Hypocrisy Democracy: DailyKos

Let me start out by saying this: I love the Daily Kos. As the leading progressive blog, it has paved the way for a whole movement of liberal blogging. Markos Moulitsas, its founder, is a personal hero. The site registers about 600,000 visits a day. But, as always, with great power comes great responsibility.

The Daily Kos, like basically every other political blog in the world, makes revenue through advertising. (Note: I don't do this as a job, and the tiny amount of money I would gain is not worth uglifying my site.) Anyway, I was poking around on the site yesterday, when I saw something horrifying.

Right underneath the header and above the text (prime ad space, by the way) is one for Chevron. This huge oil company, though not as terrible as, say, ExxonMobil or BP (I can go into those some other time), is a huge Republican donor, lobbyist, polluter and price-gouger.

In short, Chevron and what it represents is exactly what the Daily Kos is fighting.

Chevron's eco-friendly advertisements do not reflect reality, and this is the kind of spuriousness people trust the Kos to see through.

So, Daily Kos, to conclude, take care in who you let advertise on your site. You wouldn't want someone to get the wrong impression.