Pastor Dan, at Street Prophets tells a story similar to my own (though the dates are different):

I do share the fundamental bloggers’ critique of how we got ourselves in this position. It’s a three-legged stool: irresponsible and sometimes downright sinister Republican policies caused much of our trouble. But those policies benefitted from a docile media that didn’t challenge conservative ideology, and a moderate-to-liberal Democratic leadership that chose accommodation and compromise where those strategies were ineffective at best and craven at worst.

That’s an outside-the-beltway critique, for what should be obvious reasons. It calls into question not just the action of political opponents, but political allies. Institutional players are often understandably uncomfortable with having to cast a cold eye on people they call friends and colleagues.

Yet the uniting perception of many of us who came up in the progressive blogs is precisely that ineffective leadership on “our” side has been just as damaging as the actions taken by “their” side. I found my way to Daily Kos and the rest of the blogosphere for the same reason many of us did in 2003 and 2004: it looked like George W. Bush was going to drive the damn bus off a cliff, and nobody but nobody was organizing to stop him.

A good deal of the secular blog anger in those days was directed at Democrats who wouldn’t fight back against the War on Terra and the political cudgel that came along with it. A few of us were also deeply disappointed by the failure of progressive religious leaders to speak out clearly against the war. There were an awful lot of “on the one hand, on the other” statements that came too late to have much effect.

For me, only the timing was different – watching the mendacity and juvenility of the Clinton impeachment fiasco, I found myself growing more and more angry at the totally ineffective way not only the media but progressives fought back. Clinton was alone (for all intents and purposes) because Democrats were terrified of being accused of supporting extra-marital affairs and rarely if ever called bullshit on the Republican’s moral crusade.

Watching our nation’s incompetent media in 2000 finally pushed me over the edge. The media couldn’t seem to focus on the Bush’s campaigns utter ruthlessness in running John McCain through the meat-grinder, followed by their weird obsession with repeating right wing lies about Al Gore and worrying about what clothing he was wearing. Watching the media salivate over which presidential candidate would be a better drinking buddy as if that somehow mattered in choosing a president. We won’t even discuss the nearly criminal incompetence of the media during the Florida recount fiasco.

Then came the utter capitulation of both the media and progressive leaders during the leadup to Iraq. I can still taste the painful, bitterness of those days, the sinking gut-deep horror of watching, of trying to find someone, anyone who would speak out against what was so obviously an amazingly bad idea, an idea from which nothing good could arrise. In those awful months, the jingoism that dominated America’s media was sickening. The utter incompetence and failure of Democratic leaders was a bitter pill to swallow – how could they roll over again and again to the Republicans trumped up fake patriotism? But they did.

Watching how badly everything went awry, I found my patriotism suddenly bursting into a passionate fire. I was not going to stand by and watch these sociopathic criminals calling themselves American steal my country. I will not stand silently by as a bunch of thugs and bullies abuse America and all it can and should stand for. By 2004, I was past the outrage and into the action. I volunteered with a political campaign, wrote LTE’s, and got involved everywhere I could – and I donated money to more than a few campaigns. My now dog-eared copy of Move On’s 5o Ways To Love Your Country is one of my favored and proudest possessions. My copies of Lakoff’s Moral Politics and Don’t Think of an Elephant remain in regular rotation in my reading lists. The opportunity to participate in prepping a Senate Candidate for a public debate was amazing and I hope not once in a lifetime. I loved it.

The outrage coalesced with Howard Dean’s campaign. At long last, here was someone who would speak out for us, who would resist these Republicans and all their insane and obviously stupid plans. And the media did everything in its to aid and abet Dean’s meltdown.

Wanna know something? Change takes time and things have gotten better.. Democratic leaders are still too easily cowed by Republican blowhards (witness yesterday’s travesty of the Senate voting to condemn Move On’s General Betray Us ad). The media is still dominated by idiots who willingly report and repeat any right wing talking point they’re fed. Progressives are getting better though. We’re fighting to coordinate a message, we’re not sitting by the side and the Blogs are helping. Joe Klein, who is essentially a name-dropping, inside the beltway wanker, however, said it well when he observed the his generation, the baby boomers, have somehow avoided fulfilling their great promise and have delivered America the nadir of it’s political leadership. It’s time to fight for America. It’s long past time to fight for real American leaders. And we are creating a whole new movement, rooted in America’s strong progressive past.