Day One of Yearly Kos (ignore O'Reilly)

I am not going to let Bill O’Reilly set the frame for the YearlyKos. No, his vile attack on DailyKos, our wholesome Internet forum, shall not overwhelm the positive and uplifting message that emerged on the first day of the convention in Chicago.

The reader may deduce that my plan to lay out a straightforward report on Howard Dean’s inspiring keynote speech was stopped in its tracks by the misfortune of having Fox News erupt on my hotel-room TV as I was preparing to write.

It’s true that it was hard to ignore O’Reilly’s hectoring of Sen. Chris Dodd. The TV instigator (moderator not the appropriate word) demanded that Dodd condemn a stupid year-old cartoon from DailyKos depicting Joe Liebermann kneeling before King George’s fly, and while I was trying to marshal my thoughts, their argument boiled back and forth in my hearing. Well, why doesn’t he call just it a putative blow job? I wondered.

Not to be deterred, I plunged ahead searching my database for the notes feverishly taken from the fast-taking Howard Dean. But I had to struggle to ignore bloviating from “comic” Dennis Miller, whom O’Reilly called in to bolster his dislike of the Daily and YearlyKos (“There are hookers who put an embargo on that convention,” Miller postulated). O’Reilly himself said there is hate -- “Maybe even murder” -- on the left wing of the Internet. It was nigh impossible to keep to my mission of portraying the event in its natural colors and tones.

In fact, sad to say, I could not stay focused on a reasonable reportage mission when so much hatred of the event I’m covering was blasting into my eyes and ears.

Solution: change the channel. Now the Braves and Astros are in extra innings, and life is good again. The American pastime wins, and Bill O’Reilly can take his hatred into the soundproof chamber on the far side of the remote control. At home, thank goodness, I do not receive O’Reilly or Fox Cable News on my primitive TV. All the right-wing hating that I can tolerate is on talk radio. Here in a hotel room I am tempted by the wider selection on the cable. At home, never.

But, back to the Howard Dean speech. Let me count the standing ovations: a lot! Here was a happy crowd of 1,400 Americans (actually, I also met a Croatian and a Frenchman on Thursday among the attendees), a generally well-educated and hard-working collection of saints … and, no doubt, some sinners, too.

The Democratic national chairman said some new stuff, as far as I can tell, and the crowd responded with applause as he reaffirmed the 50-state strategy and went on to announce a “prospective policy” of searching through election laws and practices everywhere so that potential problems will be known months ahead of election time.

As to the Internet, Howard Dean has a different view from the “fair and balanced” views of Fox News’ guru.

“It has re-democratized America,” Dean said. “There has been a shift in power.”

He said the YouTube debate was “sensational” in giving ordinary people a chance to question presidential candidates. “What a surprise the Republicans don’t want to do it,” he said. He recalled YouTube’s contribution to the 2006 election result, saying the Democrats would not have a Senate majority without what YouTube did.

The advent of the Internet, he said, had changed much in politics. Where politicians used to announce policy and await reaction, now “we listen to you before we start talking. … It means real two-way campaigns so the views of Americans have influence on the candidates.”

“It is an extraordinary evolution,” he said. “It means politicians have to acknowledge that power is loaned to us. We don’t own the power, and we need to earn the power every two years.”

Dean said every election now has to be about young voters, because they are increasingly voting Democratic, and that habit must be continued. He said surveys show that young voters from all ethnic groups vote at about the same rate, meaning that their civic habits are coinciding, and they accept the same vision of America.