I am a longtime Obama supporter, but I find these charges of TPM bias absolutely silly. Your complaint seems to be that Josh took one position favorable to Obama and he put up emails disagreeing with him. A Hillary supporter could look at the same set of facts and conclude that Josh is pro-Obama and is just putting up opposing emails as cover for objectivity.

Despite the objections of supporters of both candidates, I have found the coverage at TPM fairly balanced (not "fair and balanced").

If you want to see a site dedicated to real Hillary shilling, mosey on over to Talk Left, where they actually ban commenters for speaking ill of Hill. Pity, it used to be such a good blog, too.

You are absolutely right StYMied. I tried to rationalize that it was just their way of showing us what the Clinton campaign was up to. But, if you have to rationalize like that then something is not right. Also, have you seen the calendar? Sometimes Obama is not even on there and Bill is on 3 or 4 times! Why is he on there? Is he running for President? Remember when TPM called a spade a spade? The site was like this in the run-up to the Iraq invasion as well. It seems like when it really matters and when a boldness and judgment has to be demonstrated TPM excels in hand-wringing and relativism.

I think Josh and Greg are or were Hillary supporters. Josh's stressing of Hillary's appeal as a "fighter" is what originally convinced me of who he was for. Sargent's blog proved his alliance for me. Take a look at it. Its been out of commission for a month now(thank god).

The Horse's Ass
Between Feb1 and March 6 Sarge made 5 posts with Obama's name in the title -most regarding GOP smears. None of these were anti-Obama.

During the same period in time he made 25 posts about Hillary or Bill Clinton almost all of them taking some detractor to task or claiming the media is anti-Hillary lmao

I don't really care if they support Hillary but like others have said, the objectivity seems to be lacking a little. I don't think they are being shills(TPM aint hillaryis44) and certain amount of what they cover is driven by the MSM and campaigns.

The biggest problem I have with TPM is this SHITTY WEBSITE!!!!!! They actually pay somebody for this bullshit. They went from a kinda crappy but overall organized site to a shitty user-hostile defective site that makes users jump through hoops to find older content, if they can find older content at all.
Josh do a damn poll and see how much people like the new format.

Sorry, I'm an Obama supporter, but I've never detected a bias towards Hillary on TPM. Mind you, I don't approach the site with the Talmudic intensity of some other readers, but I think some folks here can't see the forest for the trees.

I actually have found Josh's "bias" actually amazingly neutral over the last several months, assuming that he probably has/had a preference for one candidate over the other and, in all likelihood, may have been rooting for one of the other Democratic candidates who have bowed out of the race. (I don't read Greg as much, so I won't comment on his posts in general.)

While Josh expressed appropriate skepticism about Obama's candidacy early on, I don't think he has intentionally tried to depict Obama as inferior to Clinton. And the presenting of the Clinton campaign's endless talking points allows readers to draw their own conclusions (and, from my vantage point, "giving them just enough rope to hang themselves).

As for no comments on the front page, while I find that frustrating as well, given that the "conversation" on political websites in general (and unfortunately here at TPM at times as well) descends into personal attacks and ridiculous hyperbole, I can see why the PTB at TPM may choose to avoid offering this option.

On the other hand, I like that the Washington Post allows readers to comment on virtually anything posted on their website--a great feature--but not without its downside: Have you ever read the nonstop anti-Obama, pro-Hillary rantings of "svreader"???

While I appreciated TPM's vow of objectivity originally, I now worry about it. Since objectivity has become a thing of currency in this present situation, and since so much is riding on what happens in the progressive movement between now and November, I would much rather know a person's bias and read with that in mind than have some pointed handling of headlines, as we are presently seeing.

It actually seems much more dangerous than outright admission--even slight manipulations (which are possibly inevitable) become weapons that the MSM and RWRadio will use against us.

I like TPM, and so I feel bad when I get too snarky about pointing this stuff out, but I think it's the same sort of concerns I've seen TPM point out about the MSM in insightful ways.

Of course, to some, what I am seeing as Hillary bias from a couple of the staff members will make me a f##king idiot Obama mental patient cult member robot, and that's my fate, I guess. to be an idiot. But I used to read Drudge just to see how he played with headlines, how he makes weather events into seeds of the Rapture, etc. So I love thinking about this stuff, and in same ways, actually (sickly) enjoy the annoyance I feel at TPM for doing this, though, at the same time, I worry it's dangerous to an inherent goal of such a site, which would be to get a progressive candidate in the white house.

