Wouldn't be much of a movement without a good deal of people to support it, now would it?

Thanks, that thread was certainly toxic.

If that's an example of the "change" Obama is touting, I want no part of it.

It might very well be that a lot of those posters are Republicans spreading mischief, certainly the venom for an old respected member of the party, no matter how intemperate her comments may have been, was completely over the top.

Keith Olbermann's special comment is irresponsible. It unnecessarily brings attention to and inflates the issue of race and racism. By implying that Ferraro and by association the Clinton camp of racism, he opens up an avenue of attack that any democrat would rather avoid. Especially the Obama camp.

Ferraro's comments while tasteless to many, pales in comparison to a prominent Obama surrogate.

Olbermann is leading us down a road that none of us want to go.

This is what we have to look forward to if pointing fingers about playing the race card is to become the main focus: Jeremiah Wright, posted on politico.com hope the link works.

http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0308/Wright_on_film.html

There are many left-leaning blogs whose comment sections have become outlets for the frustrations brought on by the primary campaign, and they seem to be pretty evenly divided between those who sympathize with Clinton and those who sympathize with Obama. I'm curious why you chose to single out this site as an example of the "tribalism" incited by the Obama movement.

When you read open blogs, you are witnessing dynamic human behavior patterns. You might want to examine the unease you say you feel when you visit right-leaning blogs. Is it the tribalism and invective or is it the ideology?

If what we're seeing on the left reminds us of what we once thought was the sole purview of the right, maybe that's telling us that we're really not all so different after all. And isn't that the raison d'etre of the Obama campaign?

It was Hillary that claimed to consider this the fun part. Just a few days ago, it was the Obama supporters who were the Kumbaya sheep unable to face the Republican vitriol and cowing to the kitchen sink. The funniest thing about Hillary supporters is that their accusations change with the winds, just as Hillary's triangulated positions do.

Obama supporters just haven't been that naughty; well, except for Mephistophiles, although he claims to support Hillary.

http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/2008/03/re-our-contract.php

Were we that awful, we'd be talking a lot more about Huma, but there are limits to the pain to which I am willing to subject our esteemed BevD.

To reflect on the initial premise, here's some input from someone who had never been active on a blog site as a commenter before the Iowa caucus. I'm certainly not new to the net or even to online discussions. I've spent months at a time engaged on non-political discussion forums and the dynamic on those sites is quite a bit different than on blog sites. In the discussion forums, it's fairly easy and quite common to have, well, a discussion. Threads are typically ordered by latest post, and if you reply to someone, you need to quote them to reference who you're engaging since the reply is not inserted between postings. It's very easy to see new comments because all new comments are added at the end of the thread.

The interface for discussion here is pretty awkward, although maybe the TPM mechanism isn't entirely representative of blogs. But I think the key point is that the responses on blogs that have staff bloggers, as here, are generally individual comments, and not intended as a way to begin or carry on a discussion. So it's not hard to understand that comments would be repetitive, all the more so if the item commented on is one on which there isn't much disagreement. Isn't the point of a comment section on a blog to give readers a chance to respond to the blogger? If a blogger has made a compelling case or especially insightful point, they can gauge how well understood or compelling their point is by the number of people who simply state agreement, or disagreement.

Again, I'm a new guy around here and I sense there is/was a community of folks who enjoy discussions. But it takes time to meet your neighbors, so it's much more likely that casual readers are just dropping in, reading a compelling entry, and saying "Yep, I agree". I don't see that getting in the way of the community. The regulars who enjoy discussion can simply read right around the quick entries.

Finally, the whole "Recommended" scheme is a bit odd when it comes to posts by the TPM staff. I suspect regulars read all the staff posts regardless of recommendation. And conversely, regulars probably don't click Recommend a whole lot on the staff posts. But there's another dynamic going on with Reader blogs that's pretty cool, and is useful in finding posts that have been well-received or are controversial (as they tend to provoke good discussions).

I'm sorry I missed an earlier time when folks like BevD felt they could more easily have open discussions. There's a bunch of history I'm apparently missing that lead me to find some comments here strange, even anguished, about days gone by. I hope I'm not diluting the community by jumping into discussions, and would like to see everyone weigh in thoughtfully, while having no problem with the simple "I agree" posts.

Just my $.02.