Well, I'm sure it doesn't mean much, but I'll vouch for Josh. His posts are uniformly and, as far as high-profile bloggers go, uncommonly objective. If anything, I've noticed a touch of sadness and regret at the type of political shenanigans that the Clintons have employed during this primary. Maybe some of that is a direct result of these emails he gets. The strange confluence of the VRWC and the Clinton campaign is nothing short of a head-shakingly infuriating turn of events bordering on betrayal.

And though Josh is one of the few respectable journalists out there, I won't go so far as to defend the obvious bias of the TPMElection Central guys. Sometimes I wonder if it's the same site - Josh the respectable and decent journo on the front page with the JV squad scrimmaging endlessly on the back pages.

Among those whose names show up as recipients of Blumenthal's emails are writers and journalists

Not including Christopher Hitchens. It was Blumenthal's former friend Hitchens who- after a 1998 Sunday lunch chez Blumenthal- turned into a rabid Impeachment supporter. Bwcause , Hitchens claimed, Blumenthal had enthusiastically described over the croissants his plan to smear one of Bill's woman accusers by distributing
( to "writers and journalists") details of her sexual life.

Which Hitchens then (wrongly I think) repeated to Ken Starr .

The fair question is: Has Obama's campaign had anyone with equal stature sending out garbage of equal stature about Clinton? If so, then the story here isn't of particular interest. If not, then the contrast is one that should have been clearly reported months ago.

The greatest mystery of the last few weeks is the degree of stupid stampeding in the press. What cowboy is riding the herd? Josh obviously isn't stupid enough, or balls-free enough, to run with the steers. But Blumenthal may be the real story here, for those wondering how our process is coming so close to being destroyed.

I think all campaigns push negative stories to various news outlets. But the story here is that Blumenthal is using stories concocted from the SAME media sources that were involved in vast right wing conspiracy of 1990's.

Also, as the story has been reported, Blumenthal sends out his garbage to his 'friends' on a daily basis for the past 6 months. And Dreier's article catches on to a couple of instances where silly Obama stories can be linked back to Blumenthall.

The thing that I found disturbing about Peter's story is how he showed that the reason we would suddenly start seeing the same talking point -- like Obama's followers are cult-like -- appearing all over the place using almost the same words is that everyone was taking their cues from from Blumenthal.

And the question is why? Why do all these people want to jump on the bandwagon of repeating the same questions or talking points that are fed to them instead of thinking for themselves?

Why do they consider it acceptable to bring up these "issues" at the behest of Clinton supporter Blumenthal without reporting that it's the Clinton campaign pushing these lines of attack? Instead they make it appear that this is actually coming from reporters trying to do "objective" reporting? and allow Clinton to pretend she had nothing to do with it.

It also shows how it's not just Congressional lobbyists that are the issue. Certain people -- call them media lobbyists -- have much more influence over the fourth branch of government and are constantly lobbying it without having to disclose their activities.

Explain to me why it's a problem for Josh to be receiving these e-mails, please.

As a guy who is voting for the Dem regardless of who wins the Nomination, I cannot get over how nutty you Obama people are getting. Seriously. I started reading these posts about 2 weeks ago, and in that *short* period, I've seen: delusional elation; taunting as if Hillary supporters are hilariously stupid cause "its the math! Ha ha ha!"; rage, as in, "I hate her! I hate her! She is the devil!"; panic, "he needs to get 10 high profile black folk to say Wright and Sharpton don't speak for all blacks!"

Here is whats depressed me the most about this primary season:

(1) I didn't realize there were so many "blue-collar" racists in the Dem party. Its probable that its a different level of racism than those on the Repub side, but I was unaware of it, and it saddens me.

(2) I didn't realize Dems were so obsessive and crazed, like Bush supporters. If you Obama supporters substitute the name "Bush" for Obama, does it remind you of something you've made fun of for the past 7 years? Cause you sound exactly like that.

Obama is great because...he (oops, "we") is going to practice a NEW kind of politics! While he hasn't said one thing about how he'll get the Repubs to go along (guess what...they won't, and he knows it, i.e. its his strategy to pretend he'll manage to bring them around somehow), you Obama supporters not only believe it, but he's the greatest candidate...well, ever!

You believe in him so much that you spend how much time on TPM posting "Hillary is a bitch!", "Hillary supporters suck!", etc. You guys see something kinda odd about that? Again, I'm voting for either one. Cause McCain's worse. Right? (wait, probably best you don't answer).

Re: Josh, you have got to be kidding me. Until 4-6 weeks ago, Josh was trying his best to avoid angering Hillary or Obama supporters. Since then, he's been backing Obama pretty much openly. The ratio of negative Hillary posts vs. negative Obama posts by far benefit the latter. I don't mind Obama, I just don't see anything special about him. I KNOW Hillary - she's a bitch, hard core, but I know she can win. If she's pissing off you Dems so much, I'll be happy when she does it to the repubs (repubs will be worse more vicious than ever, vs. Hillary or Obama).

