Bloggers vs. Ellen Taushcer

You may have heard that Congresswoman Ellen Tauscher (D-Walnut Creek) has caught a lot of heat in the blogosphere lately. Much of the frenzy has been over this photo of Tauscher sitting next to President Bush in a 2002 meeting—bloggers claim Tauscher’s staff “scrubbed” the pic from her official website to distance the congresswoman from the increasingly unpopular president.

Tauscher had already been under fire from her party’s netroots—a network of bloggers and Internet fundraisers that tends to lean toward the liberal side of the party. They criticize her moderate policy stances (she is a prominent member of the centrist New Democrat and Blue Dog coalitions) and accuse her of being out of touch with grassroots organizations. When the picture of Tauscher and Bush—caustically dubbed “the caress”—disappeared from Tauscher’s website, reproductions sprang up on sites such as Berkeley-based dailykos.com, perhaps the world’s most popular progressive blog.

For her part, Tauscher discounts the removal of the picture as part of regular website updating and expresses confidence in her standing in District 10, which reelected her with 66 percent of the vote in November.

“I am confident about my relationship with my constituents,” Tauscher says.

“I would put my Democratic credentials up against anyone’s. I have a very strong record that is unambiguous. I have a perfect pro-choice record [and] a perfect environmental record.”