"I'm not ideological at all," Markos Moulitsas, the publisher of Daily Kos told The Washington Monthly in 2006. "I'm just about winning." It appears that his zeal to help Obama win, Markos Moulitsas, will do anything. He was chosen by the Obama campaign to release the Obama certificate of live birth, which has stirred so much controversy in the blogosphere.

The far-left Moulitsas has caused much uproar with his antics. In 2003, after a cheering Iraqi mob dragged the charred and mutilated bodies of American contractors throughout the streets of Fallujah, Moulitsas said of the contractors, "I feel nothing...Screw them."

Daily Kos's promotion of Cindy Sheehan's anti-war protests at President Bush's Crawford ranch kept the story alive in the mainstream media for months.

"My long term view is about building a movement with an ability to affect media coverage and the media narrative, Moulitsas said in 2006. "The long term goal is a progressive governing majority." At the time, he was out promoting his book, "Crashing the Gate: Nettroot, Grassroots and the Rise of People-powered Politics."

Lee Drutman of the Los Angeles Times called the book, "Power to the people with a political takeover plan." Drutman noted, "The progressive blogosphere is starting to feel its own strength -- in the continued growth of Web traffic, in its powerful fund-raising capacity, and in the rise of its man, Howard Dean, as Democratic National Committee chairman."

Netroot activists like Moulitsas began blogging because they felt left out. They couldn't crack the closed doors inside the Beltway of Washington. With the impending nomination of Barack Obama, this has changed. Now that Washington has seen how much buzz and money these bloggers can raise, the tables have turned.

Politicians now seek out Moulitsas. Democratic strategists are turning to bloggers for help with everything from promotion to policy. With their influence has come the power and, for Moulitsas, celebrity status. "We said we wanted to crash the gates. We never said we weren't going to come in." Continued...