I have been withering in my criticism of the Netroots' performance on Iraq. In particular, I harshly criticized the Netroots on the Iraq Supplement:

House Dems and the Netroots seem not to understand how this process has played out and will play out.

The very same pressures that forced the capitulation to the Blue Dogs will force further capitulations along the way starting with the Senate, IF a bill is to be approved. If the goal is to have Bush veto a bill then it was critical to start with as strong a bill as possible so that when the inevitable compromises were made along the way at least at the end Bush would need to veto. The bill, if it emerges, that Bush will see will be utterly toothless. To wit, he will not veto it and the Dems will have funded the Debacle.

Chris writes:

I indicated yesterday that the next fight would probably be engaged over the Department of Defense appropriations bill in late April/early May. However, when this bill--the one we have so agonized over--is defeated either via filibuster or via veto, the fight over the Iraq supplemental will continue. And we will need to work together on that fight. If there is any attempt to cave to Republicans, and pass a bill with no restrictions whatsoever, people on both sides of the current debate will need to join together to help defeat that bill. You better believe I will help whip votes to defeat a straight-up funding of the war. Further, if Democrats decide to scrap this bill, and start over with new legislation, we will all need to work together to make the language stronger, rather than weaker. Yet further, even apart from this bill, we will need to make sure that provisions which were stripped out of it, such as language requiring congressional approval for any military action on Iran, are not only given a vote on the House floor, but passed by the House. In short, no matter what happens, once this bill is passed we will need to continue working together to help bring an end to this war.

That's all very nice Chris, but the "218, best we can get mantra" is now the baseline. Does anyone think you can retrace those steps? Pelosi went down that road. The Netroots went down that road. The Out of Iraq Caucus went down that road. The funding with next to no restrictions is a fait accompli now. . .

Larry's critique is based on worrying about imaging. That was not the problem. The problem was deciding to NOT pressure the Democratic Congress. To instead be, led by Tom Mattzie of Move On, coopted by the Democratic Congress. I do not think the protests against the war worried anyone. It was the criticizing of the Dem Congress that was muted.

On the weekend of Yearly Kos, the Dem Congress is in the process of caving in on FISA. The tug in the Netroots is palpable. They do not want their big weekend ruined with this type of controversy. There is no real spark in their fight.

Writing about the influence of the Netroots, Bowers writes today:

Obviously, I think [Ben Smith of Politico] is wrong about the blogopshere losing relative power and influence. Last time I checked, one the reasons the blogosphere got behidn Howard Dean was becuase he opposed the war in Iraq and favored universal health care, something few other Demcorats were willing to do at the time. Now, I'm sitting in a room where several presidential candidates, including all of the leading candidates, are directly telling bloggers that they agree with both positions. Yeah, we have really backslid in terms of power. . . . In the end, it seems that Smith's means of measuring blogosphere influence is how scared insider and establihsment types are of the blogosphere. Frankly, I think that is a pretty immautre appreciation of the situation. If the only thing we had the power to do was scare people in the establihsment, then the blogosphere would never change from the way it operated circa 2003. However, the progressive blogosphere has grown twenty times larger since 2003, making change both inevitable and necessary. It is almost as though Smith is saying "I liked the blogosphere's earlier albums, before they got popular and sold out."

If one is looking solely at the Presidential election, of course the blogs have influenced positions. But in what is happening on issues NOW, the blogs are absolutely toothless. FISA now is a grim reminder. And I believe the main reason is people who simply have decided to not concentrate on issues now, preferring to horserace blog the 2008 race.

Let's face it, the Netroots now is enjoying being showered by attention by the Presidential candidates and getting all sorts of Media attention. It seems clear to me that they simply do not care as much about the issues of 2007.

I heartily condemned the Netroots before for this and I do so again today, on its big weekend.