Entries tagged with “Center for American Progress” from Reality Window

Matt Yglesias did a little plain speaking on his blog as he is wont to do. What happened next is more unusual. The self-described "acting CEO of the Center for American Progress Action Fund, Jennifer Palmieri, decided to post a note on Matt Yglesias's blog.

Poorly done Ms. Palmieri. This commenter detailed the reasons correctly. You've undercut Matt's credibility tremendously. Plus you've now begged the question: Just who can pressure CAP to change its positions and how often does this happen?

Not to mention that Third Way now looks like the crybaby on the playground. And to a much larger audience than would ever have read Matt's blog post in the first place. Front page of Daily Kos, Open Left, Atrios. And as of right now, your post is the #1 item on Mememorandum which also shows links from Salon, TalkLeft, American Power, Outside the Beltway, Brendan Nyhan, Rising Hegemon, Grasping Reality and The Jed Report.

Epic fail.

I suspect that you're another one of those inside-the-beltway types who doesn't really "get" blogs. You know they're there and that someone needs to pay attention to them but you don't really get how it all works. Well, pay attention.

You just hurt yourself, your organization and the organization that you were supposedly protecting. Which, as Matt so rightly pointed out, is a bunch of namby-pambies pushing a domestic agenda that's "hyper-timid incrementalist bullshit".

Jay Rosen adds his insight to the mess in this comment and I couldn't agree more.

You decided to have the wrong "tough" conversation. The tough conversation you should have had is with the people or person at Third Way who asked that you do something to separate yourself from this Matt Yglesias and his damn opinions. You should have told that person who Matt is, why he was hired and what he does at your site, rather than telling us about Third Way is and how supportive your Center is of their work. Your protected the wrong guy, put the wrong people on notice, undercut your own blogger, and-alas-now you are getting what you deserve.

One more thing: in the real world of the Web, as against the back-scratching fantasyland that you feel you can extend to the Web, the right way to handle this is for someone with a voice at ThirdWay to write a letter to Matt, objecting to his post. He'd run it, and there would be a debate. Instead you chose the cozy Washington way, and projected it onto the Web. Please learn from that.

Ms. Palmieri, alas, you've proved once again that inside the beltway = clueless.