had one choice in 2016 - at least on Daily Kos. Suck it up or get the hell out.

There's a bit more of the diary, but that is the gist of it. I hope all the bolding didn't hurt everyone's eyes too much. BTW the comments (1249 of them) were like going back to another time. This is part of one comment I liked.

As an Obama supporter...I fully support your right to decide for yourself...duh! Of course.

Markos is not saying you have lost that right nor is he saying your opinion is not welcomed here, including your support for Clinton.

Support her to your heart's content. And be prepared to have people disagree with you. If you can accept that, you'll be fine.

It damn sure wasn't that way this time around, was it?

Edit: formatting and clean-up

Edit 2: Fixed the link at the top to the archived link