Reporting Live From Eschacon

It’s half way through the Saturday program here at the first convention of Atriotes here in the city of Franklin, Stallone, and admittedly now the city of progressive blogtopia. I didn’t do a seat count but I’d ballpark the crowd at 150 from all over the US, though a heavy concentration between NY and DC.

Most of the morning was spent talking about the frustration of living under an administration that refuses to be held accountable. Bush is absolutely right when he says what’s been happening in New Orleans is “Unnaceptable.” It’s just that he doesn’t see himself in that loop. On a panel moderated by Thersites, including Atrios, NTodd, Spin Dentist (AllSpinZone), Susie (Suburban Guerilla) and Bob Fertik (democrats.com and afterdowningstreet.org) the events of the last few days post Katrina were reviewed in the context of a climate of consistent failure (as Bob Fertik put it: “They screwed up Iraq and now they screwed up New Orleans.”)

The afternoon started with a rousing speech by Rep Slaughter (D-NY) (which I videotaped, though I’m still not sure what I’m going to do with it). An interesting question after her speech concerned why the Dems in the House, who’ve been frozen out legislatively don’t stage a walk-out. She said she didn’t think those kind of tactics worked any more, but what might work is if a 100,000 people showed up at Lafayette Park. I’m pretty sure she was referring to the March on September 24 which she referred to explicitly in her speech.

Aside from many of the heavies of the lefty blogosphere, Times columnist Paul Krugman was in the audience to remind us that the media often takes its themes from the blogs they read. That’s why we do it after all.