While his writings—and the controversies they have caused—are an old topic in the blogosphere, they have remained largely unexamined in major media outlets. For example, one of Moulitsas’s most famous statements, involving the brutal murders of four American contractors in Fallujah, Iraq in 2004—“I feel nothing over the death of mercenaries. They aren’t in Iraq because of orders, or because they are there trying to help the people make Iraq a better place. They are there to wage war for profit. Screw them.”—has been the target of extensive criticism on conservative blogs and in conservative media outlets, but, according to a search of the Nexis database, has never been mentioned in the Washington Post. (It was quoted, once, in the New York Times, deep in a September 2004 feature story on bloggers.) Nor has it been reported in any major newsmagazine or been the topic of conversation on any major television program.
The same is true for other things Moulitsas has written. For example, in January of this year, Moulitsas reflected on the Bush administration’s conduct of the war on terror:
These blowhards pretend they are macho even as they piddle on themselves in abject terror from every “boo!” that comes out of Osama Bin Laden’s mouth.
Byron noted that Kos also ranted in January that there were great similarities between "Osama's vision for the Arab world" and "the Right's vision of America," and concluded:
In his remarks introducing Mark Warner in Las Vegas last week, Moulitsas praised Warner for being one of the first to recognize the power of the liberal netroots—for realizing, in Moulitsas’s words, that “maybe we weren’t these far-left extremist wackos that everybody else seems to think we are.” Indeed, many participants in the convention expressed frustration with the way in which bloggers are sometimes portrayed. Yet the remarkable thing is how little scrutiny Moulitsas’s writings have received in major media outlets. Now, after YearlyKos and all the attention that came with it, it seems likely that will change.
This is always good to remember as the media obsess over the fiendish nastiness of Ann Coulter. Why Coulter and not Kos?
