Wag the Blog: Tape Everything?

We've written extensively on The Fix about the power of Markos Moulitsas and his Web site, Daily Kos. Markos has become an iconic figure in the progressive netroots community and has considerable influence over those online activists.

So, we were more than a little intrigued when Jeff Jarvis over at Channel '08 linked to a post written by Markos last week that urged his readers to start videotaping every single appearance by a Republican official or candidate in hopes of using the footage against them in the course of the campaign.

Here's the full text of Kos's post:

"Every appearance by a top Republican official or candidate should be recorded. Every one of them.

"All it takes is one 'Macaca' incident to transform a race or create one where one didn't exist. As the Montana incident blogged earlier today showed, a video can knock out prospective candidates before they even enter.

"And this is no longer about finding one big blunder to put on a campaign commercial. It's about using video and (free) technologies like YouTube to build narratives about opponents, using their own words, at their own events.

"It's never too early to start.

"We've got a long, difficult slog ahead of us next year. The more material we amass today, the better we'll able to use that video to support our efforts next year."

Kos's post drew 187 comments, the vast majority of which were centered on trading information about the best way to capture video and put it on sites like YouTube for maximum effect.

For today's Wag the Blog question, we ask The Fix community whether Kos's call to arms is good for the political process. Does taping every public and private moment of a politician force them to be more accountable for their words and actions? Or does it rob regular people of ever getting to know the "real" candidate because overly guarded politicians let nothing genuine slip for fear they are always being watched by a camera?

Sound off in the comments section below. We'll pluck a few of the best responses out and feature them in their own post later this week.

By Chris Cillizza  |  May 29, 2007; 8:22 AM ET
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