I need to go back and read more details....

teacherken, I think I can see why it's so distressing, but it looks like the writer (Lizza) was focused on who was well received and who wasn't.  So he was sort of reshaping that exchange to fit his theme and his take on Vilsack.  Easy to say when I wasn't a participant.

Outside of your negative experience, I appreciate you pointing to the article.  It raises so many interesting questions - about accountability, integrity, power, responsibility and assumptions for so many groups of people.

and twisted the facts to fit it.

I focus on the education panel and related because I know it.  If you follow the links to the two diaries on the Lizza article, you will find that my reaction is part of a general picture.

Please explain how he writes a story which says (a) the panel didn't let Vilsack speak (he spoke more than me) because of two bigmouthed bloggers (Vilsack is far more of a blogger than Vollmer has even imagined) and (b) I was rude to Vilsack when he doesn't think I was.

Gee -  is Lizza a reporter or merely a pundit?  If the latter, then we know fact sdon't really matter, the purpose is to expound your point of view and we see that regularly on TV talks shows and hear it on talk radio.  But if he is supposed to be a reporter, don't you think it incumbent of him to check his racts by at least talking to the people?  From my memory, he didn['t even ask a question in the press gaggle afterwards. 

and like far too many of the press there, he seems to think the important story was the major names present, the 4 possible presidential candidates.  Overall they were a relatively small part of Yearlykos itself.  Tow had evening receptions with booze (Clark and Warner), two did not (Richardson and Vilsack).  And had Lizza explored only a little he would have realized that Tom and I are friends even though (a) I am not supporting him for president (I am supporting no one until well after the 2006 election cycle is over and we can see how it plays out, and (b) we disagree on a number of issues.  Of the past months - at this point about a year - we have developed a mutual respect.  Thatn is why Tom was not upset when I jumped in, that is why he came at my request to sit in a secondary role on the panel (it helps that he and Vollmer had a prior acquaintance from more than a decade ago. 

I was trained - at the expense of the Ykos convention-min thier "pundit" training because they wanted me to be one of the faces and voices representing the community and the event.  For one thing, i was a panelist.  For another, at 60 years of age I give the lie the the conceit that we are all GenX and Gen Y.  Finally, I have been a highly visible member of dailykos community for more than two years.

I believe Lizza sat through the pundit training in which I was - I think I saw him there -  with Anna Marie Cox, Maureen Dowd, Byron York, Matt Labash, Garance Franke-Ruta,  and Dan Balz.  My sense it that some of the journalists there didn't like the ground rules.  I talked about that with both Matt and Garance.  Oh, and unlike some of the bloggers, i was never anonymous, my badge having both my name and my blog id, and the Education Panel had my name and professional background listed.  Had Lizza even bothered to have read that he would have known that I am not just a random blogger but also advise a number of Democratic Congressional candidates on education policy, including several of those who were in attendance.

As I have said multiple times, he failed to do journalistc due diligence, so when he got things wrong, I felt obligated to correct the record.

The day Lizza's piece went online, I emailed TNR.  As of yet I have not had a response.  Please note the different response from Andrew Sullivan, whose listing of the Lizza link allowed me access to another wider audience to correct the record.