So I beg you, as a guy who will gladly vote for Obama, can you people kinda stop for a second and realize its a political race? That if Hillary were such a bitch Chelsey would probably have turned out a little different than she has? Before you post, "Why are you putting up the FOX poll! WHY!!! BIAS!!", maybe slow down and think?

Really, its such a turn off. Notice how Hillary is doing better in the polls, but you see less comments from her supporters? You people are getting scary.

BTW, JOSH - please. Will you come out and admit you hope Obama wins? There is nothing wrong with that, nothing. Best of all, it would stop these "TPM is Biased!" posts.

Oh, one more thing - if Rove were sending out emails to a huge list of influential people, would you want Josh to remove himself from the list? From ANY list? Come on people!

Kudos to HuffPo and Peter Dreier.

I have not seen a Clintonian slant at TPM front page or at Altercation. Albeit, I'm not able to get to the latter every day, but still, I have not seen it there either. So I'm still kind of in the dark as to why either Josh or Eric Alterman needs to tell us (their blog readers) that they receive emails from Blumenthal, who may be a personal friend for both people.

Election central does seem to tilt a bit more for Clinton but that may be to generate more thread responses since the general majority of the readership seems to be Obamanauts. I'm nearly certain that gotalife likes to show up daily and harrangue the us for being Obamanauts.

In fact, Blumenthal emails - I could care less. Gotalife - now my tinfoil sez Josh may have Gotalife in his payroll.

;)

The Robots -

(1) I'm not a "stuck in the mud" supporter, I want to beat McCain. Hillary is a mean vicious bitch. She's making Obama supporters *crazed*, she will not quit (no matter how beat down she looks under a pound of make up), and she's only gone after Obama with a fraction of what she has.

(2) Obama can say he's going to "change!" things, but I'd like to hear what discussions he's had with the Repubs. Have they already agreed? Something like, "Damn Obama, sounds good. If you win, lead us!" I figure they'll be nastier than ever.

(3) Who would I rather have take on the Repubs, who will do anything to get elected this year? Hillary. I want a vicious, crazed, can't be denied candidate. Obama doesn't seem like the guy who can win. If he thinks he's going to "change" the tone, he's completely nuts. How can the Dems cower any worse than they have?

(4) I want to beat McCain. I'll gladly vote for Obama! GLADLY! However, in wanting a Dem to win, and knowing they'll both pretty much push the same policies, I'm pulling for the one that can win the general. I think it Hillary. Might I be wrong? Sure.

(5) My problem is - the Obama supporters are making it very difficult for me to like the guy. I didn't realize they were so intense; so like the Bush followers, ignoring ANY fault of his, while always looking desperately for someone to blame.

Ugh. So there you have it. My pro/con comes down to this - a Dem is better than McCain. I like Hillary and Obama. She is not the Devil, nor is he the "savior". They are however, better than McCain. I wish the other people would figure it out.

Hell, what do people expect Obama to do? I don't get it. Here's my big question - how is he going to "change the tone" (which is what everyone is so excited about, he's "change/new/different/not the same old same old") when dealing with Republicans whose only chance for victory (any election, any issue) is to create fear, attack, belittle, etc.? Does someone have that answer?

Josh is one of the 2 most objective, fair-minded people in the lefty blogosphere (tied with Kevin Drum). And quite frankly, the only slant I've been able to infer from him is that he's fairly disgusted with both the GOP tactics and general incompetence of the Clinton campaign. I would bet that he likes both candidates personally, but that he thinks Obama is the better choice b/c of how the campaigns have been run.

Josh is on a mailing list, so what? I get a lot of emails from a lot of people every day too.

I respect Josh Marshall. I've been reading TPM for many years.

Election Central, I don't respect so much. The way they frame the primary at this stage is Hillary-centric, or these-E-mails-centric.

Otherwise, with all the polls and stories posted in election central, the caveat: no chance of winning without destroying the other candidate and causing the super-dels to nominate her would be the framing of allt he stories, because that is the reality.

I would guess Josh is on every insider email listserve he can possibly join. I would love to be on that list, and I'm a recent Obama transfer from the Edwards camp.

Josh is a liberal blogger, but he is ALSO a conservative journalist, in the Walter Cronkhite class, in terms of sourcing and verification.

This is just plain good old journalism 101, and this is something MOSY of us bloggers (me included) are not so good at.

We are guilty of expressing our opinions as certainties, but Josh simply makes sure of his facts, before he ascribes them any certitude.

So the fact he is respected enough for inclusion by that list of power-toting eggheads, should just make all of us more appreciative of what he does for us.

Thanks, Josh.

PS; VOTE OBAMA!

