The annual convention of political bloggers, Netroots Nation, is winding down right now in sunny Pittsburg, and nobody cares, because nobody has to care. For all the influence any of those clowns have on anything, they might as well be Trekkies, Elvis-impersonators, or mice in an empty barn. What are the mice saying? Nobody cares, because nobody has to care.

But once upon a time the political blogosphere actually mattered for about five minutes, way back in 2007 when they still called it YearlyKos.

Even then, all that really mattered about the political blogs was confusion. Hillary didn’t need them. Barack didn’t need them. But for that one shining moment, it was possible that DailyKos and all its little siblings could put such a stink on Clinton or Obama that their candidacies would feel the pain.

Now there’s really no point in discussing Hillary Clinton any more, since Obama got her out of the Senate and out of the way with a ceremonial appointment and endless world tour as Secretary of State…

But the mysterious Mr. Obama now occupies the Oval Office, and isn’t it surprising that in the so-called "information society," with hundreds of thousands of bloggers blog-blog-blogging about anything and everything…

Isn’t it surprising that nobody knew squat about Obama until he started giving away trillions of dollars to criminal bankers, making up new and even more-fantastic-than-Bush excuses for indefinite detention, and even newer and even more even-more-fantastic-than-Bush excuses for gutting Medicare, and waffling all over the map about NAFTA, the Defense of Mariage Act, and anything else that anybody who reads newspapers or the internet was ever naive enough to confuse with a principle or promise by Barack Obama?

So Obama sold himself to the Democrats, and then…

What else could he sell?

He can’t sell single-payer healthcare, he can’t even sell a public option, however weak it might be, he can’t sell a reasonable stimulus that wasn’t eviscerated by tax-cuts, or significant mortgage-relief for millions of distressed homeowners or assistance to state governments or a significant public-works program to re-employ millions of desperate workers who are running out of unemployment…

Barack Obama sold himself to the voters, and that was the end of his brilliant salesmanship, apparently forever, or at least until the next election cycle, when he rolls out the "new and improved" Brand Obama.

The election of Barack Obama was a triumph for fundraising on the internet, with the unthinkable sum of $750 million rolling in from credulous little donors, but for the "reality-based" progressive blogosphere, it was a screaming disaster. The progressive agenda is in the toilet, and for that we can thank…

The trash of the internet, the incredible mobs of brain-dead pseudonyms who shouted down (almost) all possible criticism and anything like informed discussion of the saleman-only-of-himself Barack Obama on DailyKos and all its little siblings, and covered him with a cloak of invisibility until Obama had finally conned and sloganeered his way into the Democratic nomination and the Oval Office.