The liberal blogosphere is cheering one of its heroes for insulting a former Republican member of Congress on national television who as a result walked off an MSNBC set in disgust.

Appearing on Friday's "The Ed Show," Daily Kos owner Markos Moulitsas said to former Colorado Congressman Tom Tancredo, "I did not get a deferment because I was too depressed to fight in a war that I supported in Vietnam."

Tancredo asked for an apology, and when one was not forthcoming, he took off his microphone and earpiece, and left (video embedded below the fold with partial transcript, h/t Mediaite):

Oops!

Markos Moulitsas, founder of the Daily Kos, has discovered that his endorsement can be  political poison. Such was the case with his endorsement at the beginning of this month of the very liberal Republican candidate, Dede Scozzafava, in the New York 23rd CD special election:

Club for Growth darling Doug Hoffman is running on the Conservative Party line, and has even garnered the endorsement of Fred Thompson. The guy has legitimate traction, fueled by the fact that Dede Scozzafava, the Republican, is actually the most liberal candidate in the race. (Heck, she has run on the very liberal Working Families Party ballot line in the past.)

Sure, she is a Republican, and opposes the public option. But she's been willing to raise taxes when budgets require it, and is to the left of most Democrats on social issues (including supporting gay marriage). That's why conservatives are panicked about her -- for a party that is becoming more regional, more conservative, more ideologically rigid, Scozzafava's brand of moderate conservatism is grating. Hence, Hoffman has a real shot at not just playing spoiler and undermining the GOP candidate's chances, but also of potentially winning.

As a congresswoman, she could either move even more to the left to properly represent her progressive-trending district and be a pain in the side of the GOP caucus (they have nothing like our Blue Dogs), or Democrats can field a real Democrat to challenge her in 2010.

In an October 20 The Gaggle blog post, Newsweek's David A. Graham sought to explain to readers why the New York 23rd Congressional District special election on November 3 "is more important than" the New Jersey and Virginia gubernatorial races.

Graham portrayed the race -- pitting liberal Republican Dede Scozzafava against Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman and Democratic candidate Bill Owens -- as a bellwether fight for the soul of the Republican Party. Graham noted Scozzafava's socially liberal stances, implying that conservative ire over her nomination tothe GOP ticket in the special election was based solely on the ire of social conservatives.

Yet nowhere in his blog post did Graham explain that economic conservatives and libertarian-leaning Republicans worry Scozzafava is truly a Republican-in-name-only (RINO) on economic matters as well, given her ties to ACORN.

As Human Events reporter John Gizzi noted a month ago (emphasis mine):

Daily Kos founder Markos Moulitsas on the Midday Open Thread, Thursday: "As bad as Rep. Joe Wilson's behavior was last night, look on the bright side -- at least he wasn't carrying a sign that said 'Obama = Hitler'. Or a loaded rifle."

Also Markos on Thursday, lauding Joe Wilson’s Democrat opponent: "Overall, Rob Miller is close to hitting $400,000 from almost 11,000 patriots sick and tired of Republicans like Rep. Joe Wilson trying to debase our democracy." (More here.)

Markos Moulitsas, opponent of debasing democracy, on the Midday Open Thread, Wednesday edition, on conservatives causing the resignation of radical leftist Van Jones: "It would be nice if the White House learned, as Baratunde notes, that they can't negotiate with terrorists."

Last month, an MSNBC anchor claimed socialist was the new N-word.

On Tuesday, a contributing editor of the liberal website Daily Kos took this insanity a step further by creating and posting a picture depicting Tea Partiers as racists and Fox News's Glenn Beck as their leader.

Why are Beck and so many Americans deserving of this dishonor?

Because they are "fond of calling the Obama Administration a haven for 'socialist' and 'communist' radicals" (truly offensive picture below the fold with its truly offensive caption):

When George W. Bush was in the White House, one of the leading anti-war voices in the nation was the ultra-liberal website Daily Kos.

Now that Barack Obama is President, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are mysteriously no longer of such great concern to the Netroots.

I guess the anti-war movement was much more about getting Bush out of office than getting our troops out of harm's way.

Such was reported by the Washington Examiner's Byron York Tuesday (h/t Paul Chesser):

On August 14, some of the nation's most prominent conservatives will be gathering in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, but former Republican Senator Arlen Specter (D-Penn.) won't be there.

Instead, he's decided to attend the Netroots Nation gathering (formerly known as YearlyKos) right down the street.

Stealing a theme from "Star Wars," I guess the transformation is complete (h/t Rachel Alexander):

On his Midday Open Thread Thursday, Daily Kos chief Markos Moulitsas found it very easy to associate the Republican Party ethos with spoiled tots:

I remember writing this about my son:

Right now, he's a Republican.
What's his is his, and he won't share.
What's mine is his, because he "wants it".
And if he gets angry and frustrated,
He hits people, preemptively!

