Ok, let me lay it on the line, Dick.   I have suspicions that Nick Wilbur might be a fake - a paid operative.

"With talent comes responsibility, and some of that responsibility involves understanding that everybody here is at different levels of ability and awareness."

Wow.  Condescend much?

First, Erica, thanks for the kind remarks.  You are always very constructive.  But here’s where I am on this business:

Nick Wilbur is the author of the blog Muddy Politics.  The blog is published on the Muddy Politics home site, but is also co-published on - as far as I can tell - about a half-dozen to a dozen other sites around the internet.  The co-published blogs are usually accompanied with the short bio of Nick Wilbur, identifying the author by name.  So as far as I'm concerned, Nick Wilbur is not in any way endeavoring to hide his name from the public, or cloak his authorship of the blog Muddy Politics.   The idea that I "outed" him by using his name is similar to the charge that if someone came here and posted a blog with the TPM masthead and link to TPM, and I called him "Josh", I would have thereby "outed" Josh Marshall.

I think it is very possible that we are going to see a lot more of this kind of thing as the next twelve months progress: people landing here out of nowhere, with names or nicknames we've never heard, eager to ridicule, demean, slander, vilify, sideline, neutralize, marginalize and politically incapacitate the left - and then going on their merry way.  I think that's the game plan of at least one significant part of the Obama campaign.  Since they don't have a primary battle on their hands, which would require them to kiss up a little bit to progressives, they will be dishing it out to both the Republicans and progressives, so that they can lay claim to the center.   Whether they are paid operatives, or organized volunteers, or just enthusiastic "lone gunmen" supporters, I don't care.  As far as I'm concerned this stuff is part of an organized campaign against the left that has been going on for a couple of years now, and I can tell you left-progressives have had it with this crap.  And we're also now more confident and energized, and less vulnerable to intimidation.

Here’s the way it usually goes with these cowards: they come out on the stoop and throw a mudpie at some of the dirty hippies passing by, and then run back inside mommy's apartment, and hide behind the dress of "Don't fight back; you'll divide the party!"  Or maybe they send a surrogate or sock puppet to take up the fight, so they can ditch the ruckus they caused.

Did anyone notice that I had one fairly long and straightforward comment in this thread on the content of Nick's posts, and he declined to respond?

As Bruce says, we have a pretty decent entente here between the Obama supporters and the Obama critics.  We mostly have constructive, if sometimes intense, discussions.  But if someone comes here ready to pick the same kinds of fights Nick is interested in starting with us professional left retards, or whatever we are being called this week by the White House foot soldiers, I'm going to unload on him with everything I've got.  I don't care if he calls himself "muddy politics" or "ruddy fiddlesticks" or "puny pencildicks".  And I don't care if he actually works for the campaign dirty tricksters and hatchet men, or just acts like he does.  If it’s a fight they want, that’s what they’re going to get.   Rahm Emanuel and Ray Sandoval (from Nick's home state) and others of similar ilk can bring it on.

I don't think Nick needs or wants any people standing up for him and saving him from bad old meanies like me.  The name of his blog will give you an inkling of the kinds of discourse that are his forte - getting down in the mud and slinging it.   Just for a taste, you can peruse one of his latest Romney posts.  But to save time, I'll synopsize it for you.  It goes something like this:

"It's really interesting how the MORMON, Mitt Romney has managed to avoid media discussion of the fact that he is a MORMON.  Not that I have anything against MORMONS myself, mind you, but a large number of conservative evangelical voters really hate MORMONS.  So I think it is probably a good strategy for the MORMON Mitt Romney to keep his religion in low profile, and avoid talking about the fact that he is a MORMON."

Now Nick might just be a total amateur free-lancer.  I don't know.   But the style of his posts has the savor of a pro - a tiny-minded, lickspittle political operative without a single free or elevated thought in his subservient politico brain.  Even if he is not paid, I imagine it's easy enough to get on some Obama for America mailing list where you get the daily talking points on Herman Cain, Mitt Romney, Rick Perry, Ralph Nader, Michael Moore, Bernie Sanders, William Greider and others.  They send the army the slimy little emails, give them a little pat on the rear, and tell them to go forth, be fruitful and multiply.   So maybe Nick is just an enthusiastic kid, eager to display his chops.   Either way, so long as Obama's command team doesn't call off the goons - at least as far as the attacks on the left are concerned - I'll be happy to help them reap what they sow.

I don’t have the time or interest to engage in commentary on the sad orgy of ignorance that is the contemporary Republican party.  But I'll defend my own people.  For each attack on the left, I'll be happy to write another post reminding everyone what a pathetic failure and weak, sycophantic coward Barack Obama is, and how he and his dumbed-down team of conservative incompetents – along with their obtuse neoliberal compadres in Europe - have helped steer the global economy into profound systemic failure and frighteningly high unemployment and social decay, all while helping their nations’ financial sectors build a gated community around their hoarded and ill-gotten capital, abetting them in avoiding prosecution for their frauds and other crimes, and punishing the exploited and ripped-off majority with an austerity program designed to protect creditors, destroy progressive government institutions and please the oligarchs.   The left has been 100% vindicated in its criticisms of the Obama administration, as far as I’m concerned.  But to avoid accountability and a reckoning with truth and the need to amend their path, some on the Obama team will continue to mock and vilify the left.

