Feeling Threatened

Today is Dogpile on Richard Cohen day. I said in a previous post that Cohen was personally offended by something Colbert joked about, so then refused to acknowledge that anything Colbert said was humorous.

Peter Daou explains on Huffington Post.

As more power and influence accrues to the netroots, entrenched political forces will resist mightily, ceding no turf without a bitter fight.

The media, an entrenched political force, is having its comfort disturbed by upstarts who are stealing more and more of their authority and audience.

Cohen is part of that. Yes, he's just a columnist who often criticizes the President and his policies, and is not a lap dog. But he's part of the power structure and has friends and colleagues who have, overall, been doing a dismal job. In the same way I'm defensive at his attack on angry emailers and bloggers (though I don't count myself as one), he's defensive at an attack on his stenographer friends (though he doesn't count himself as one).

Daou links to Greg Sargent's Prospect article on the increasing recent attacks on "angry" left bloggers. It's not really the "vitriol" and anger that upsets them, it's the effectiveness of the medium.