Let’s set the scenario. The Chamber of Commerce got told – much to their surprise – that they were supposedly funding a group (Americans for Job Security) that produced this anti-Halter ad accusing the progressive candidate of promoting outsourcing.  They further discovered that The Daily Kos was using this (false) allegation to raise money for Halter.  So the Chamber of Commerce did something dumb: they tried to (politely) explain to Markos Moulitsas that, no, they weren’t funding AJS and weren’t affiliated with them. The exact language:

…in the interest of setting the record straight I have again confirmed with every group at the Chamber who does political work that we are not associated with AJS and/or this ad. I also spoke with Stephen DeMaura at Americans for Job Security who confirmed this as well. Mr. DeMaura has also spoken with reporters about the ad and the WSJ has issued this update to their article on it:

http://blogs.wsj.com/indiarealtime/2010/05/04/thank-you-stephen-demaura/

UPDATE, 8.55 PM IST: Mr. DeMaura said his group had paid for stock footage for the ad but could not immediately provide more details about the source of the footage or the locations depicted in it. He also confirmed the ad cost around $900,000 to air but said the group was “not associated with the US Chamber of Commerce.”

Markos’ response? ‘Neener neener you guys lie.’ I paraphrase, but not by much.

Now, here’s the thing: if you’re a lower-caste progressive blogger you’re probably pounding your head against the wall at this point, and I can’t say that I blame you. If you’re the sort to believe that the Chamber of Commerce is lying, then this flat, explicit denial is absolute gold: all you have to do is prove that they did know about it and suddenly you have a real scandal.  People have made careers out of exposes like this.

Unfortunately, the left side of the blogosphere is in fact a caste system*, and the higher castes do not exist to break their own scandals: they exist to ‘break’ the ‘scandals’ that are given unto them by professional scandalmongers within the Democratic party.  Which is why Markos is distinctly uninterested in covering this story further, to the point of not even bothering to update the original post (as of 2:30 PM EST, Thursday 05/06/10) with the CoC’s denial: it doesn’t fit the narrative, and Establishment Democrats don’t want this allegation explored further.  After all, aside from everything else it’s not actually true.

And, by the way?  That’s why even higher-caste progressive bloggers can’t quite make the jump to respectability: while Americans avidly consume all sorts of porn, we rarely honor the people who produce it.  Particularly when they explicitly provide it for one set of corporate masters.

Moe Lane

*If people are bothered with that categorization, they are welcome to instead adopt the terminology of the Left’s favorite pornographic work and instead use the terms ‘Inner Party’ and ‘Outer Party.’

Crossposted to Moe Lane.