"Hillary Folds As YearlyKos Begins"

Ari Melber (The Nation):

In a surprise announcement Thursday night, organizers of the Yearlykos netroots convention say Hillary Clinton has canceled her scheduled meeting with attendees on Saturday.

Clinton is still scheduled to appear with other presidential candidates at the convention's leadership forum, but she will be the only candidate skipping the meetings with activists afterward. In a last minute change, organizers said the Clinton Campaign would send Ann Lewis to speak with attendees on Clinton's behalf.

The announcement, made just after Howard Dean's keynote address, drew boos and immediate complaints from attendees, who were asked to select which candidate they wanted to meet with during registration this morning. It also comes at an odd time for Clinton's netroots outreach strategy, since her campaign recently went to bat for the convention by sending top spokesman Howard Wolfson to defend the convention against attacks from FOX's Bill O'Reilly. DailyKos founder Markos Moulitsas praised that effort earlier today, telling reporters at a the convention's opening news conference that he appreciated Clinton's effort to "defend the medium" from "right wing attacks." Moulitsas also said he thought Clinton had started to demonstrate that she would "listen" to the netroots "when making her decisions."

Meanwhile, Senator Chris Dodd picked up where the Clinton Campaign left off, battling Bill O'Reilly on his Thursday show to defend YearlyKos.