January 17, 2005
The mark of Z
The Zephyr affair is, let’s say, complex. And it calls for upfront disclosures:
Disclosures
I am a friend of Zephyr. I like and admire her. I also like and admire Joe Trippi. I was an Internet advisor to the Dean campaign; it was an unpaid position. I didn’t know about any money changing hands with bloggers and would have advised against it. I have chatted socially with Kos and Jerome a couple of times, and Jerome sent me a brief email yesterday in response to a comment asking for details. For what I think about the need for disclosure statements, see the button perpetually at the top of the left hand column of this blog.
Ok, that’s out of the way. So, what happened? Imagine the range of plausible narratives. At the extreme negative end of the narrative range, Trippi and Kos explicitly contracted for Kos to continue writing enthusiastically about Dean and not to pump up the other candidates; it was that non-directed. At the other end the narrative goes like this: Trippi hired two enthusiastically pro-Dean bloggers as tech consultants. One resigned as a blogger in order to take the gig. The other put up a disclosure statement on his blog. The range of narratives is way narrower than two episodes of Leave It to Beaver.
Even the most negative narrative registers about 0.8 on the 100-point sleaziness scale, a peccadillo that any political group except the Quaker Action Committee would laugh away. Taken at its worst, this “scandal” doesn’t come close to selling influence to big contributors, discouraging African-American voters from voting, or knowingly lying over and over about your opponent…the stuff of the Republican campaign. Please! I mean,Kos had a statement on his blog saying he was getting money from the Dean campaign and Jerome stopped blogging while he was a paid consultant. This entire “scandal” should be on our list of “Ways we could make a remarkably ethical, people-based campaign even better.”
Jerome, Kos and Zephyr all work hard for our shared cause. I’d hate for any of their voices to be stilled. Let’s move on to a real issue.
Put aside for the moment what you think of the current incident. I want to tell you what I know about Zephyr.
I’m proud to have her as a friend. I count it a privilege to have worked with her during the Dean campaign. As a volunteer, I “reported” to her when it came to tasks to be done. So, while I certainly don’t claim to be her bestest friend and to know everything about her, my perception of her has been tempered by seeing her in a variety of settings, some of them high stress.
Zephyr amazes me. She just assumes that it’s the role of each human to make the world better. She stays focused on the practicalities of what needs to be done while working towards a vision. Many of the great ideas tried by the Dean Internet campaign came from her, although in my experience she always deflected credit onto the team. When I disappointed her during the campaign, it was because I was relying too much on her and wasn’t taking enough initiative; that’s a value she embodies. Zephyr is serious and seriously upright. She is also funny and delightful. Even assuming the worst of her in this incident, the hatred coming through in some comments and blogs is vile. Zephyr has contributed too much to deserve it.
PS: Check Z’s FAQ on the incident.
