The Netroots Nation convention here in Austin is rapidly winding down. Although there is a keynote by Donna Edwards tonight, a lot of bloggers seem to have already flown the coop, and many exhibitors in the exhibit hall have already folded up their proverbial tents and gone home.

I’m sitting in the exhibit hall right now waiting for a book signing by Rick Perlstein, the author of Nixonland: The Rise Of A President And The Fracturing Of America. Somehow, I thought this signing was actually yesterday, and have been lugging around my six-pound copy of the book for two days. Actually, according to Amazon.com, the book only weights 2.4 lbs., but you try carrying it for two days around the Worst Designed Convention Center in America (seriously, Austin–tear this one down and build another one because I hate it) along with a laptop and a bulging bag of convention center swag.

On another note, I was in a panel this morning billed as  one to help bloggers who want to write their own books learn more about that. Interestingly, no one on the panel could tell a would-be writer how to get an agent aside from knowing someone who knows an agent. How useful! No, seriously, it was a great panel, aside from lacking that piece of very practical advice.

Oh, and yours truly is the one responsible for alerting the entire world to the fact that John Cornyn staffer Dave Beckwith was lurking at Netroots Nation yesterday. No, I didn’t blog it (sorry, Charlie but I was speaking on a panel at that very moment), but when I saw him, I immediately alerted folks to it, and evidently some other folks noticed him as well.

I did meet one of Senator Cornyn’s staffers who was attending Netroots Nation, Vincent Harris, the voice behind the blog Right of Texas (which appears to be offline now…hum…).

There is a mini-scandal, if you will, brewing here at Netroots Nation in Austin. And, by scandal, we mean bloggers are asking about it because it isn’t exactly up there with Watergate or the Iran-Contra affair.

The question burning among many bloggers at the convention center yesterday is that there were no bloggers here from one of the country’s premier progressive blogs, Firedog Lake. However, that’s not entirely true. For one thing, Blue Texan at FDL is liveblogging the Al Gore/Nancy Pelosi event I’m sitting in at this very moment. So, I’m not sure what all of the “OMG! No FDL!” is about, unless it is about other FDL bloggers not being here. Hopefully, someone will enlighten us in the comments.

Former Vice President Al Gore is the “secret guest” here during the Meet The Speaker Session with U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. They are fielding questions on a wide variety of issues from Africa to global warming. More to come.

I’m not sure if it was a Twilight Zone moment or not, but something very interesting occurred during Democracy For America’s reception for Netroots cause célèbre Darcy Burner, a candidate for U.S. Congress from Washington state.

There were about 20-30 people in the room just after 5:30 p.m. when Markos Moulitsas Zúniga, the founder of the influential progressive blog DailyKOS, was noticed on the large, flat-screen television set in the hospitality suite.

Several people noted, “there’s Markos!” and someone fished out the TV remote, and the volume of the television was immediately increased. What happened next was nearly out of the Twilight Zone.

All of the activity in the room stopped (except for one person grazing the snack table). All eyes turned toward the televison, and a hush fell over the room. As Zuniga scored points on his interviewer, the room would erupt in small but cautious bursts of applaues or cheering, or perhaps a solitary whoot from a follower.

It was as if you were standing amongst a group of the world’s most devout Roman Catholics watching an address by the Pope. The moment had a cult-like feel–as if only those in the circle understood the importance of what was happening on the screen.

During the middle of the MSNBC interview, the guest of honor actually walked in. And nobody moved. Nobody. I’d kind of expected the room to erupt in cheers for a great Netroots all-star. As Burner came in the room, she noted to herself, “Oh, there’s Markos,” and watched the broadcast with everyone else.

It isn’t that there is anything wrong with this. Admittedly, I and many of my friends and colleagues behaved the same way when Hillary Clinton would be on television during the primary. But it is intersting that, although the founder of Daily Kos frequently and appropriately notes that nobody tells the Netroots what to do, his appearances–even on television–are handled with a great deal of reverence.

I suspect that the reception would have been a great case-study for some enterprising sociologist. After all, as soon as Kos disappered from the screen, the room returned to normal, folks started meeting Darcy Burner and all returned to normal.

[Hit refresh; we’re liveblogging and this will update a lot]

We’re liveblogging Netroots Nation panel “Bloggers As Ethics Watchdogs” with Travis County DA Ronnie Earle, Netroots Rising Author Nate Wilcox, Martha Griffin of the Musings blog from Fort Bend County and John Coby of Bay Area Houston blog.

Nate Wilcox has just talked about the founding of the former site “Save Texas Reps,” which began during the mid-decade rredistricting effort and is now talking about the 2004 Richard Morrison race against tom DeLay. “We raised enough money and raised enough Hell that Tom DeLay finally realized he had a race,” Wilcox said.

“That’s what it’s all about to me: making elected officials stand up in front of the people who elected them and make them tell them what they are doing,” Wilcox said.

Martha Griffi

n is telling how she ended up becoming a blogger after volunteering on the campaigns of Richard Morrison, Sherrie Matula, and Nick Lampson. Griffin began blogging on a Good Friday in 2006. Shortly thereafter, she began looking into the finance reports of State Rep. John Davis (R-Clear Lake). Griffin uncovered that Davis had spent $1,500 on cowboy boots with campaign money, so

mething for which he was later fined by the ethics commission. “The part [on the Ethics Commission Website] that says you can’t use campaign money for personal expenses jumps out at you,” Griffin said.

