Wednesday, April 19, 2006

Debriefing

Utilizing his double-naught spy training as never before, the Drunkablog yesterday infiltrated a gathering of left-democrat bloggers, discovered their nefarious plans--and survived to tell the tale.

It was a coffee klatch of doom, a meet 'n' greet of terror, a grin 'n' chin of--well, you get the idea--bagels, orange juice, the brown acid, and free copies of The complete infidel's guide to the Koran--nothing unusual for leftie bloggers--except that yesterday the big klatcher in attendance was Markos Moulitsas Zuniga, aka (cue Psycho music) Kos, of the famous (and infamous) Daily Kos.

It was sort of a setup. Lisa Jones, the talented liberal feminist lesbian author late of Rocky Watch (whose new blog debuts May 10) got an invite from an outfit called ProgressNow to have "coffee with Kos" (pronounced "Kohfee with Kohs") at their offices. The guy with the most heavily visited blog in the U.S. was in Denver to flog his book Crashing the gate: Netroots, grassroots, and the rise of people-powered politics (I'm exhausted from typing that). You can probably figure out what it's about.


Suspicious circumstances

But Jones couldn't make it, so she was kind enough to ask me, your darling Drunkablog, if he might like to attend in her stead. Even after I mentioned my Manchurian Candidate problem ("Markos Moulitsas Zuniga is the kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful human being I've ever met in my life") Lisa said it'd be okay. Hmmm.

So I showed up, and there were lots of Colorado-brand Democrat movers and shakers there, if the Drunkablog's limited knowledge of such can be trusted. Bloggers like Jeralyn Merritt from TalkLeft, others from New West, Soapblox Colorado and Media Matters; a couple of local Kos diarists; some sort of internet guru for the state dem party; really rich guy and state board of education member Jared Polis; and others less rich and therefore unworthy of mention.

No news

It was actually fairly boring, even for a coffee klatch. Fundraising on the net in various congressional races, the supposed importance of local bloggers--oh, Kos did mention a "vast left wing conspiracy." Something like that, anyway. Sandra Fish of New West provides slightly more detail.

The klatch lasted about an hour and ten minutes, but for some reason hardly anybody ate. Even the big quiche went untouched:


Please excuse the blurry shot. The D-blog was forced to employ surreptitious camera technology. The button says, "Mom, baseball, apple pie and a unified Democratic juggernaut." According to his publisher, if you buy one copy of Kos's book, you get one button; buy five and you get 20!

What's actually important

Check out this picture:


That's Kos. Yes, as everyone points out, he's a little fella looks about 12 years old. But see the card on the table in front of him, next to the Minute Maid product placement? That's the Drunkablog's "business" card, and you can't. freaking. read it.

Man, I would have had that shot enshrined on this site in one stinkin' second. But you can't read the card. Kos took it with him, though--or at least, didn't throw it away right in front of me. It's kind of a neat card, too:


Soon, everybody will have one--by law.

One more important thing: The whole time the Drunkablog was there, meeting people, moving around, taking pictures, free as a boid--his pants were unzipped. No lie. And it wasn't even intentional.

Update: Kos posts on the Denver visit. Despite his unzipped pants, the Drunkablog is not mentioned. Goddamn liberals.

Update II: Glenn Reynolds published his center-right version of the internet-empowers-everyone argument before Kos, and it's even more exhaustingly titled: An army of Davids: How markets and technology empower ordinary people to beat big media, big government and other goliaths. Got it in the mail today, oddly enough.

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