The big news in the liberal blogosphere on Monday was Joe Wilson’s endorsement of Hillary Clinton. The news of the endorsement went out to the blogs first via a conference call. The conference call is a major effort in reach out to the blogs by the Clinton campaign and a very smart move. Although Hillary has taken heat in the liberal blogosphere in the past, and this may not smooth the path 100%, it’s a significant step. The conference call to handful of liberal bloggers was organized by Hillary’s “Director of Online Everything,” Peter Daou.

Peter is one of the savviest bloggers that I know and I feel that Joe Wilson’s endorsement will play big for Hillary. He’s highly respected by the liberal netroots and his endorsement will carry some weight for Hillary, as it did for Kerry in ‘04. I missed the call, but Steve Clemons reports:

During the conference call, Joe Wilson said that he had been friends with Hillary for the last ten years. He stated that he believed that Hillary had emerged as a well-established, serious critic of the Bush administration and felt that she believed that “the Iraq War needed to be ended soon, that troops needed to be removed from harm’s way, and that a political process had to be started, a process that would end the war and preserve some shred of our strategic position in the Middle East.” (more…)