Jane writes in comments:

The key word here is "dwell"

Google says there are 2,200 posts on FDL on "Obama" and "FISA" and I think you'll find them plenty critical:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&clien...

We tried to focus on being substantive and let others do the daily descent into name-calling. I understand reading FDL at the time probably wasn't satisfying for those who liked to roll around in pie, but I feel comfortable that we can look back in five years and feel like we were fair.

I think there will be others who won't have that luxury.

As I wasn't in the daily habit of reading FDL at the time, I can't vouch for how your site handled the primary in posts and comments.

I can vouch that — once Edwards dropped out — the left blogosphere, generally, became an incredibly hostile place for those who dared suggest that the last remaining Democratic alternative to Barack Obama be given due consideration, and for those who dared criticize anything whatsoever about the then-Senator from Illinois.

The quote of yours that I cited would seem to vouch for same.

Even David Sirota, who has (recently) told folks who had a relatively positive word for Hillary Clinton to "slither back to your rathole of bitterness" and "STFU," observed the big chill faced by heretics who dared question Obama:

...whenever questions [about Obama] are raised - no matter how gently or how substantive - the person raising it is attacked as a "concern troll," a "whiner," a purist martyr on a crucifix, a self-important attention freak who thinks he/she is a hero, a horrifically disloyal traitor or a "liar" (the last of which is most appalling, since those making the accusations may disagree on opinion, but rarely actually offer up where the questioners are factually inaccurate).

"Rolling around in pie" and "name-calling" are not my profession (not that I rule out a blunt characterization when the shoe fits). Based on what do you call me a pie-fighter and a name-caller? Because it wasn't worth fighting to have an honest discourse re: the election of a president to roll back the Bush disaster and the Reagan Revolution?

The example you offer of FDL's primary coverage -- criticism of Obama's epic cave-in on FISA -- occurred after the primaries, after he failed to be vetted, by acclamation among progressive intellectuals, activists, and first-time voters.

Truly, I have an infinitely higher opinion of you, FDL, and your collective contribution to honest information and analysis than the likes of Gwen Ifill (the work y'all did on Plamegate is rightfully the stuff of blog legend), but this can't help but remind me of Gwen's excuse for the MSM's checking its critical faculties in the run-up to the Iraq War, i.e., that its reportage of the ensuing damage was meritorious.

You yourself acknowledge two of the essential points behind my kind of "pie fighting," so it's not clear how I earn your condemnation, the implication that I should be ashamed of my writings about the primary:

1. Obama rode to the presidency with the support of many voters who were under the blissful misapprehension that he was a dyed-in-the-wool progressive

2. The prevailing culture made it socially costly to raise such issues

Those two points, which acknowledge the period's willful delusions and oppressive groupthink — along with much of the left embracing Clinton Derangement Syndrome and turning a deaf ear toward misogyny and false charges of racism — with the ultimate cost being a failure to make the Democratic finalists earn their progressive bona fides, pretty much cover the reasons for my blasphemous primary blogging.

For all I know, FDL did some stellar reporting about the meltdown of progressive critical thinking and the one-candidate-fits-all-or-else discourse this past year. If so, that would be a thing of pride, when looking back on a Democratic primary where truthiness and STFU reigned supreme.

Dismissing those who did as "name callers" and "pie fighters" would seem to do little to ensure that the new media is much better than the old.

Please note that none of this has to do with some dead-ender obsession with Hillary Clinton. I fully appreciate that we are all Scalia now.

As you stated, the key word is "dwell." What happens in American politics has a massive impact on the world and country in which we dwell.

Given the abject dereliction of our mainstream media, the blogosphere offers a precious opportunity to influence that politics in a constructive way.

If our new media can't rise above high schoolish status games (the Kewl Kidz and bullies like Obama, so STFU), that precious opportunity goes squandered.

I thought — and shamelessly continue to think — that a better politics and a square-house blogosphere are worth fighting for. Even if that fight sometimes tastes, to some, like rhubarb.