BRAD BLOG an 'Irresponsible Nutter Site' Doing the Cause of Election Integrity 'Far More Harm Than Good', According to Irresponsible, Evidence-Free Comment Posted by Front-Page Diarist at Once-Prestigous Blogsite...
UPDATE: The Daily Kos Swiftboater 'DHinMI' is Actually Dana Houle, Recently Resigned Chief of Staff of Rush Holt/Steny Hoyer Supporter, NH's U.S. Rep Paul Hodes
By Brad Friedman on 2/16/2008, 3:38pm PT  

[UPDATED: See end of article for information on who this "DHinMI" tool actually is.]

Markos Moulitsas and the band of self-important anonymous losers that he's allowed to dominate the front page at the world's largest supposedly-Progressive blogsite continue their cowardly march towards full self-destruction.

Today's example comes by way of a comment from the anonymous (read: cowardly) "DHinMI", one of the loudest, most obnoxious and knowledge-challenged of Kos' stable of front-page sidekicks hell-bent on further discrediting the once-prestigious website:

Though, unlike Bev Harris and ourselves, who put our real names behind everything we do, "DHinMI" enjoys anonymity as he/she spews his/her unsupported, fact-free allegations. He/she does, however, offer an email address where folks might try to offer this numbskull a few facts if he/she ever becomes interested in any (which seems rather unlikely at this point): DHinMI@yahoo.com

"DHinMI's" comment, ironically enough, is posted in support of a front page article by Moulitsas himself today, in regard to a NYTimes article reporting that some 80 precincts in some of NYC's most African-American dominated precincts registered 0 votes for Barack Obama in their unofficial tallies. Kos then goes on to wonder if the article thus indicates that NYC's "voting machines don't spit out paper ballots? That should be SOP for these things."

NYC, of course, still uses the old lever machines which, of course, do not "spit out paper ballots", something that it seems great champions for the cause of Election Integrity, such as Kos and "DHinMI", ought to know by now.

What "should be SOP for these things," is that people who write at high-profile, influential Internet sites ought to learn what they're writing about before they write about them so that they don't mislead folks into believing they know what they're talking about.

Today's Daily Dose of Daily Kos loser-dom comes on the heels of yesterday's report in which they ominously threatened former CIA agent, Larry Johnson, with permanent banning should he have the temerity to continue his support of Hillary Clinton on their site. Why they seem hell-bent on proving Bill O'Reilly right over there remains a mystery to us, and further begs the question of how long it'll be before the dKos readers who tend to "get it", even as the front-pagers don't, will continue on at that place.

Previous BRAD BLOG-reported examples of dKos front-pagers, including "DHinMI" and Kos himself, busily destroying dKos' previously good name can be found here.

UPDATE: "DHinMI" isn't that anonymous after all. And whaddaya know, he's a member of the official Democratic Party machine. Knock us over with a feather...

"Dana Houle is a political professional now living in Washington, DC.," according to less-than-thorough bio found at dKos.

A bit more digging finds that he was, until a bit of a problem last year, the well-paid Chief of Staff to the U.S. Congressman from New Hampshire's 2nd district, Rep. Paul Hodes, who has been an ally of HAVA co-author and e-voting champion, Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, since arriving in Congress in 2007.

Given that we noticed "DHinMI's" attacks on The BRAD BLOG and Election Integrity advocates just after the New Hampshire Primaries blew up, his fealty to the state of NH, their embarrassment of an election system, and the honorable Majority Leader come as little surprise.

All of that also may help to explain why he'd be working so hard in his quest towards trying to discredit Election Integrity advocates and places like The BRAD BLOG and BlackBoxVoting.org, etc. with unsupported and breathless claims in the hopes of sliming us with charges of "tin-hattery."

In other words, the shameful Houle seems to be an irresponsible Leftie Swiftboater of the highest order.

One would think the rules of transparency and ethics would dictate a bit more info on his Daily Kos bio, given his (at least previously held) high-ranking position within the Democratic Party apparatchik. But, as we've come to learn, transparency isn't of much interest to officials from NH, those in Hoyer's office, or amongst the Kossack muckety-mucks.

(Hat-tip BRAD BLOG commenter Dan.)

UPDATE 2/17/08: An emailer writes in to point out: "You may know this already, but Hodes had been an early cosponsor of Holt's awful bill".

"Holt's awful bill" would be Congressman Rush Holt's awful Election Reform bill HR811, which we were honored to help his office write prior to it's introduction. Despite our best efforts, unfortunately, the bill as currently written is, indeed, "awful" and will, in fact, to paraphrase "DHinMI" (Dana Houle) do "more harm than good" for Election Integrity in America. Little wonder then that Houle would want to attack us, since his boss, Paul Hodes, was so terribly wrong in supporting that bad bill. You can read the entire ugly story on our HR811 Special Coverage page.

Of course, had "DHinMI" made very clear, as we do, who he was in the first place when he began his attacks on Election Integrity advocates, we would have had a better idea where he was coming from, and why he was making such attacks. But, apparently, it's more convenient for the cowardly Houle to obscure such points wherever possible rather than have a legitimate debate (which I'm happy to have with him out in the open, anytime, anywhere, so the rest of the world can decide for themselves whose actually doing "more harm than good" for the cause of Election Integrity in America.)

UPDATE 2/18/08: Yes, we know it's difficult to understand that most folks, such as ourselves, don't generally bother to read dKos' front page, where their "ABOUT" button is located. They don't include that button on single diary pages as posted by users, the ones we tend to get pointed to when someone let's us know there's something of note over there. So we failed to notice "DHinMI's" bio originally.

Had we noticed it, we would have seen that he was actually Dana Houle, and a "a political professional now living in Washington, DC." But we wouldn't have known, of course, that he had been Chief of Staff to a Congressman from New Hampshire, who had conflicts of interest with a number of the points that "DHinMI" had been ranting about, without Googling to connect some of those the dots. The dKos bio doesn't disclose those germane points, or many of the others mentioned above which would seem to offer the --- at the very least --- the appearance of a conflict of interest with many of "DHinMI's" pseudonymous (or actually, anonymous to most readers) postings.

When we write about Rush Holt's Election Reform Bill, HR811, for example, we go out of our way to DISCLOSE the fact that their office asked us to help write it prior to it's release. It seems the right thing to to do, even though we do not support the bill. No such disclosure, is apparently necessary for the Kossacks.

The front-pagers are out in force over there today, making excuses for themselves, and continuing their attempts at sliming/discrediting The BRAD BLOG again in this thread today, instead of taking responsibility for their behavior. As with the Bush Administration, it's everyone's fault but their own.

Also, as with the Bush Administration, the idea of following their own rules doesn't apply themselves, of course. Though their posting rules, if you can find them on the site --- as used to ban loads of posters who disagree with the dKos gatekeepers about issues of Election Integrity --- state that "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" and that "defamatory writing [is] prohibited".

Nonetheless, it hasn't stopped their own front-page posters from making extraordinary, defamatory allegations, without bothering to supply any evidence at all (because there is none) that The BRAD BLOG has made claims of "stolen elections", "fraud" and other such "conspiracy theories."

Oh, well. It's their own grave. Unfortunately, it's also all of ours in the bargain.

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