The Virtue of Principles: Digby, again, gets it right:

The president's approval rating is stuck at around 40% and I think it's pretty clear that it isn't the reporting in the mainstream media or by the "reasonable" Democrats at the New Republican that brought that about. If left up to them the Republicans would be coasting to another easy re-election.

I don't say this because I think that liberal blogs are taking over the world and have changed the face of politics as we know it. I say it because I know that without us there would have been virtually no critical voices during the long period between 2001 and the presidential primary campaign during 2003. We were it. The media were overt, enthusiastic Bush boosters for well over two years and created an environment in which Democratic dissent (never welcome) was non-existent to the average American viewer. In fact, it took Bush's approval rating falling to below 40% before they would admit that he was in trouble.

I believe that if it had not been for the constant underground drumbeat from the fever swamps over the past five years, when the incompetence, malfeasance and corruption finally hit critical mass last summer with the bad news from Iraq, oil prices and Katrina, Bush would not have sunk as precipitously as he did and stayed there. It literally took two catasprophes of epic proportions to break the media from its narrative of Bush's powerful leadership. And this after two extremely close elections ---- and the lack of any WMD in Iraq.

I would add that one of the most potent, albeit frustrating, aspects of the lefty blogosphere is it's tenacity in the area of media criticism. I say frustrating, because it is often a distraction we can ill afford when it comes to focusing our efforts on something that has true, long-term importance; obsessing about the wording of a Washington Post ombudsman's article seems pretty trivial when compared with something like, say, the Alito nomination (whose endorsement by the Senate was clinched the same week).

But the passion, the intensity that goes into leading such airheadish campaigns does have a very important purpose: it changes the terms of the debate, something that is of paramount importance when the electoral numbers are against you. Liberals have been losing elections for decades in America (the only time we win is when there is a national calamity or event that has discredited the party in power, such as the Great Depression or the Dred Scott decision), so crafting a winning message for national elections every 2-4 years can't be a serious priority for those of us on the sidelines. Mau-mauing the media, putting the fear of God into the hearts of opinion-crafters, making pundits believe that if they simply regurgitate Rove's spinpoints, they are going to receive a world of hurtin', now that's a strategy that anyone who is locked out of power can follow without having to compromise principles.

And as I've said before, we don't need to win every election, or even most elections, for our ideas to prevail. I wasn't put on this planet to serve the Democratic Party, and I'd desert it an instant if I ever thought it wasn't anything more than GOP-lite. Our blogosphere gives us that option, an ability to create a politics that doesn't rely on winning elections, where even those of us in the minority can quash the policy prescriptions of the majority party (read, Social Security "reform"). You don't need 50 Senators when the other side is terrified of you could do to them if you don't get what you want.

Digby concludes:

I see that the press does not know what to make of this. And I see that many Joementum Democrats don't get it either. They remain convinced that the country will wake up one day and see that our arguments are superior. They are wrong. This political era will be remembered for its brutal partisanship and sophisticated media manipulation in a 50/50 political environment. Democrats have been at a huge disadvantage because of the Republican message infrastructure and the strange servility of the mainstream press. So, we are pushing back with the one tough, aggressive partisan communication tool we have: the blogosphere.

Amen.