If you're just visiting Daily Kos for the first time after the feature that was supposed to run on Fox News this evening, allow me to welcome you and thank you for taking the time to check out our little corner of cyberspace! And if may I say upfront, and with all due respect to Fox News, Bill O'Reilly got us (And Jet Blue) dead wrong.
Ellicat -- Dear Fox viewer: This is not a hate site as was described on the Fox News show this evening. You were told that we are a hate site and that is all that we are about. Nothing could be further from the truth. We are a supportive, caring community. Visit on a Sunday evening and check out pastordan's Brothers and Sisters diary series to get a feeling of just how much we don't "hate".
My Daily Kos (Dkos) handle is Stephen DarkSyde, or DS for short. I'm a moderate conservative, currently registered as an Independent. I'm no lefty, or ultra-liberal, or anything of the sort -- although I have very dear friends who could be described as liberals or conservatives. I am a 'progressive' conservative' for lack of a better term. I thought Ronald Reagan was a terrific President. And I felt Bush Senior was a master at foreign policy, both of the diplomatic and military versions. It's also worth pointing out that there were many conservative politicians, analysts, and pundits who had misgivings about the War in Iraq. Pat Buchanan and Bill O'Reilly among them.
Despite my background, after an annual vote by the members of Daily Kos, and at the invitation of the owner, Markos Moulitsas, I was honored to be given the opportunity to post directly to the front page. My posts, like all those of my fellow front page contributing editors, (List and bios here) are written and published without passing through an editorial filter of any kind. It's an astonishing degree of freedom we enjoy, and one I'd wager most newspaper columnists and cable news show anchors would cherish.
More to the point, does a blog which allows someone with my political convictions to post on the front page sound like a place that is some kind of bastion of far left, vicious, hate-mongering fringe freaks? If so, the nation is in big trouble: because America by and large agrees with us in large majorities or in significant pluralities on all the important issues of the day. Iraq, Embryonic Stem Cell Research, Climate Change, and the efficacy of one George W. Bush and Dick B. Cheney.
Anyway, I digress. For you Fox News newcomers, what exactly is a 'blog' anyway? Click the orange link below that says "there's more ..."
A blog is short for web log. It's simply a site which has content which is regularly updated, kind of like a personal diary. In fact, most of the millions of blogs in existence now are diaries. My Space and Live Journal are two of the better known Internet sites where one can set up their own online diary or blog.
Daily Kos is a "Scoop Blog." And that means that, just like My Space, you can setup your own blog here, free of charge or obligation, provided you adhere to our terms of service. So, who posts here?
The quick answer is "anyone who wants to". There are a wide variety of people writing diaries and comments on dkos. They include elected politicians, candidates hoping to become elected politicians, experts in a range of fields, and active bloggers from around the net. The vast majority of writers, however, are ordinary citizens interested in talking about and participating in the political process. The majority of people posting here fall on the liberal side of the US political spectrum, however people of conservative views are welcome to come and debate. If you are polite, you will be treated politely. ... read the rest ...
It also means that anyone who wants to post extraordinarily hateful things can do it, and then be held up as representative of the site by anyone else with an agenda, or unscrupulous ethics. That's exactly what Mr O'Reilly may have done this evening in the segment below (In fact it would be easy to post such a piece purely as a prop for a story about how craaaaaazy we are --- and we know for a fact that this has been tried and done in the past). He may have referred to a single diary or two out of thousands and pretended they were a part of the front page content published here on a daily basis. In short, Mr O'Reilly did a high speed spin in his so-called no spin zone. The man was twirling like a newly minted neutron star.
Perhaps it is this sincere interest in free and open discussion from all political points of view which has made Daily Kos one of the most popular and highest trafficked blogs on the Internet. And likewise, perhaps is it that success that has made certain ideological opponents extremely nervous. Of course we're targeted for smears. Naturally our opponents on both the democratic and republican side of the aisles would like to shut us down. We are the grass roots voice, we're among those who shine the spot light into the shadows were creeps operate. We flip the rocks to reveal the slimy critters underneath: Fraud, corruption, incompetence. They're terrified of us, but they don't even have the simple intestinal fortitude to come here at our invitation and make their case. They're afraid.
And frankly, they should be.
This site operates on one simple principle: if you can't back an argument up with facts and reasonable inferences, you will be shredded by those who can. Unlike cable news show, we're not hemmed in by the constraints of commercial broadcasting. We are not limited to soundbites or ten-second responses. You can't cut off your discussion partner's microphone if they start winning an argument, or break to commercial to disrupt their point.
Unlike newspaper op-eds, the conversation here flows both ways. Try telling a whopper or getting a fact wrong, and you’ll have dozens of informed commentators setting the record straight backed up with reputable links.
This is a level playing field, and we invite anyone who is willing to compete on it do so. But if a level playing field is something you shy away from, this may not be the best place for you. I don't know how Mr. O'Reilly would fare under those kinds of rules. He's certainly capable of posting a diary here and finding out. As is anyone who wishes to defend him.
As far as the basics, there is a list of Frequently Asked Questions here (It also contains useful tips on how to format your post with links, italics, bold and embed images). You can comment after registering a user name here. There is no cost to register and no software download involved. There is a 24 hour cooling off period after you log in for the first time before you can comment. After seven days, you can even write a diary, i.e. a blog post. Other members can vote on your diary, and if it receives enough votes, it will appear here in the recent recommended diary list. A recommended diary can easily receive tens of thousands of hits. I don't know where else on earth you can get that kind of exposure for free.
A word of advice in the event you wish to post controversial material, or items which may be unpopular here. Let's say for instance that you are going to argue for the War in Iraq. There are over a hundred thousand registered users on Daily Kos. Most of them are courteous, polite, and articulate individuals. But with those kinds of numbers, you're going to have a few people who are a little batty, or maybe even a few assholes. If you post on an unpopular issue, you're going to get lots of responses; you're going to be the most popular girl at the dance. Don't try and respond to everyone. It will only frustrate and overwhelm you. Pick out two or three posters and stick with them.
Short of that, regardless if you came here originally to see us ‘hate mongering lefties’ as I myself once did, I think if you stick around a bit, read the articles on the front page for just a week, you might find this a great source of information and entertainment. The front page contributing editors are all truly gifted writers --- it is my profound honor to be included among them -- the diarists are highly informed professionals – where else can you read about marine life or cosmology from a real research scientist who answers your questions in real time? – and our many, many our commentators can bring tears to your eyes or laughter to your belly, in just a few sentences. It is my sincere hope to be able to include you among them.