GOTV

There's one reason Kos doesn't have to change himself or his site: he's surrounded by sycophants (like a certain President) who tell him that his shit tastes like ice cream.

However, those of you who defend Kos and his comments about Ms. Sierra, ask yourself this question, please. If some right wing blogger like Instapundit or Malkin or whomever you like had made these same remarks, calling into question the legitimacy of Kathy Sierra's fears and the existence of the well document threats she received, would you feel differently, or would you defend them for what they said? I sure wouldn't, and I doubt you would either. Everyone in the liberal blogosphere would be all over the offending righty blogger for making such distasteful and demeaning comments about Kathy Sierra's situation.

Kos is an important figure, its true, but that shouldn't give him a pass to say something incredibly stupid which offended many women, women who make up the majority of the Democratic Party I might add. It seems to me we shouldn't be spitting in the faces of those who are a some of the Democratic Party's most ardent and loyal adherents. By saying what he did, Kos was making a political statement about the legitimacy of their concerns, whether he intended to or not. And if a Democratic politician had uttered something so insensitive, many in the Democratic party would be all over him or her for saying so. Certainly if Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton or John Edwards or Wes Clark or Joe Biden or Joe Lieberman said these things they would be figuratively tarred and feathered by a great number of liberals, progressives and Democrats.

You want to advance the progressive movement? Then stand up for progressive ideas. Kos is uniquely placed to advance women's issues. This was a step back on his part. If he wants Democrats to win elections, maybe he should respect women's concerns about their physical safety in a world filled with sexist, misogynist creeps (not all of them Republicans or conservatives) who seek to "keep them in their place" through threats and intimidation. By dismissing those concerns, Kos enables the very people who oppose progressive ideals.

That’s why Markos’ causal dismissal of Sierra stung so much, and why the silence of A-list bloggers on this issue, despite outrage from pretty much everyone from Pandagon down in the TTLB ecosystem, stings so much. Because there was a chance for us to take the awful things that happened to Sierra and turn them into a positive. And the men–all men–who sit atop the food chain in the left blogosphere could not be bothered to worry about such minor and trivial things as the safety of women.

Which of course leaves me to wonder why they’re considered liberal bloggers at all.

Labels: blogosphere, women's rights

// posted by Alice @ 4/15/2007 02:20:00 PM