Kos talks about Townhouse and Kosola.

Kos verifies that there is an email list called "Townhouse" and that he really did send the email that TNR printed and we were all talking about yesterday. Kos:

There was one big rule for this list, an important cog in the growing Vast Left Wing Conspiracy -- everything discussed was off the record.

That was obviously violated today as the New Republic betrayed, once again, that it seeks to destroy the new people-powered movement...

Well, TNR didn't break the "one big rule." Someone with the privileged access of list membership did. "Betrayed" is an interesting verb to have TNR as its subject. TNR isn't a traitor. Someone on the list is, and I assume Kos is concerned about that betrayal.

There is nothing controversial about the email, but Jason Zengerle [of TNR] tried to spin it as evidence that there is a "smoke-filled room" and that I send "dictats" to other bloggers, controlling what they can and cannot write about. In a subsequent post, Zengerle went further, saying that I control the financial fates of much of the progressive blogosphere. My power apparently knows no bounds!

Kos usually brags about the power of his blog. Here, he tries -- strains -- to laugh of the suggestion that he could influence bloggers in his sphere. A "diktat" -- let's start spelling it right -- is an "authoritative or dogmatic statement or decree." Kos tries to load on the meaning that it must be able to control what people do and zings Zengerle for asserting what he did not assert. Clearly, Kos aims for power and likes to use it and threaten to use it. Of course, bloggers can do what they want, but there are consequences that they understand.

Ludicrous, all of it, but that's the new rules of the game. TNR and its enablers are feeling the heat of their own irrelevance and this is how they fight it -- by undermining the progressive movement. Zengerle has made common cause with the wingnutosphere, using the laughable "kosola" frame they created and emailing his "scoops" to them for links. This is what the once-proud New Republic has evolved into -- just another cog of the Vast RIGHT Wing Conspiracy.

So you must believe there's a wingnutosphere out to destroy the progressive movement, with the evil New Republic at its core. Somehow, that's not laughable. But I am amused at the accusation that it has "rules." Not "one big rule"?

If you still hold a subscription to that magazine, it really is time to call it quits. If you see it in a magazine rack, you might as well move it behind the National Review or even NewsMax, since that's who they want to be associated with these days.

Now, that's funny! Here, he openly works in financial pressure. Cancel your subscriptions to the noble old magazine. Is that a diktat?

But I do admit being surprised by the sheer creativity of their invented attacks, such as my supposed "pay for play" scheme. Let me be crystal clear. I deny that charge completely.

Let me make one thing perfectly clear. I am not a crook.

I have stated the sources of my income and they do not include money from people asking me to shill for anyone or anything. Problem for these writers, is that the law doesn't protect such defamation. The truth is an absolute defense to libel cases. If they have evidence for those smears, then they have nothing to fear. But if they, say, recklessly invented all manners of illegal or unethical activities by me without bothering to see if they bore any basis in truth, then they'll have plenty to worry about.

Here, Kos tries to scare people off with threats of lawsuits. I agree that people shouldn't write "recklessly invented" things about other people and try to smear them. But is Kos following his own standard? And did Zengerle recklessly invent something about him? Zengerle published an email that Kos confirms he wrote, that gives a fascinating view into the operation of a set of bloggers that Kos strenuously portrays as extremely important in politics today. Why, exactly, is that illegitimate? I can certainly understand Kos's opposition to TNR in the political sphere. TNR tries to call Democrats away from the left-wing politics that Kos promotes.

It is now beyond clear that the dying New Republic is mortally wounded and cornered, desperate for relevance. It has lost half its circulation since the blogs arrived on the scene and they no longer (thank heavens!) have a monopoly on progressive punditry. We have hit their bottom line, we are hitting their patron saint hard (Joe Lieberman) and this is how they respond. By going after the entire movement.

So, let's see what's really here: an important fight for the Democratic party. I'm on TNR's side in the fight. I'd like to see everyone fight fair. And we should talk about what it means to fight fair. Can we publish leaked emails from a private list with a "big rule" about secrecy? Wouldn't Kos publish an email from a private list of right-wing bloggers? Wouldn't he report and speculate about rumors that are equivalent to the ones about him that people are discussing?