I used to be an avid reader of MyDD. It was the website to go to for thoughtful political analysis. In particular, under the stewardship of Chris Bowers and Matt Stoller (both of whom now blog at Open Left), the blog reached national prominence for projects such as Google Bombing, as well as its full-hearted support for candidates such as Ned Lamont.
That being said, it is unquestionable that the quality of MyDD has declined since it devolved into Astroturf Central for the various supporters of the 2008 presidential candidates. However, what is more disturbing is the distinct, somewhat irrational hostility towards Barack Obama that belies the front-page posts on the senator by MyDD's proprietor, Jerome Armstrong. For one of the co-authors of Crashing The Gate, it seems that Armstrong has a distinct "Anyone But Obama" mentality - even though Obama's campaign exemplifies the best qualities of a progressive grassroots movement.
I'm simply going to address Armstrong's most recent posts, since they tend to be devoid of any rational thought:
12/22/07: On Obama's explanation of his 'present' votes in the Illinois State Senate:
Obama tries to explain a "present" vote on MSNBC--why he was the only IL state senator to vote "present" on a bill that would allow the victims of sexual abuse to protect their privacy by having court records sealed.
I watched it twice, and still can't figure out his answer. Is he saying that the it would have been overturned by the courts because it wasn't "structured properly"? What the heck does that mean-- he thought he was a judge instead of a state legislator?
[...]
We've seen enough of Obama to realize that the guy has not been vetted.
It's convenient of Jerome to ignore the explanations that were given in the initial New York Times article about those votes. Furthermore, it's a ridiculous thing to nitpick over when it appears that out of those 'present' votes, there are only a mere 31 - out of more than 4,000 votes that Obama cast in the State Senate - that don't have a clear-cut explanation. How does less than 1% of his votes merit the judgment that he has 'not been vetted'? It's a wholly illogical conclusion to reach.
12/21/07: On Obama's apparent electability problems against John McCain:
In general, as the sheen wears off Obama, I expect to see more polls like those coming out of SurveyUSA, showing Obama just as vulnerable, or even weaker, than Clinton in the general election, especially against McCain. A McCain vs Obama race would be the worst case scenario I could imagine for us. Why? Because the talky-centrists like Jonathan Alter from Newsweek and Joe Klein from Time that Obama panders too, who now come to Obama's defense to attack the progressive Krugman, would soon say: "Obama's great but he's too young and inexperienced, let's go with McCain."
Jerome doesn't even to try his outward hostility to Obama at this point. Did he make a mistake getting into a skirmish with Krugman? Probably, but that doesn't mean that he is automatically someone who 'panders' to the D.C. punditocracy. Maybe Jerome is upset that Obama isn't pandering directly to him, but that's never been Obama's style. Furthermore, Jerome is making a very loose hypothetical analysis about what may be the impact of Obama's 'sheen' wearing off - wholly ignoring the fact that Obama is virtually tied in Iowa and has substantially closed the gap in New Hampshire. Not really the sign of the 'sheen' wearing off, to say the least.
12/17/07: On Obama's discussion of making policy and the possibility of needing to have everyone involved in the process:
Obama is making a defense of it, in Iowa, but does that 'big table' talk actually appeal to any strong partisan Democrats that are in a populist mood?
Edwards did challenge Obama: [...]
Challenged him right on his own turf and his own terms, which Obama has played right into by defending having lobbyists at the table.
There is a solid frontal attack now that is working against Obama on both the political and the policy side. That is, he's not battle-tested for the general election against Republicans, and that he's not ready to battle for progressive reforms as President. The political side of the frame had been gaining a foothold over the past two weeks, and now we see the policy side gain a foothold, surprisingly, by Obama defending having the lobbyist groups at his table. The way it's framed, Edwards wins this battle easily.
I'm really sick and tired of seeing Jerome position himself as a 'progressive', mainly because it is blatantly false. Jerome Armstrong is no 'progressive' by anyone's definition. On his Facebook profile, for the longest time, Jerome plainly chose to identify himself as a Libertarian - an affiliation hardly associated with anyone on the left side of the political spectrum. He now denotes his political beliefs as 'other'. Last I knew, progressives generally considered themselves to be liberals of some sort, but it appears Jerome doesn't quite feel that way. Furthermore, it's no secret that Jerome's favored candidate for president last year was former Gov. Mark Warner, the prototypical DLC politician that was apparently what CTG was supposed to be combating. To hear Jerome talk about Obama not being progressive enough is too ironic.