He's now five and has evolved somewhat past this, developing a nice sense of empathy. But my 2-year-old daughter is VERY MUCH in her Republican phase. So the baton has been passed...

It sounds just a little like the infamous Peter Jennings post-election commentary in 1994, doesn't it?

As if you couldn't see this coming...

Fresh off the Daily Kos website is a posting entitled, A "Pro-Life" activist took the Life of a doctor who practices abortion today, which illogically takes two sentences to link the murderer to the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck (emphasis mine throughout). 

A so-called Pro-Life activist took, cowardly, the life of doctor George Tiller, this sunday, while he was attending to a church service. I bet Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity and the other will praise the killer since "he only killed a liberullllllll" according to them

Grammatical issues aside (something that the Kos seemingly requires from their writers), the incredible leap from the death of George Tiller, to three leading conservative talk show hosts is shocking to people who make their home here on Earth.  Four conservative talk show hosts actually, if you consider the phrase ‘and the other', which would presumably be referring to Michael Savage. 

More stunning is that this posting was allowed to present the statement - "he only killed a liberullllllll" according to them - as if it is a quote drawn from one of their shows.  I would challenge the author, LaurenMonica, or anyone at the Daily Kos to present an audio copy of any of these conservative talk show hosts in which they heap praise upon a killer because, "he only killed a liberullllllll".  (On a side note, I also challenge them to present a college transcript which shows they were able to pass English Composition 101).

Of course, this isn't where it stops with the liberal blogs.

Markos Moulitsas Zuniga, hallowed in the political community as a Meet the Press panelist and Newsweek contributor, displayed his satirical side on Wednesday on his leftist blog the Daily Kos:

Dear Conservatives,

If having hilarious tea bagging parties keeps you guys from shooting people up, then I heartily endorse them.

Hugs and kisses,

kos

Please compare this to the outrage liberals had over fellow Newsweek contributor Karl Rove when he cracked in 2005 that liberals saw 9/11 as an occasion for indictments and therapy. Newsweek's Washington Bureau Chief, Daniel Klaidman, complained at the time that Rove was trying to create "the sort of Republican fantasy of a liberal." Mr. Klaidman, any complaint now?

(Hat tip: Johnny Y.)

UPDATE AT END OF POST: Moulitsas was less concerned about the four Oakland police officers killed just miles from his home two weeks ago.

Shortly before Markos Moulitsas blamed Glenn Beck for instigating the senseless shooting of three Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, police officers on Saturday, the proprietor of the far-left website Daily Kos said that conservatives would rather shoot cops than organize to win the next election. 

He also wrote during the same Twitter discussion, "With no Veep to shoot people, folks are taking things into their own hands."

Such was revealed Sunday by a self-proclaimed Daily Kos diarist named Tommy Christopher who was so disgusted by these comments he has actually resigned his membership (h/t Hot Air via ConservaThink):

Three Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, police officers were killed on Saturday, and according to prominent left-wing bloggers including the Atlantic's Andrew Sullivan and Markos Moulitsas of Daily Kos, it's because of conservative talk show hosts on radio and television.

Most frequently named as the culprit in such vitriolic postings was Fox News's Glenn Beck.

Such a disgusting conclusion stems from comments made to the press by friends of assailant Richard Poplawski as to why he might have carried out such a heinous act.

As the Associated Press reported Saturday:

Notes: This first appeared in today's Human Events.   We first reported this on March 11th.

A Gust of Hot Air (America)

It's official -- what we the sentient public, doctor and dentist patients in waiting rooms across America and the eight diehards still subscribing have long known: Newsweek is a horrendously biased left-wing rag. 

Newsweek announced on Tuesday that they are partnering with liberal radio uber-failure Air America to syndicate their show Newsweek On Air.  They are the first outside "talent" to join with the newly rechristened Air America Media (AAM). 

Longtime Newsweek On Air producer and host and Newsweek Contributing Editor David Alpern said of the conjoining, "AAM Syndication is a great partner for Newsweek On Air. We look forward to maintaining the same high-quality content, balance, and listener interest that has won our program various awards and a place on so many station schedules, some for nearly all of its 27 years on the air."

After more than a quarter century of their "balanced" programming, I would venture to guess that most of you have never heard of Newsweek On Air.  This state of anonymity will likely continue with their Air America Media partnership.  It seems they sought to collaborate with an entity whose listenership mirrors their readership - minimal and declining rapidly.

Whether it's a shot at competitor Newsweek for putting Markos Moulitsas on the payroll, or a brief moment of clarity, Time magazine has named the disgustingly liberal website Daily Kos as one of the most overrated blogs on the Internet.

