And maybe next time they do a panel on blogging, they'll add some bloggers.

Melanie

Follow the money. This right-tilt has to be pushed by donations from wealthy powerbrokers hoping to drive the Brookings to make a harder right turn.  They have a budget.  Staffers are fighting to keep their jobs.  The unspoken understanding becomes: flatter the Robber Barons or watch the jobs go. What else could it be?  THese are highly educated suposedly critical thinkers with a tradition of liberality (ha).

if there is a next time, try guerilla tactics.

I'm thinkin you might have gotten even more press coverage, mostly bad, but the none the less; a clear point to be made.

They're obviously willing to lie to your face, why accept crumbs?

kind of nice. Since bloggers usually know what it is that bloggers do. :-)

are planning on doing something just like that. There is a whole group of us that are really fed up with this and we are putting our heads together and planning ways to get our message out and to get attention. As for me, the very, very, very vast majority of the time I'll never be invited to these panels and if I were I wouldn't be able to make it as they are all in DC or NYC--I'm in San Antonio, Texas, not exactly your run-of-the-mill cultural mecca--and having had negative press in the past I'm not afraid of gettting any in the future. What I am interested in is helping out the team. That is key. The trade off for me is that they have to listen to me rant about the important of international relations/military affairs and how they need to get right with it as a party. Ya know? That is the only reason I do any of this. People need to wake up and pay attention to the world. Not just Vegas. Ya know?

but be smart. best of luck.