To refresh your memories, "Diary rescue" at Daily Kos is a relatively new feature--one of the frontpage posters (SusanG) and others in her crew review the hundreds of diaries (commentaries) submitted each day--and I do mean hundreds--to choose a dozen or so that didn't get on the recommended list and therefore slipped from sight before a lot of people knew they existed. This is a price of Dkos' success--so many diaries, so little time. It's particularly tough on posts of any length, since it may take people as long to read them as they will appear in the "new diary" list.
Anyway, my last two posts there have been each given a second life. "Wars Within Wars," a Vietnam era memoir (also posted with photos on 60's Now) was at the top of the rescued with these words: "Captain Future's Wars Within Wars is a beautifully written personal account of a war four decades ago that foisted philosophical distinctions about moral and immoral wars on an entire generation. Highly recommended."
Dkos is by far the largest community blog on my side of the spectrum, and one of the largest overall on the Internet--it has more readers than some cable news channels have viewers. So words like that led to a lot of new readers, both there and at 60's Now, and to a number of new comments, some with their own personal stories about that time, which are worth reading whether or not you've read the original post. There were some interesting comments when it was briefly frontpaged and then on the recommended list at Booman Tribune.
Some of the stories about experiences of others regarding Vietnam and the draft in the late 60s and early 70s are truly heartrending and hair-raising. But the one that struck me the most was this from dkos: "We all went through variations of this. But I notice as great a reluctance among my cohort to discuss what we did during Vietnam as I did among my father and uncles who fought in WWII."
That had not occurred to me. I thought of my generation as loudmouths already boring the young with our stories. Perhaps he meant only vets but I don't think so. So maybe this was worthwhile.
A version of one of Sunday's posts here (actually more like the one on 60's Now) eventually called After Hiroshima Terror Is What Bombing Is For was high on the dkos rescue list Monday. Those comments are still coming in as I write this, but again they're interesting--this time for the additional sources and points of view on the efficacy and morality of bombing civilians and cities. There are a number of such comments as well at E Pluribus Media, where it was frontpaged, and the European Tribune, where it was on the recommended list.
The site I often go to first for the day's political news is Taegan Goddard's Political Wire. Amongst the inside baseball info and pundit temperature-taking that constitutes the daily political dialogue, there are nuggets to be mined. Some days are better than others. Monday was pretty interesting. For these...
From pollster John Zogby: "Joe Lieberman will probably go down in defeat by a substantial margin on Tuesday. While some bloggers have listed multiple reasons for the loss in confidence among Connecticut voters, it is all about Iraq. This election cycle is all about Iraq. 2004 was all about Iraq and the Democrats were afraid to take a stand less they appear to flip-flip on a war they supported. But this time around, the statistics are staggering: only 16% of Democrats and 26% of Independents think the war has been worth the loss in American lives. Lieberman's dogged support for the Bush war policy has isolated him from rank and file voters."
On young adults view of Bush: A Bloomberg/Los Angeles Times poll of Americans age 18 to 24 found President Bush's approval rating was just 20%, with 53% disapproving and 28% with no opinion.
On Hillary Clinton's high negatives: Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) has very high negatives in American Research Group focus groups of New Hampshire voters, the Boston Herald reports. In fact, in 30 years of survey research, pollster Dick Bennett says "heÂ’s never before seen so many N.H. voters show so much hatred toward a member of their own party. HeÂ’s never even seen anything close." Says Bennett: "Forty-five percent of the Democrats are just as negative about her as Republicans are. More Republicans dislike her, but the Democrats dislike her in the same way.
On the Democrats' chances of winning control of the Senate, hinging on Tennessee: "Time profiles Rep. Harold Ford, Jr.Â’s (D-TN) campaign to succeed Sen. Bill Frist (R-TN) as the next senator from Tennessee: "Although Tennessee has not sent a Democrat to the Senate since Al Gore won re-election in 1990, the race is starting to look far closer than just about anyone would have expected a few months ago. And with Democrats leading in the five other states that are considered their best opportunities to pick up Senate seats this fall -- Pennsylvania, Montana, Rhode Island, Ohio and Missouri -- it is conceivable that a victory by Ford could give them the sixth one that they need to take back control of the chamber."
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