What Kos Knows

Tom Watson

When Markos Moulitsas accepts the 2006 Drum Major for Justice Award next month in New York City, he'll be doing so on behalf of a massive network of committed activists who are changing progressive politics day by day, post by post, link by link, comment by comment.

Kos_ad_125x60 On June 22, DMI will honor Markos and Anna Burger (Change to Win Labor Federation) for their commitment to American principles of government, activism, and democracy. To put it bluntly, DailyKos has long been an inspiration on the left - it's inspired legions of progressive bloggers to stop whining, pick up their keyboards, and create a movement. Indeed, DMI's own thriving policy blog - DMIBlog - is a direct response to the political activism of DailyKos.

So Kos deserves the honor, and he and the NetRoots movement he's helped to breathe life into deserve the support of progressive bloggers. To that end, we've started putting together a committee of bloggers to honor Markos. I'm pleased to say that in addition to myself, the co-chairs of this blogging committee are a quartet of incredibly prominent, scarily committed, and genetically prolific bloggers: Jane Hamsher of FireDogLake, Steve Gilliard of The News Blog, Lance Mannion, and Ezra Klein. That's an all-star group representing thousands of daily words and many thousands of daily readers.

Want to join 'em?

We're looking for bloggers to spread the word, to join the committee to honor Kos, and to raise a little money for a vital progressive think tank - a small but ferocious and smart organization that is really outthinking the right (you know, those well-funded conservative institutes). Please add you blog to our committee. What's required? Just a post urging people to support the benefit - no contribution is required - that's entirely up to you. Every blogger who joins will be recognized with a link. There are a few ways to get involved.

- Create a post and include the Techorati tag HonoringKos.
- Go to Word of Blog and pick up this tile, and put it on your blog.
- Drop me a line.
- Send a note to Elana Levin, who runs the DMIBlog, and she'll get you hooked up with banners, text, whatever you need.

Finally, we'd love to see as many bloggers as possible at the benefit - there will be lots of interesting special guests and presenters. The reception (with light food but no boring sit-down rubber chicken) will be held at Lotus / 409 West 14th Street, New York City. All the details are here. So please join us!

Blogger Host Committee
[in near-constant formation]

Jane Hamsher of FireDogLake
Steve Gilliard of The News Blog
Lance Mannion
Ezra Klein
Tom Watson
Emboldened
The Astounding Trickster
The Sawpit
Blue Wren
Brouhaha
Jessica Valenti of Feministing.com
Nathan Newman
Liza Sabater, publisher of culturekitchen and The Daily Gotham
Sean-Paul Kelley of The Agonist