I hope this doesn't count as a call-out diary, but I feel like it needs to be discussed. The strange mutation of MyDD is heading to a direction which is, frankly, damaging for the Democratic party.
Ever since Chris Bowers and Matt Stoller left MyDD, it has slowly drifted away from its original interesting tilt towards professional, objective but not always neutral analysis of elections, to a bizarre candidate-pumping journal. First it was inhabited by partisans of all stripes, but recently Obama supporters have been less notable, and the site has become dominated by Clinton supporters.
This in and of itself is fine - Clinton had been underrepresented among the netroots, and it was nice to have a site to go to where I could see who the mythical Clinton supporters (until recently, I never met one IRL) actually were.
But the site has recently taken a more and more openly anti-Obama slant. I think the breaking point for me was waking up today to see this post.
Jerome Armstrong has been notably pro-Clinton and anti-Obama for quite some time, which is fine (although I wish he'd officially endorse like Todd and Jonathan did over there, rather than pretend to be "objective"). However, he's made repeated bad calls in recent weeks, including estimating Obama would only win five states on Super Tuesday and Clinton would win Washington. He is not just a random spectator in politics - he is a professional who has worked as a hired consultant. I understand if in his heart he desires Clinton to sweep, but those emotions shouldn't get in the way of rational calls for any of us.
I've just come to the conclusion he's become what I term a "bad faith blogger." That is to say, he knowingly posts non-objective analysis to help whip up a blogswarm of emotional frenzy, in hopes that the mobilizing on MyDD for Hillary will help her win the nomination. Essentially, instead of being a tool for understanding politics, the site has become a tool to help shape politics.
The first time I saw this in action was actually with Kos here during the Lieberman-Lamont run-up. Kos would post short (but of course truthful) anti-Lieberman posts when he wasn't really in the national spotlight. Each would filter through the collective unconsciousness, and eventually consensus on DailyKos about Lieberman was made. I didn't have any major beef with this, as all the stories were truthful, but I remember preferring a more up-front analysis. I think Jerome in some small way is trying to mirror that with MyDD now.
Why do I think this is problematic? Because blogs are self-reinforcing communities. The more a frequent poster who happens to be a Hillary fan sees his or her compatriots say things like "Obama will lose New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut to McCain," or "I won't vote for Obama if he's the nominee," the more they come to believe it themselves.
What happens if Obama's the nominee? MyDD could do a 180 and close ranks, and lose most of their new audience. But the anti-Obama, even anti-Obama in the General Election, momentum of the site seems set now - and it will be hard to change - meaning it could remain a site with diaries attacking our nominee all the way through - ironic because it was supposed to help elect "more and better Democrats."
I guess what I'm saying is MyDD is coming dangerously close to becoming a site which will actually hurt the Democrats chances to win in 2008 rather than help it. Even if you accept Jerome's implicit argument about "electability", the chance that MyDD will build up Clinton at this point in the campaign is minuscule compared to the damage that the site may do to Obama's eventual nomination. It goes against everything the netroots was built up for. And it's a sad, sad fall for a site which was formerly excellent.