Secondly, Obama has shown that his 'big table' approach can work sometimes at getting effective legislation passed. He worked with Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) - not exactly one's definition of a traditional conservative, much less a sane one at times - to pass the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act which highlights federal spending in bills that are passed in Congress. That's a pretty progressive measure, and Obama succeeded in getting it passed in a 55-45 GOP-controlled Senate. That takes effective leadership, and Obama was able to get the job done. This is not meant as a potshot at John Edwards, but in his 6 years in the Senate, he did not coauthor as major a piece of legislation as Obama has already done - even when the Democrats controlled the Senate from mid-2001 to the 2002 midterm elections. So factually, Jerome is also incorrect in conclusively stating that Edwards would necessarily be the better candidate for passing progressive reforms.
12/14/07: On the Billy Shaheen dustup:
Yes, that's why Barack Obama fired those staffers of his that came up with the racial slur Punjab-D to describe Clinton; and that's why Obama's fired the staffer that sidled up to Marc Ambinder of The Atlantic, to ask "when reporters would begin to look into Bill Clinton's post presidential sex life." That's probably Robert Gibbs, one of the sleaziest of the sleazy, that works as Obama's Communications Director.
Right.
This drug stuff was a timid issue that the Obama campaign over reacted too, making it a bigger story than it needed to be. And now Obama is starting to sound petty and thin-skinned. What's Obama gonna do in the general election when he confronts a real propoganda takedown machine? Is he gonna lecture them while they rip him to pieces?
This was one of the stupider assertions by Jerome, namely for the fact that Shaheen's comment about drug dealing got him fired from Clinton's campaign, resulted in largely negative press for her, and could possibly be a contributing reason for the fact that the most recent poll for the NH-Sen race shows Shaheen's wife, former Gov. Jeanne Shaheen, trailing John Sununu for the first time. But I suppose it's okay for him to completely ignore the objective reality of the situation in favor of continuing his irrational hatred of the Obama campaign. He also can't seem to get over the fact that Robert Gibbs works for Obama (Gibbs was behind the infamous 527 that put out the Dean-Osama ad during the 2004 cycle).
12/11/07: On Obama's fate in the primaries:
The skepticism about Obama's electability isn't grounded in empirical polling (which are too early to matter); instead, it's more just a feeling that, given how well he's positioned his candidacy with the media's blessing, he's setting himself up for being torn down without a partisan base to rely upon for pushing back.
Yes, right now, Obama does pretty well among Republicans & Independents. But there's been more and more of a dissonance growing between Obama's campaign and among progressive partisan Democrats.
[...]
My guess is that, once he's personally experienced the confrontation of the Republican machine, it would totally transform the way Obama views campaigns. Rather than viewing partisan progressives as something to Sister Soulja while he appeases the non-partisan media machine, he would come to realize the value, in today's partisan environment, of engaging partisan Democrats as part of his campaign. He'd prepare to battle with us, rather than trash us as tokens of the past.
This is just more 'intuitive' bullshit from Jerome, who readily admits here that he's simply going off of what his gut is telling him rather than any hard evidence. It's a sign of someone who hasn't been on the ground in Iowa to see firsthand how the campaign has changed over the course of 2007. I can't trust Jerome to be a prognosticator of how Obama will perform, namely because he thinks that the senator just can't handle the heat. It could also be that he's barely hiding his true colors (he calls a potential Clinton-Wesley Clark ticket terrific). In addition, he has made additional foolhardy posts such as this one on the effect of endorsements in Iowa:
To date, Wes Clark's endorsement of Clinton is the overall most important one in my mind, simply because went to bat and looks the role of VP candidate in waiting. The Leonard Boswell & Bruce Braley endorsements of Clinton and Edwards seem pretty important, but largely inconsequential. Really, the two endorsements that swamp all others are from John Kerry and Al Gore. Either of those would get a lot of notice-- who knows, maybe they'd help persuade someone too.
It's convenient that Jerome didn't bother to mention Rep. Dave Loebsack's endorsement of Obama just the next day. Furthermore, I find it highly ludicrous to think that Clark's endorsement will matter the most, given that he was able to win all of a measly 3 delegates in the 2004 Iowa caucuses (which he didn't even actively campaign for).
Another thing to note is that Jerome also uses MyDD's Breaking Blue feature to post about the presidential candidates - and, as per his practice, posts negative links about Obama.
I really do not like engaging in questioning the motives of particular people, but at this point, I sincerely question whether Jerome Armstrong is making posts about the presidential race in good faith. It's been a long time since one can find a reasonable post by Jerome about Obama in his posting history. Furthermore, I find it hard to take his analysis credibly when Jerome himself doesn't even identify with the same political ideology as self-described progressives would ascribe to themselves. For someone who was one of the first to see the key role the Internet (and blogs in particular) would play in politics down the road, he has been astoundingly negligent in maintaining the kind of quality that MyDD was known for in recent times. In short, Jerome is hardly the person who should be questioning the credentials of Barack Obama, a person who has been a solid liberal and has remained committed to movements promoting progressive policies throughout his life.