[This post of Griffin’s became viral; it is about the boot purchase]

Now, Griffin is talking about expanding her investigation (with John Coby) beyond just John Davis.

“But, how do you change the world with that, though,” Griffin asks. She notes that they contacted the media before the 2007 legislative session and that they were essentially brushed off. “They kept asking us the question we didn’t answer: ya’ll are very partisan and you are Democrats, do you really want this to come out? Because we had found it with Democrats. So, we showed it to a number of Democratic Legislators so they could do something–either pass a bill, or spread the word a

nd fix the problem [with their reports].”

Now John Coby is speaking. “Our elected officials, some of them, are getting away with white collar crime. They are taking their donors money and using it for themselves. What idiot would actually take the donor’s money and use it for themselves,” Coby said.

Now Coby is talking about Sen. Kim Brimer (R-Fort Worth) paying money to his wife’s realty firm for “rent,” which was actually used to buy a condo in Austin, which he sold and realized a profit for. Coby brings up the point that he wonders if Brimer paid taxes on the $170,000 in campaign contributions converted to personal use for the purchase of the condo to the Internal Revenue Service.

Now Coby is talking about Rep. Is

sett paying $39,000 to his wife’s accounting firm.

“We forced the Ethics Commission to bare its teeth,” Coby said.

Coby says there used to be $3 million in unaccounted for campaign spending, but no longer after their investigation exposed state leaders. There were also five legislators paying their spouses for work and five legislators paying for condos with campaign funds. Since their investigations there are neither any legislators employing spouses nor legislators paying for condos with campaign cash.

“I was sort of in

trigued by what the law said the duty of the prosecutor is in Texas. The law says that the primary duty of every prosecutor shall not be to convict but to see that justice is done. I thought that was pretty neat,” Earle said.

“My definition [of justice] that I have used in my work all these years is that justice is the fairness and balance that comes from healthy relationships,” Earle says.

Earle also made a suggestion project for the blogosphere: “that project could be to make sure that we pay a living wage…to the members of the Texas House and the Texas Senate. That would do more to cut down on the influence of corporate money in politics more than anything else…..And, we have to pay them what we believe they are worth. You hold the power in Texas politics in the future. I have seen it, I have felt it. I know it is there,” he noted.

“Keep beating the drums and raising hell about it, but raise hell about the low esteem which we demonstrate to our elected representatives,” Earle said. “They are sitting ducks for large-moneyed interests.”

We’re back (at long last) after spending lots of time actually being on panel today as opposed to just blogging about them. We’re not going to blog about a panel that Travis County DA Ronnie Earle is on, called Bloggers As Ethics Watchdogs.

Update to our earlier “Where Are the Big Dogs?” post:

We met Matt Stoller of OpenLeft.com about 4:30 waiting for another panel to begin. So, two of the major heavy hitters in the National Blogosphere have arrived.

Priceless words from former Special Counsel to Richard M. Nixon, John Dean:

“Average voter can’t tell you what a motion to recommit means in the House. They can’t tell you what cloture is in the senate. But they can damned sure tell when the process is screwey.

Dean was a very good speaker and is now going through a Q & A with the audience.

Tonight at the Waterloo Ice House in Austin, where former Presidential Special Counsel John Dean was speaking in advance of an appearance at Netroots Nation on Friday, there was a very interesting moment where the Watergate scandal of the 1970s reached across several generations–right here in Texas.

Joe Jaworski (at right in the photo at left), a Democrat running for Texas Senate in the Galveston area, was on hand and met Dean (at left in the photo at left). It was Jaworski’s grandfather, Leon Jaworski, who was the firey Watergate Special Prosecutor who requeted the tapes from the Nixon White House on which Dean was heard discussing blackmale and perjury with President Nixon.

Jaworski and Dean talked for about 10 minutes uninterrupted–with Dean asking questions about Jaworski’s grandfather and Jaworski discussing his race with an interested Dean.

Former Special Counsel to President Richard M. Nixon, John Dean, spoke at the Waterloo Ice House at an event for the Travis County Democratic Party Coordinated Campaign  in Austin in advance of an event at Netroots Nation on Friday.

Dean, saying he considered himself a “Goldwater Conservative,” noted that “Goldwater Conservatives are now considerably left of center.”

In talking about the trilogy of books he’s done, specifically Worse Than Watergate, Dean said, “I realize today, it was not the best title [for the book]. It’s actually much worse than Watergate.”

Of the Bush administration, he said“there was a striking degree of secrecy they had imposed very early.” “This lack of transparency always has serious consequences. No president can operate in a fishbowl, yet we are in a democracy. No president who is not totally accountable is outside the law, you can’t see what he’s doing,” Dean said.

He also noted it was “often interesting to look at the things the MainStream Media has decided are not important to America. “We don’t have an imperial president, we have something almost like–and I don’t say this facetiously–an elected monarchy.” The Executive Branch does not want to report to Congress and, by and large, simply doesn’t want to be accountable to anyone, Dean said.

“My former tribe scares the hell out of me,” he noted. “I am one of the few people who calls himself a Goldwater Conservative who will speak at the Netroots [Nation] tomorrow,” he continued.

[It’s 6:24 and we’re still liveblogging.