Some have noted that over the weeks since the pie fight I've been citing content from DailyKos, despite everything. Today, in Booman, eodell makes an eloquent case "Why DailyKos isn't worth fighting for":

During the now-infamous Pie Fight and the ensuing exodus of liberal Democrats, there were a number of well-intentioned (and some not so well-intentioned) folks who urged the offended parties to stay and fight. There were several reasons offered, the chief of which was, essentially, that dKos had become a powerful force on the left, and therefore was worth fighting for. I'd like to debunk that notion, and present the reasons I decided to move on.

The fact of the matter is that dKos, like every other blog on earth, and the majority of voluntary associations, has no value or power outside of its members. There may be the odd exception, like the Better Business Bureau, which is potent in part because of its long-established good reputation, but dKos and blogs generally have barely been on the radar of the more attentive sections of the general public for scarcely a year. Moreover, based on Markos Moulitsas' occasional revealing comments about his hardware and -- thanks to the selfsame Pie Fight -- his ad traffic, it's plain that it isn't even that big of a site. Big, perhaps, for the nascent field of political blogs, but there was a time when the biggest, baddest (and only) search engine on the block was Lycos. It didn't matter in the long run.

It's a strong assertion, and not something with which I don't necessarily disagree. There's more:

Now, here are the reasons I think fighting this is futile:

1. Moulitsas and his close allies have backed themselves into a corner. It would take a degree of humility one may be fairly certain they do not possess for them to change course, much less apologize.

I would tend to agree with this. It seems especially true of a chest-thumper like Gilliard, whose own misogynistic -- or at least chauvinistically and dismissively sexist -- rants have not missed notice by other women. These brash boys have attached their fragile -- or should I say "brittle"? -- male egos to their macho poses. Girls, get outta my way! they say as they place their feet in their mouths.

2. DailyKos has very clearly -- if less than honestly and openly -- staked out its turf. It's all about winning elections by chasing the center. The Kos-DLC sniping that has gone on over the past year isn't about ideology; it's a simple turf war. Kos plainly objects to the level of corporate influence in the DLC, but it's hard to see any other difference between the two.

This could very well be true. I'm not a dyed-in-the-wool Democrat. To me, it's about values -- yes, moral values -- and right now the GOP represents so much immorality I look to the Democrats for sanctuary, if not salvation. What's become clear, though, is that this is a fool's quest, for the elected politicians in the Democratic Party seem to be largely in thrall with many of the same corrupting influences that have given the GOP its current stench. A few stand out, such as Senator Boxer and Representative Slaughter, but in general the Democrat politicos have shown a lust for the backing of those who back the Republicans. (I'd say there are exceptions in the GOP, too, but they are far too prone to sitting on whatever self-proclaimed principles they hold to toe the party line, no matter how offensive or immoral. One thing is clear about the Republicans: much more often than the Democrats, they put the interests of their party over the interests of the nation.)

What was patently obvious to many of us by the time Kos threw the pie fight ad into our faces is that he's of the same ilk. He's a self-labeled Deaniac, but he certainly seems to have real problems with values talk. His several-days-late-and-a-few-dollars-short attempt at framing values still seemed to miss the obvious. As was made so painfully clear in his anti-NARAL stance, his focus is on electing any Democrat (no matter how odious) over any Republican (no matter how principled). It's the Party, stupid! is the dKos campaign mantra. Given my remarks in the previous paragraph, one might consider my own position to be inconsistent. I will only answer that, while I remain skeptical of any Republican's ability to stand up for principle in stead of toeing the GOP anger point of the week, I feel party affiliation is no way to frame a values-based discussion in general. DailyKos is about party talk, not values talk, and that leaves little room for me.

3. DailyKos is, as Moulitsas is fond of saying, about partisan politics. Activists, on the other hand, are driven by ideology and issues. It's probably safe to say that if the American political system made third parties viable, there would be massive defection from the Democratic Party. This makes sense: if you want politicians to listen to you, being a party-line voter is counterproductive. Politicians listen to the people whose votes they're not sure of. Partisan activists need to be fed and watered, of course, but it's the ideological factions that have to be appeased.

When it comes to politicians and organizations having to appease Markos, though, there comes the question: Who are today's Establishment players who feel they must be appeased, really?

4. There is a real danger in any blog becoming the self-appointed voice of the party. Recent refugees from dKos know why this is, but politicians need to take care as well. By closely associating with dKos or any blog, as some congresscritters have, they run the risk of being tied to the inflammatory comments posted by J. Random Troll and the site's owner. Elizabeth Dole has already made much of the association of Democratic politicians with Markos Moulitsas and his intemperate remarks referring to the contractors who were massacred, mutilated, and hanged in Iraq as "mercenaries". By learning to communicate, possibly via a mechanism as simple as RSS, with as many liberal blogs as possible, our elected officials will increase their reach while reducing their vulnerability to loose cannons.

I agree with this, which is why I prefer to flit around from site to site, rather than inhabit just one superblog, especially one with so much shouting -- and shouting down.

5. Finally, and most importantly for me personally, the thing I value most about America is the egalitarian ideal for which it has striven since its inception. Everything else is secondary to that ideal, because, IMHO, everything else flows from it. For Moulitsas and his crew, that is evidently a fungible issue. For me, it is not. Without devotion to equality before the law, no country and no party -- and certainly no website -- is itself worthy of devotion.

Well, that's the rub, isn't it? There are many whose words fly up to flirt with high ideals, but their thoughts remain below, in the tit-for-tat logic of trench warfare. Quaint matters like equal protection under the law for all or the particular right to freedom from state-controlled breeder-slavery for women don't measure up to the "important shit" in the eyes of Kos (who insists that a woman's control over her own body must be considered a matter of 'privacy,' like library records or what you have in the trunk of your car).

Yet I don't visit DailyKos for Markos' insights and assertions. In fact I tend to ignore his posts. I visit to see what the other diarists are writing about, because many of them are in tune with some very interesting things going on (such as the e-voting hearing yesterday). Yet even then, I tend not to read most of the discussion. Yes, the big bad brash boys have turned me off on the tone of dialogue there.

Instead I flit around the Feminist Blogs (an aggregation of some of the best writers on the 'net) and some others on my blogrolls. Lately I've been enjoying The Booman Tribune, where today alone there are many interesting posts and discussions.

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