Tuesday, October 27, 2009

"Daou: Don't bother waiting for bloggers to get credit for the Public Option"

John Aravosis (AMERICAblog):

Peter Daou, writing in the Huffington Post. Peter was Hillary's online adviser:

Not surprisingly, despite lots of buzz about the use of the Internet as a fundraising and organizing tool, the outsized role played by blog denizens was buried in the gush of excitement that followed Election Day. Ultimately, that relatively small band of online progressives received very little of the credit they deserved for changing the course of American history.

Now, a similar dynamic is playing out. Although it's far from clear what the final health care bill will look like, especially the public option (opt-out, trigger, etc.), there's absolutely no doubt that it is alive primarily because of the vigorous efforts of online progressive activists and bloggers on Huffington Post, Firedoglake, Daily Kos, TPM, Think Progress, Media Matters, Salon, AmericaBlog, Crooks and Liars, and hundreds of smaller sites (not to mention MoveOn).
But don't hold your breath waiting to read about the netroots' pivotal role in forcing the inclusion of a public option -- it's just not the way things work in our current media and political world. Instead, at most expect to hear vague allusions to the 'left'. Or even more likely, the credit will go to liberal-leaning legislators and will reference "public support," neglecting the fact that it took bloggers to draw attention to the polling that showed a majority favored the public option.
Your thoughts?
Howie P.S.: MSNBC and talkers like Ed Schultz won't get their due, as well, I suppose.

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