Now I must power down and recharge. End transmission.

It think that Hillary gets more coverage of her campaign because her campaign has more drama. They cover her conference calls because her people are always saying some unbelievable stuff. If Obama's people were screwing up at the same rate that hers do I am sure that they would get just as much coverage.

I'm an Obama supporter. My only issue is that, whether or not he is a Hillary supporter, Greg Sargeant can be extremely sloppy and tone-deaf in his headlines and summaries.

For a recent example, look at the story about Obama mentioning that he visited Pakistan while he was in college. The lede says something like "the Obama campaign is not disputing this story". Wha? Why not just report the "story" (such as it is); you could note later in the article that you tried to confirm the story with the campaign but they had no response (or whatever). The problem is the implication in the lede that this might be something Obama wanted to hide.

This is just one of many examples.

It's interesting how starting from a different viewpoint usually leads one to reach a different viewpoint. My perception is that most stories here are either neutral or anti-Clinton. Yet apparently there are those who see this site as biased toward Clinton.

At any rate, we keep hearing how Hillary's options are insurmountable, or how she is "toast", etc. But if that were true, we wouldn't keep hearing it. It would be over, and we would be hearing only about Obama and McCain. If there were no fear that Hillary could somehow pull off the nomination, there would be no time devoted to trying to stop her.

Look back through the archives for Josh's article, "Breaking Free."

I think it proves he's no brainwashed partisan.

The HRC campaign is simply more aggressive in pushing their spin. I think they've made some effort to balance it out.

And at least at TPM, we see it verbatim, not dressed up as "news" like you will find at CNN and MSM.

So to my mind, the MSM is the problem with just printing spin all the time. TPM is just letting us know what that spin exactly is. That's why I come back.

Keep up the good work!

If one considers the perceptions of the pro-Hillary sites, Josh used to be counted in their camp, then began defecting. Josh has been "kidnapped" and is now silencing their reliable ally, Greg Sargent because The Horse's Mouth has been down for waaaaaaaay too long in their suspicious little minds.

Nevermind about the TPM redo and stuff, their favorite TPMer isn't allowed to opine there unchallenged anymore, so he is counted as yet another wounded warrior among their proud legions of victims.

One of the most amusing examples of Josh's traitorous posts was the headline about Mark Penn asking if he's been "gelded". Of course, Josh was actually saying that Hillary is a castrating bitch and surely he must know that there's actually a Hillary nutcracker available for purchase.

While stuff like the above is wacky and fun, I have to say that the anti-Obama forces are well co-ordinated and organize their targeted activism across the innerwebs very efficiently. Usually, their messages to their allies or enemies go viral with great speed along well-established pathways that include rightwing blogs, FOX and selected individuals in the MSM.

Don't expect these folks to change their minds or MO if Obama prevails and gains the nomination. Their hate for him and his supporters is too deeply ingrained among those most commited to Hillary.

Unless one actually reads the comments on the sites such as noquarter, TM, H44 (HillaryIs44), etc, it's easy to dismiss or ignore the phenomenon. For the most part, Hillary supporters on TPM are not representative of the commenters/activists types who inhabit those blogs. By and large, this place is considered too toxic for the most rabid to even glance at much less participate in.

Could this be one of the worst candidate pools ever? Check out what America's Youth is saying about what each of the candidates have done for their campaign.
www.YourThreeCents.com

Not sure if anyone remembers my attempt to get an endorsement from Josh:
http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/2008/02/tpm-endorsement.php

Here was his explanation for not endorsing, which was typically cogent:

For what it's worth, there definitely won't be any endorsement. Either from me or the site. But I don't want that to come off as dismissive. I appreciate the question and interest. Reading over the comments, I think I agree with the commenter who said it's just not in my DNA. I don't think it makes sense for the site's mission. And on a personal level it would feel presumptuous. It's not just a matter of my keeping something secret. I try to keep myself uncommitted even in my own head, because I think it allows me to be more open-minded and less rigid in how I evaluate the race.