Yesterday, the Dodd campaign responded to a request by Fox News' personality Bill O'Reilly to comment on a selection of cherry picked and non-representative comments from the popular liberal blog DailyKos. In a diary on Kos, Tim Tagaris wrote, “Senator Dodd is a proud member of the Daily Kos community, most notably engaging this community in a live video give-and-take prior to the New Hampshire debate.  He is also an enthusiastic confirmed participant for Yearly Kos.”

O'Reilly attempted to smear DailyKos by contending that the most extreme statements found amidst millions of comments (attributed to no specific people) were representative of the whole community. As Hari Sevugan, Dodd campaign Communications Director, said yesterday, “to selectively choose the handful of the most extreme comments from the millions of voices in the conversation and fashion that as representative of a whole community is patently unfair.”

Today, I'd like to offer up some representative comments from the DailyKos community, all of which appear on the diary Tagaris posted yesterday afternoon. I'll even tell you who wrote each comment.

For those of you who don't already know or who haven't yet registered, the second annual YearlyKos Convention is coming up quickly, August 2-5 in Chicago.  Last year was the first convention and it was held in Las Vegas, so I wasn't able to make it.  This year, however, I registered in January and have been making plans to go and be involved.  You can get details about the convention here .  So far, the convention is bringing out a lot of prominent bloggers and political leaders.  Here's a quick political guest list so far:

• Sen. Chris Dodd
• Sen. Dick Durbin
• Ret. Gen. Wes Clark
• DNC Chair and Gov. Howard Dean
• Fmr. Sen. John Edwards
• Sen. Barack Obama
• Gov. Bill Richardson

All of the Presidential candidates listed above will also be taking part in a presidential leadership forum hosted by the convention on August 4th.  They're still waiting to hear back from other candidates about their attendance.

Registration for the convention ends July 14th, so hurry up and get registered now.

There is also some fantastic networking and organizational opportunites to indulge in at YearlyKos, with lots of different breakout sessions and social opportunities.  One highlight this year will be Regional Blogging Caucuses.  I have the privilege of being one of the Organizers/Coordinators of the Minnesota-Wisconsin-Iowa Blog Caucus and I'm looking to get a list of Iowa folks who are planning on attending YearlyKos and would be interested in participating in the caucus.  They'll only be 90 minutes long and will provide ample time to talk about regional hot topics, as well as to get to know fellow bloggers from the region.  I'll post more information on the Regional Caucuses as I learn more.

Anyway, if you're planning on attending, leave a comment and let me know!