Things I should have brought to your attention yesterday...

Or the day before. Anyway Chris Bowers was rather shocked to find himself used as key evidence for progressive disgruntlement with Obama:

That so many news organizations would quote me and identify me as representative of a certain viewpoint without even bothering to contact me doesn't make it difficult to see that I am being stereotyped and used. If you are a "reporter," and you are quoting me--in a forum where I can't possibly respond--but not actually bothering to contact me, then you don't actually care about my thoughts on Obama's personnel decisions so far. Even though those view happen to be quite detailed and mixed, they don't care. Instead, two quotes I wrote, out of about 60,000 words I have published since the election, have been constantly recycled used to fit their established narrative. What I actually think, be damned.

This is basically the result of bogus-ass "trend journalism" where you connect the dots between three places and yell "Ah-Ha!" Don't know how much shit I can talk. For the year and half I was at TIME, this is exactly what I did. Anyway, it's a weak, weak formula. That said, I'm not sure Bowers was so much stereotyped and used, as he was made to symbolize some vague amalgam known as the "leftie blogesphere." I assume that includes everyone from OpenLeft to TalkLeft to Jack & Jill to Matt Yglesias to, well, me. But all of us don't feel the same about the transition. Some of us think it's fine. Others are cautious. Still others are deeply troubled. And this is as it should be. I don't mind the scrutiny over Obama's appointments. I just disagree with a lot of it.