Rudy won't speak tonight for the Republicans, but Joe Lieberman will. I've been very critical of Dangerstein for a long time now and I caught up with Dan Gerstein at Salon's Party Saturday night in Denver last week. I watched him mingle with the crowd and knew I had to question him about Joe since nobody else in the media will. I walked over and asked him when he was going on TV to denounce Joe Lieberman---since he's a traitor to his Democratic roots and is attacking Obama. (Gerstein is one of the major reasons why Lieberman held on to win after he lost the Dem primary in '06.)

He wouldn't talk to me on the record, but I thought it was important that somebody confronted him personally on his Lieberman issue so I agreed to stay off the record. I can't tell you what he said, but I was not kind in my demands. We had a long and animated discussion. The main reason he goes on TV is because he was the face of Lieberman. And since Joe is trashing Obama and will speak tonight at their convention I thought it was his obligation if he is indeed a "democratic consultant," or whatever they call them now to forcefully speak out about the traitor that Joe is.

Here's your chance Dan. Go for it.

Dan Gerstein responds to Sargent's piece.

Dan Gerstein has responded to my post below. He says there's no problem at all with the fact that The Politico published a piece by him attacking some of Joe Lieberman's high-profile foes at the same time that he was collecting money from Lieberman...

What happened here is this: Gerstein used The Politico as a platform partly to settle the old scores of -- and to advance the current agenda of -- a paying client, but without mentioning the "paying" part. Is that really what Harris and VandeHei envision for something they're hoping to establish as the preeminently credible Web-based political publication?

As Duncan says:

For years it's been news, an almost obligatory reference in any article about bloggers, that Markos got a few bucks from the Dean campaign, something he fully disclosed at the time. Then it was big news that Markos had a friend who worked for Mark Warner which, again, wasn't exactly a big secret and the mere fact of this friendship was an existential taint of some sort.

Now the hot insiders at the Politico are letting paid flacks for politicians write articles without disclosing that information. And it's us unethical bloggers who have issues. What a bunch of wankers.

Apparently it's just fine by The Politico that they gave Gerstein a platform to bash bloggers without disclosing the fact that Gerstein is paid by Lieberman now and yes---it makes a difference,. The Politico knew exactly what he was going to say and it appears to me that Gerstein was given the platform to settle old scores for Harris and VandeHei as well in my opinion. Way to go. And you wonder why people turn to blogs.

(sorry, spell checker messed up the post) Now why would Dan Gerstein not like bloggers? (Jeopardy think music) Might it be because he worked for Joe Lieberman and lost the Democratic Primary? MSNBC are morons for putting this guy up to discuss anything about blogs.

Gerstein: Well, it sounds like a simple question, but there's a big problem in the Democratic party right now. And let me preface what I'm about to say by saying I have a blog, I'm a big believer in the power of blogs in politics to make it more Democratic and empower people's voices, but for a lot of the Democratic bloggers there's extremism, anger, and there's a kind of lack of accountability for what people say and do and I think this is more and more going to become a problem in presidential politics as the blogosphere and the campaign world start converging. And I think, to sum it up, I think this is a warning sign there's a risk of getting fleas if you lie down with blogs.

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Digby has the full transcript and explains:

MSNBC featured a lively segment this morning between Dan Gerstein, Joe Lieberman's personal WATB, and some other guy on the subject of the Edwards blogger brouhaha.

I know that we can't expect MSNBC to know that Bill Donohue is a date-rape defending crackpot or to know that Dan Gerstein is a far right neocon who represents about three nominal Democrats in the whole country --- Lieberman, Lanny Davis and Martin Peretz. Read on...

MyLeftNutmeg, CTBlogger, and Cliff Schecter add their two cents as well...

via Kos:

"Howie Klein scores a direct hit against Dan Gerstein -- the Lieberman advisor/consultant who whines about the mean netroots while bragging about stabbing Clinton in the back. And thanks to Gerstein's whines, Klein has yet another opportunity to spotlight Lieberman's shameful record on gay rights and disturbing record on race...read on"

Just another reason to root for Ned Lamont