Let me begin by saying that, like Stefan Sharkansky, I hope that Darcy Burner and her family recover quickly from the fire that destroyed their home.
At a time like this, it is inappropriate to attack her personally. So I was surprised to see a damaging quote in the PI recycled at a local blog with an unfortunate name.
She caught on quickly with the "netroots," the informal community of left-wing bloggers that was emerging as a political force.
"She's one of us," Seattle blogger David Goldstein said recently. "Deep down, she's a geek."
Burner is not, by the usual definitions, a "geek". But Roberts and Goldstein imply that she is also a member of the "netroots", or as they are sometimes called, the "nutroots". In other words, she is like Markos "screw them" Zúniga or Glenn "sock puppet" Greenwald. That's an awfully harsh thing to suggest, especially at a time like this.
I'm not a fan of Burner, but I don't think that Goldstein should casually make this kind of insinuation about Burner, without strong evidence. (It is true that Burner has received enormous financial support from the "nutroots", but I would want stronger evidence before I would say that she is one of them.)
(Goldstein is also quite hard on the Democrats in our congressional delegation.
"What we don't have in Congress are people like Darcy Burner who truly understand high technology and the industries that are driving our economy and our region," he said.
On the whole, I have to agree with the negative part of that observation. (Though I might make a partial exception for Senator Cantwell. It is hard to believe that anyone could be so effective at blocking progress without having some understanding of technology.) If Baird, Inslee, Larsen, Dicks, or McDermott know anything about technology, they have concealed that knowledge very effectively.
You may want to read all of the Roberts article. It's quite funny, unintentionally, I suspect.
There are, of course, some decent bloggers on the left (and some terrible conservative and libertarian bloggers. But it is simply a fact that the standards are, on the average, much lower on the left side of the blogosphere.)
Posted by Jim Miller at July 06, 2008 05:27 PM | Email This