Outside the Beltway

Cindy Sheehan Booted by Netroots

James Joyner · Thursday, July 12, 2007 · 4 comments

When I saw, via Memeorandum, that Cindy Sheehan had been “warned” that she couldn’t post any more at DailyKos because she was considering a run for Congress, I thought that perhaps McCain-Feingold wasn’t so bad after all. (Just kidding: It’s an atrocity and even Sheehan should have the right of free speech. Indeed, especially Sheehan. She rather proves the value of open debate, as she makes it more clear what a nut she is each time she speaks or writes anything.)

It turns out, though, that she was told by the DKos management that she couldn’t use their site to further her campaign agenda because she was threatening to run as an independent against a Democratic incumbent, specifically Nancy Pelosi.

Despite the flack the site is getting by some on the Right, they have every right to decide who to turn their platform over to. Certainly, if they see themselves as an arm of the Democratic Party, it’s perfectly reasonable for them to keep the site from being used to harm Democratic candidates, let alone party leaders.

DKos and some of the other more activist sites on the Left have been quite willing to eat their own in the primaries*, so I’ve always thought of them more as principled, if immature, ideologues rather than pure partisans. I guess the Kos Kids have grown up.

UPDATE: Frank J suggests some POSSIBLE CINDY SHEEHAN SLOGANS.

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*Judging from the immigration debate, that may be true of the Right as well next cycle.