I kid you not. 

Such a revelation seems even more odd given the absence of any conservative websites in Time's "25 Best Blogs of 2009."

But before we get there, here's what the magazine had to say about DK:

Taking a look at the stories in the Old Media will show that the Media is turning attack dog ASAP on McCain's choice for vice president, Sarah Palin. Notice the main meme is her supposed "inexperience." Funny how Palin was the VP pick for about 15 seconds before the Old Media went after her "inexperience" while they have yet to hit Barry Obama on HIS inexperience at all and he's been running for president since 2004. We should also note that Palin didn't get the honeymoon that Biden got when his announcement was made. But, the worst is yet to come and the Daily Kos is doing its level best to mine the lowest of lows. In a Kos diary today, it is being alleged that Sarah Palin "faked" the pregnancy of her last child, a baby born with Down's Syndrome. The claim is that it was her teenaged daughter's child, not hers. And, true to form, the Kossacks took that absurd calumny and hate even further in the comments.

With all the pseudo gravity the Kos diarist could muster, this ridiculous story of a "cover-up" was floated for the foolish Kossacks to lap up. Inky99 gave us the scurrilous diary headlined "Palin's faked 'pregnancy'? Covering for teen daughter?," in which the Kossacks posit that Governor Palin covered up her own teenage daughter's teen pregnancy by pretending it is her own child instead of her daughter's.

MSNBC's Keith Olbermann made his support for Barack Obama even clearer Thursday when moments after the junior senator from Illinois accepted his party's nomination as president, the "Countdown" host assailed an Associated Press writer for having the nerve to not be as enthralled with the Messiah's address as he was.

In Olbermann's crosshairs on this occasion was Charles Babington who penned an article that largely mirrored the opinions offered on Fox News by liberal contributors Juan Williams and Nina Easton: the speech was short on specifics.

This didn't sit well with Olbermann who said the following (video embedded right) :

It appears something else that isn't tolerated at the ultra-left-leaning website Daily Kos is too much discussion about the extra-marital sexual escapades of Democrats the Netroots hold in high esteem.

At least, this appears to be the case given Saturday's banning of Lee Stranahan, a liberal blogger and video producer who's been writing diaries at DKos since at least April 2007, and has had his work featured at the Huffington Post.

My colleague P.J. Gladnick referenced Stranahan's HuffPo piece about Edwards back on July 27:

NewsBusters has reported for years how the ultra-left wing website Daily Kos will publish all kinds of hateful articles about conservative politicians and figures without ever deleting or editing them.

On Sunday, it was made infinitely clear to the Kossacks that although attacks on right-leaning figures are encouraged -- even if they've just passed away, such as the recent disgraceful posts about Jesse Helms' death -- you're not allowed to say anything bad about their hero, MSNBC's Keith Olbermann.

UPDATE at end of post: Kos denies the allegations.

Although frequent DK poster The Baculum King's "Keith Olbermann Stooping to Fox's Level Now??" has been deleted, Google still has the cached version for all to see (h/t NBer Thomas Stewart, vulgarity alert):

Just as I finish a piece laughing at DailyKos for claiming that it is conservatives that feel they have to "create their own alternate reality" because of their "rigid ideology," I find a story out of The Austin American-Statesman where the DailyKos forced that paper to pull a story that had a mildly satirical take on last weekend's Netroots Nation conference in Texas. Apparently, the DailyKos folks didn't like The Austin American-Statesman's "reality" so the Kossacks flooded the paper with their insistence on creating a new one.

The original article by the Statesman's Patrick Beach knocked the nutrooters for the so-called "surprise" Gore visit, said it turned into a "faint-in," and that their general feeling was "terribly self-confirming," among other snippy comments... fun, but snippy. The general tone of the piece was that of amusement at how seriously the nutrooters took themselves. And, even more galling to said nutrooters, this story was the front page editorial of Sunday's edition. (Original, Google cached version of Beach's piece.)

This did not sit well with the nutrooters in question.

Many of us have taken to calling the media establishment the "MSM," or "Mainstream Media." But is that a fair and properly descriptive monicker to bestow upon them? A New York Times Blogger pondered that very question on July 21 in a "The Caucus" blog entry -- one that was a barely disguised effort to highlight and advertise the opinion of one Markos Moulitsas of the DailyKos.

Still, regardless of the origin of the question, it is an interesting point to ponder. With the failing of newspapers country wide, with the ever falling audience that the big three TV networks are seeing for their news product, and with the corresponding rise of the Internet as a news source, is the old media still properly to be called "mainstream"? Does it still represent the most common way that America gets its news, thereby deserving of the term "mainstream"?