NYT Portrays Daily Kos Blog as Appealing to Mainstream, Ignores Inconvenient Truths

New York Times political blogger Kate Phillips (who tried to wish away news coverage of John Kerry's "botched joke" on the eve of the 2006 congressional election) posted on the Times' "Caucus" blog Saturday from Chicago, the site of the YearlyKos convention put on by the liberal activist campaign blog The Daily Kos.

Phillips pushed Markos Moulitsas Zuniga, the founder of the politically active blog, into the center:

"In fact, the online 'progressive movement' led now by people like Mr. Moulitsas, a former Republican and U.S. Army veteran, has become much more acceptable and palatable to centrist and leading Democrats. And prominent or recognizable enough that the Republicans are now trying to link the 2008 candidates and Democratic party to a group it deems the far left -- the liberal blogosphere."

Too bad Phillips didn't file a more complete profile of Moulitsas – she didn't mention his notorious April 2004 posting (later deleted) in which he called four private military contractors who were killed and mutilated in Fallujah "mercenaries," for whom he felt no sympathy:

"Let the people see what war is like. This isn’t an Xbox game. There are real repercussions to Bush’s folly. That said, I feel nothing over the death of merceneries [sic]. They aren't in Iraq because of orders, or because they are there trying to help the people make Iraq a better place. They are there to wage war for profit. Screw them."

Something of interest actually happened at this year's YearlyKos (but you wouldn't know it from the Times) during a panel discussion, "The Military and Progressives: Are They Really That Different?"

Evidently, the answer is yes. YearlyKos panelist and Iraq War veteran Jon Soltz of the anti-war VoteVets.org berated, threatened, and escorted out of the room a uniformed soldier who had the audacity to stand up and speak in support of the surge in Iraq.