I'm not trying to dredge up the old Bloggingheads thing...

Which is, you know, an old blogosphere flame war, but I see there's a transcription going around -- of this notorious segment of the diavlog -- that has a glaring error that is being used against me. I'm not going to link to any of the many blogs that are using this text, and I don't know what enterprising loser took the initiative to type it out, but it's perfectly easy to Google if you want to know who's purveying the defective text:

these are flame wars, and what I'm trying to say on the overarching point, is that the left side of the blogosphere is vicious and unfair and nasty to me, and I don't like it, and I'm trying to ask you why that's the way they treat me when I support most of what they're for. Meanwhile, on the right side of the blogosphere, where there's much less overlap, I think, I am treated in a very warm and connecting kind of way. And you're really just kind of undermining my point, uh, by bringing that up like that.

Here's what it should be, with the mistakes corrected in boldface.

These are flame wars, and what I'm trying to say on the overarching point, is that the left side of the blogosphere is vicious and unfair and nasty to me, and I don't like it, and I'm trying to ask you why that's the way they treat me when I support most of what they're for. Meanwhile, on the right side of the blogosphere, where there's much less overlap with what I think, I'm treated in a very warm and connecting kind of a way. And you're really just underlining my point by bringing that up like that.

See that last one! I don't say "undermining." I say "underlining." I will wait for the apologies from all the nasty, vicious characters who thought I'd hilariously misspoken and who used that as an occasion for mocking me. (And I didn't say "kind of" before it either, which just shows how sloppy the transcriber was. )

What I find hilarious is that the reaction to this video clip is really just underlining my point! The leftosphere is nasty and vicious to me. And they are trying to assassinate my character, as I say in the clip. They jumped to make themselves into the example of the very thing I was talking about. Ironic, no?

But let me admit something. I do think they have the motive to try to destroy me, and I can see why the left treats me nastily -- unlike the right -- even though I share their opinion on practically all the key issues (except national security).

I have obviously disaggregated myself from the fortunes of the Democratic Party. I will say what I have to say without trying to protect the party's interests. That's dangerous to them, and they should be afraid for me to have clout in the blogosphere. They have reason to portray me as crazy, stupid, drunk, or whatever the latest attack is. They should worry. And, as I say in the video, I will stand my ground.

The source of this distance I feel is exactly what I was talking about in those posts that ignited the old blogosphere flamewar: the way so many Democrats changed how they talked about sexual harassment in order to defend Bill Clinton. (Specifically, I was monumentally impressed by Stuart Taylor's comparison of the way Clinton and Clarence Thomas were treated.)

Let's take a closer look at what I wrote back then, when I mocked that photograph.

Bill Clinton, apparently eager to influence bloggers to give his wife favorable coverage as she sought the presidency, sat down for a lunch and a photo shoot with a select group of them. They ate up the lunch and the flattery it represented and posed looking thoroughly pleased. I think bloggers should maintain their independence and their critical stance, so I hated to read their gushing posts and to gaze on their shiny, happy faces in that photograph. I meant to be cruel to them.

(If they are cruel to me, I concede that I started it and that I meant to be nasty. In that sense, I can't complain... except for effect.)

My cruelty took the form of trying to ruin the picture they thought was so nice by merging it with the idea of Monica Lewinsky. The last thing Bill Clinton wants as he offers his prestige to the cause of his wife's quest for power is for us to think about Monica Lewinsky.

So I called attention to the fact that Jessica Valenti, positioned right in front of Clinton, did look a bit like that woman, Miss Lewinsky. I thought the photograph was set up in a way that was detrimental to the Clintons' interests, and I thought that was funny and that it presented an opportunity for some painful satire. I made it quite nasty, and I did it deliberately. I'm not sorry I did it. I mean to castigate feminists and so-called feminists who cozy up to Clinton. They were surely justified in fighting back at me, and I can understand why they want to ruin me.

But I did achieve my goal and ruin the photograph. You've got to admit that you cannot look at it the way the shiny, happy posers meant you to. The photograph is -- as they say -- reframed. If I must suffer for that achievement -- which I sought -- so be it.