The United States now has a system of startling inequality and social immobility that is the scandal of the developed world.   Obama has done diddly about it.  Obama spent the last two years trying to prove to the Pete Petersons and Jamie Dimons of the world that he can be trusted to keep that system just the way it is, and was willing to impose a true blue conservative, Hooverite austerity program on us mere employees of America's owners - just to prove to the rich assholes he is always rubbing his nose in how "responsible" he is.  His signature “progressive” legislative achievement is now raising insurance rates on the already screwed-over middle class, because that program was built on a deal with some of the wealthiest corporations in America to help them keep their profits intact, and avoid imposing either serious cost cuts on their bloodsucking exploitation of sickness and death, or a public option to compete aggressively against them with a low-cost, non-profit alternative.   We told him these rate increases were going to happen.

Obama can chose to continue supporting or tolerating the Nick Wilburs of the world, or he can send out a loud and clear message to his people to build a strong bridge to the folks who were right about these outrages all along.

I'm glad you raised the issue of campaign volunteers.  Volunteer campaigners could be seen, at least logically if not legally (I do campaign disclosure stuff but mostly state and I'm not really up on the federal rules) as in-kind contributions to a campaign.  I participated in a conference call last week with a group of union lawyers about a measure before the NY City Council that will put extraordinarily burdensome disclosure requirements on, inter alia, labor unions if passed--for things like member communications that aren't even close to endorsements.  And that is purely targeted at  things campaigns don't pay for.

If a campaign is orchestrating a volunteer network that sends people out to little places like this then it is an arm of the campaign, and it matters not IMO if the folks being sent out to write according to script are being paid or not.   People who scoff at such a notion are simply not thinking this through or haven't thought of it all--and would rather carelessly throw out charges of ethical breach instead.  That troubles me.

Addendum:  Beyond disclosure issues, while the internet is somewhat analogous to the wild, wild west of movies and books, at some level, still fairly undefined, journalistic ethics--yes ethics!! --apply.  So if the New York Times, for example, includes a letter or an op-ed piece by someone who writes on behalf of a campaign, paid or unpaid, in the ordinary course that person's relationship with that campaign will be disclosed.  I agree with that practice.

I volunteered for the Obama campaign back in 2007 and 2008 too.  As soon as I made my decision about whom to support back in 2007, even before I had actually done any canvassing, I let everyone at TPM Cafe know who I supported, and let them know what work I was doing .

Sneakiness and misrepresentation are to be deplored at every level.  If someone poses as just a concerned citizen, but is actually a  paid operative or provocateur, that's worth digging into.

If we're being astroturfed here, I would really like to know.   And if progressives are now going to have to handle a barrage from folks who are being fed daily talking points from the Obama campaign, and are paid to spend hours blasting them out all over the web and then  responding to comments, aided by sock puppets and back up confederates, I would like to know, so that we can step it up and ... you know ... get our game on.

I can guarantee you that if anybody ever decided to pay me to advocate for progressive causes full time, and engaging in internet debate was part of the job description, you folks would be the first to know - because I respect you.  And if a condition of the employment were that I were forbidden to disclose that employment, I wouldn't take the job.

I can see what's coming down the road.  While OWS has a mix of elements - I myself have called attention to them - a cursory study of the rhetoric coming from most of the Occupy sites shows it is overwhelmingly a left-leaning movement.  It's not going to be Republicans who go on the attack against them.  It's going to be the Democratic establishment.  Let's remember who the chief of staff's father was.

So I think we progressives have to buckle up and get prepared for Operation Pulverize the Left. 

It seems to me your mixing up arguments.  I just voiced my suspicions once the issue was raised but I'm not accusing him of anything.  I then took issue with this notion that it's somehow unethical to look at someone's profile on Dag and follow up with what he writes there with a quick scan of Google, which is what both I and apparently TMC did as well.  I don't consider that outing and neither do I consider it unethical.

I also took issue with the abstract notion that it is somehow acceptable to come in here at the direction of a campaign and to spout talking points.  But I'm not presuming MP is here on behalf on anyone; again, I'm just being candid that I had a suspicion similar to Dan's.   And of course I understand that raising the issue makes it more difficult to give MP the presumption of innocence as you put it.  I do agree with that.

The other thing is that my suspicions about MP are really based on the first blog I read of his on here more than this one.   That was on Libya and it was weird, with pictures of Qadaffi right before he was killed and then pictures of his corpse.  That as I wrote back then was something the Bush Administration would have done.   

Oh great.  Now what do I do with all these peanuts, popcorn and cotton candy? 

Actually, Quinn, I took down the thread out of courtesy towards you because we generally don't like to make a big issue of our moderation efforts for fear of inviting a free-for-fall. But since you insist, I will put it back up. Enjoy your martyrdom.

The warning stands. The fact that you seem to misunderstand why you received the warning, I can nothing more about, as I have repeatedly explained our policy against ad hominem attacks on dagblog contributors. Your conflation of this policy with other types of comments that you find offensive seems deliberate.

I'm afraid that I have no time continue this discussion. I encourage anyone who chooses to participate in the discussion to show restraint. If it gets out of hand, we'll shut down the thread, which I frankly do not expect to last very long.

Speaking of moderation, I think this clip gives an excellent discussion on some reasonable policies that might make dagblog function more smoothly.