About meeting Clinton

To Peter Daou and the DailyKos crowd, there are no black bloggers in New York City or Harlem

Submitted by liza on 14 September, 2006 - 23:37.

I honestly do not know what to make of this.

These are the 20 liberal bloggers that met with Bill Clinton in Harlem. As you can see, not one of them is black or latino.

Via Republic of T.

This photo proves that It's official : Hillary to run for President, so she kills the Liberal Blogosphere first.

I am just shocked at the glee with which Peter Daou has shown his disrespect for Pam Spaulding, Steve Gilliard, Louis Pagan, Chris Rabb, Earl Dunovant and me when he decided to not invite neither of us, or for that matter, any other black or latino bloggers.

Yes, Steve Gilliard, Pam Spaulding, and me have been vocal about Hillary's run for the presidency. You'd think though our opinions would be given the weight they deserve within the blogosphere itself --let's not even talk about the Clintonites or Washington.

Which is why I stand by what I said : In order for Hillary Clinton to run for president, she will do anything and everything to squash the voices of dissent raised through the progressive netroots. Stuffing their faces with lunch is one tasty way to go about it.

The more pressing question remains :

What does it mean though that there are 20 bloggers invited to this lunch and not one is black or latino? What does it mean for this group of bloggers to be patting themselves on the backs for being with Clinton when they are all in Harlem and not one of them is a person of color? What does it mean for these people to be there and have not one of them raise this issue in their blogs?

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When I wrote Jane Hamsher is an idiot, Barbara O'Brien scolded me for calling out this white woman's antics in the name of the black people of Connecticut. I was insulted, as so other black bloggers, for the arrogance of the act. Given how priviledged she was by having the time, money and access to blog the Lamont campaign, why couldn't Jane Hamsher find as many black and latino bloggers in Connecticut and give them a voice and visibility through her blog? Instead of creating a Liberman in black face, why was raising the profile of black bloggers in Connecticut out of the realm of her possibility?

If you answer that, you can answer why Jane Hamsher is included in this group as opposed to any black or latino bloggers.

Actually, to be fair, CT Blogger is black and he's one of the main local bloggers there. And while not happy with Jane running Lieberman in blackface, he let her know privately he wasn't happy.

But she did mention his work at times, and so did I.

Peter Daou saved himself some work by not inviting me. I don't go to private sessions with politicans. That is not what Jen and I do here. I don't give private advice to politicians. Period.
I work for the readers. Not for the Democratic Party or a candidate. I don't even raise money for them, I only let people know where I contribute.

He would have done well to invite Liza, she's a smart, funny woman with a lot of good ideas. Same with Pam. Why Pete overlooked them is beyond me, but it was a mistake he should rectify.

I'm friends with most of the people invited, so I'm glad they got to meet Clinton. But that isn't anything I'm interested in. I don't need my ass kissed by the Clintons or any other pol. I don't write for them, I'm not working for them, so if they want to hand out sandwiches and take photos, that's fine by me. I'm wondering how he feels about the gentrification of Harlem myself.

You can run one of two kinds of blogs, one where you want to work with pols to get people elected or one where you comment on pols. I make no secret of my politics. Neither does David Corn or Joe Conason. But they don't huddle with pols either.

I think Liza is right to be pissed that they got a room full of bloggers and there were only white people in it. Now, that doesn't affect me, because unless it was on the record, I would never be there. I don't even do off the record conference calls. I do talk to other bloggers and campaign people, but that's no different than what beat reporters do.

I remember last year, someone running for public advocate wanted a bunch of bloggers to endorse his campaign. Turned that down cold.

If the choice is loyalty to a politician or loyalty to my supportive, generous and desperate for information readers, that isn't really much of a choice is it?