Of course you realize, this means war

OK, that does it. I'm going.

I only hope Skippy can forgive me.

Here's the deal, folks: I registered for Yearly Kos back in February. It wasn't that I wanted to hang with the Kool Kidz. After all, as you know, I have no great love for the Great Orange Satan, who at a Hoboken book signing last year refused to see me as a blogger, but decided that I was a nice middle-aged Jewish lady running a bed and breakfast. And I know full well that Blogtopia (™ Skippy) is essentially an inverted high school where the guys and gals in the chess club and on the AV squad are the Big Men and Women on Campus. My reasons for planning to go originally had to do with the 2008 election and under circumstances that have changed since then. Let's just leave it there, shall we? Then the circumstances changed and I decided not to go. Then we scheduled vacation that week and it was a moot point. Then we rescheduled vacation and suddenly that weekend was open again. And still I was so-so about going. I mean, I hate to fly under the best of circumstances, and reading that the TSA has been confiscating blocks of wired cheese (which resembles plastic explosive) at security checkpoints doesn't exactly put my fear of flying to rest, especially for a domestic route. But Melina is going, so I'll have someone to hang out with, and we can talk about web site development and about missing Morning Sedition, and maybe even try to put together a Bloggers Who Suck get-togetherin the hotel bar. So suddenly it seemed like fun again.

But this isn't about Kos, and it isn't about being accepted by the Heathers. But the most important reason to go is that if I don't go, then Bill O'Reilly wins.

It all started with O'Reilly declaring a fatwa against JetBlue for sponsoring Yearly Kos, using a few of the most egregious comments posted at DK as a reason:

Keith responds:

But corporate CEOs aren't exactly known for their courage, so JetBlue pulled its name from the sponsorship list, though the 10 air tickets it donated remained. I know that the very same CEO who was ambushed outside his apartment by a Faux Noise flack in the first video has received many, many letters since then. I am not flying Jet Blue to Chicago, and while the one time I flew the airline, I was impressed, they don't fly to or from Fort Myers on weekends, so I'm unlikely to use them again anyway. So my own correspondence to David Barger doesn't put me in danger of being a hypocrite.

But having cowed the CEO of a major airline, Billo wasn't going to let it drop without doing the Ickey Shuffle in the end zone:

But note his citation of a post allegedly found at Daily Kos "calling for the violent overthrow of the government." (Note also that he claims kinship with ABC News and CNN, which of course we already knew. But I digress.)

Well, that seems like Billo has a point then, doesn't it? Not exactly.

Enter John Aravosis, the Scourge of Corporate America. I know I risk getting kicked out of the Feminists' Division of the Kool Kidz Club (not that I was ever allowed admittance in the first place) for saying nice things about John, but when he gets wind of a corporate injustice, he squeezes corporate balls with a needlenose pliers until they scream for mercy -- which usually doesn't take all that long.

And sure enough, there, nestled over at Billo's web site -- a site where you have to PAY for the privilege of posting comments, so presumably there is a record somewhere of who posts (you know, a record like the one he says Fox keeps of all callers?). So it should be an easy matter to find out who posted these comments, in a thread entitled "If Hillary WIns, WIll (sic) you be respectful of her?"

Nice, huh?

So, Billo, are these people the equivalent of the Nazis and the Klan? Hmmmmmm???

Of course you can't BUY publicity like this, so frankly, this little foofarah makes the idea of Being There even MORE appealing, because what ought to have been a little conclave of politics junkies, even one attended by all of the Democratic candidates for president, seen only on C-SPAN3 in the wee hours of the night, is now something that ought to be receiving some media coverage.

Gee, you'd almost think Kos and Billo have a kind of Osama bin Laden/George W. Bush mutual benefit kind of relationship going.....