None of the critics have hit the sweet spot on what the bloggers should have done at the DNC. None have even come close. Not one. Let me explain...

There are two parts to citizen journalism. One part is the journalism of course. Think about the other part. In the age of citizen journalism we're not supposed to wait for candidates to define themselves (a hopeless idea, it gets us choices like Gore-Bush and Bush-Kerry) rather we are supposed to define for them, what we want in a candidate, and then find people who meet our criteria. When we look back on the impact of the Internet in politics, that's what it's going to turn out to be. It may take years, and probably will happen at the local level long before it happens at the national level, but it will be the same old decentralization and disintermediation process that happens to everything the Internet touches.

Another idea, which came up during the Gillmor Gang show yesterday, is why didn't we use this opportunity to confront some of the Dems who are in bed with Hollywood over DRM? They act all friendly about the Web, but in the meantime behind some of those closed doors there's no doubt they were talking about selling out the Internet to their friends in Hollywood, who are not friends to the Internet. Steve Gillmor asked why I wasn't doing it. I gave him a straight answer -- I didn't think of it until now.

To the critics, we never in a million years would have thought of it until we had wasted the opportunity. Now the goal is to get back in, asap, in time to save the Net from Hollywood. The Democrats are excited about the Web, seriously excited for good reasons. They have to know that that excitement is incompatible with the idea of crippling the Web to serve the interestes of some very limited thinkers in California.

And get the big idea -- we are not here to replace the ink-stained Pulitzer-winners. If you like what they do, more power to you. What we represent is a populace that can think and decide for itself, without having the problems framed by Wolf, Dan, Judy, Larry, Rush and Sean. Left to grow on its own, the Internet can and will turn around politics the same way it turned around business, education and journalism.

We just need to connect the dots, and listen, because in some ways the Dems are ahead of where we thought they were in understanding how the Internet impacts politics. And keep open the possibility that they are, in some ways, ahead of us in that understanding. I think it's possible that they are. Something to think about.