(With a nod to barackobamaisyournewbicycle.)

I.  Love.  This.  Group.

How do you do it?  You people, how do you manage to be insightful, kind, blunt, critical, embittered, enthusiastic, hilarious, respectful and reasonable all at once? I know that's part of the magic of a multitude of voices, but, seriously, it must come from somewhere.  Maybe it's the culture that rewards certain posts; maybe it's the quality of TPM's frontpage journalism that draws in the sort of people who can pull this off; maybe it's just luck.  (Regarding that middle option: I've seen a couple of posts in the last few days lamenting TPM's/Josh's lack of fairness, but I have to say, I don't see it.)

Sure, occasionally someone says something a little mean-spirited or gets carried away with passion... but that's surprisingly infrequent and always seems to either dribble into nothingness or get brought back to reality.  Here, I've never seen the sort of intense escalation of impassioned stupidity that seems to characterize comment sections of <ahem> other news sources.

I've been reading in this cafe for a couple months and only recently got around to actually writing anything.  Obama's my choice in this election, but I haven't felt the need to comment much about that, since so many of you have already argued those points more eloquently than I ever could.  I have to admit, too, that I've been impressed by the vocal minority of Clinton supporters who keep the iscussion going. 

Sometimes comments from both side seem a little vitriolic, but it always comes back to sanity somehow. After all, what's the point of an honest discussion about politics when only one side represents?  At any rate, I understand my own political stripes much better from having had the opportunity to learn from all you. 

All I know is that, when I read posts like Dave Morgan's "Sincere Apology to Clinton Supporters" and Billy Glad's recent "Decision", I feel like giving the whole world a huge hug.  It's been a long primary season, and I've seen some crazy discussions, but now, even on a meta level, you're all bringing it back to reality. 

I'm convinced the intra-familial squabbling is almost over... but until we can refocus the discussion on how to defeat John McCain, I just wanted to say that I think you are all (erm, mostly all) doing a great job of keeping the discourse civil and avoiding inanity.  And if you don't realize how high-quality a job this group is doing, you haven't been reading the same commentary I've been reading on the interweb.