Let's be honest, Sidney Blumenthal is not a free agent. He is acting entirely and purposefully on behalf of the Clinton campaign. They don't have to pay him and they don't have to direct him for him to know exactly what his role in this whole endeavor is supposed to be. Same with Lanny Davis, "Lamont Williams" and others. They are very well trained sleeper cells.

They can all deny they speak/work for the campaign and then they can go about their business in the shadows.

Josh shouldn't have to tell everyone about the private emails he gets from friends, acquaintances, colleagues, whomever. But he should realize this is a tactic of the Clinton campaign campaign and his readers have every right to know what the campaign are doing, especially when it's menat to be hidden from view.

OMG!!! Josh gets emails he doesn't tell us about?

What is the matter with you people?

As a lifelong journalist, my observation is that there is no bias whatsoever in TPM -- at least as far as the Democrats go! Sometimes I feel that it's biased in favor of Clinton, other times I think it's biased in favor of Obama -- a pretty good sign that doing a good job of balancing two perspectives. As far as getting e-mails from inside the campaign -- that's how journalism works. Reporters have sources and there's no need to reveal who they are. If TPM picked this stuff up and ran with it without further investigation, that would be a problem. As I see it, that's not happening.

Don't disagree with Jade7243. These blogs are all entry points to the echo chamber. But I do think TPM is a bit more objective in what it chooses to post and how it analyzes into. And I think it's a little unrealistic to think that bloggers have the resources of the mainsteam media to do any real digging.

Peter Dreier:

A decade later, and now acting as a senior campaign advisor to Senator Clinton, Blumenthal is exploiting that same right-wing network to attack and discredit Barack Obama. And he's not hesitating to use the same sort of guilt-by-association tactics that have been the hallmark of the political right dating back to the McCarthy era.

Thank you Mr Dreier.
Glad you were man enough to inform us of Blumenthal's dirty tricks.

Josh... lost even more respect for you.
Blumenthal... you are a disgrace.

"TPM rocks. Let this one go."

No. Truth rocks.

The Robots - Thanks, and I take no offense; hell, I there isn't anything that can offend me on a issue germane to TPM.

I disagree with your "change the names, and it will apply to Hillary supporters". I'm a "Hillary Supporter" in that I believe she's better than McCain, and that she has a far better chance to beat him. I've always believed TPM, and it's readers, were the "intelligent" ones on the left. Reading these pro-Obama posts has been disappointing.

More to the point - Hillary supporters don't match the intensity of Obama supporters, its not close. Hillary supporters, like myself, don't see anything "special" about her save she's scarier than a badger. I "get" political campaigns.

Obama supporters however, they REALLY believe he is "special/different/a once in a generation" type candidate. He isn't. He speaks in platitudes, votes for the Patriot act, says, "we all have different views" re: accepting the support of a pastor highly critical of homosexuals, etc. Fine. Neither he or Hillary comes close to earning my enthusiasm and dedicated support.

Again, Hillary supporters seem to "get this", the majority I read anyway. Obama supporters (at least on TPM) are in some sort of haze. No matter what failings of his you bring up, they refuse to believe it. Or absorb it. They hold him to impossible standards, meaning, once he does get into office (very unlikely in my opinion) they'll be terribly disappointed to see that...very little changes. That he'll be the same president that Hillary would have been.

RE: the video link, I "get it". He's a charismatic guy, I'd LOVE for him to be "true", but he isn't. Thus, it does nothing for me. I don't know every politician enough to chose my "favorite", but from what I do know, the ONLY guy I "believe" in is Feinstein from Wisconsin. Were I to learn more about him, maybe I'd find out I don't like him that much, but HE is the only one I find "genuine".

To OREGON Activist - THAT is what I wanted to say in my way to long, plodding posts. Perfect. He *will not* be working with "dick and jane republican". He'll be working with evil idiots. He will be able to change NOTHING. The only option he will have open to him is to FIGHT. I happen to believe Hillary understands that already, he does not (doesn't Hillary circa 1992 remind you of Michelle Obama now?)

What I DO NOT WANT OR NEED is the Dems to "try to fix the relationship". The Repubs take; they give not an inch. I've gone near insane these past 7 years watching the Dems cower and give in to the Repubs. What more can they do? I want a *vicious crazy fighter* in the WH, cause thats our only hope. If Obama becomes that guy, great.

Finally - I understand a TON of Obama support is based on depression, sadness, etc. at what our country has become. I feel it as much as anyone, and were there someone that could *really* change it, I'd be a freak going door to door for them. But its not an option. Accept that the Republicans will not allow it.

Josh has not been implicated in anything. That you think this is a scandal just reveals your ignorance. Lots of people are news aggregators who send emails with the hot stories of the day - and Joe Conason has described these emails as exactly that.

I do wish Josh would address this issue so you can see how silly you sound. Especially, Ms. We-Can-Assume. However, this is instructive and truly proves my point about how I expect you all to react if Obama is elected.

I guess this was a useful illustration of the utter irrationality of some Obama supporters, for that I am grateful. For once, the sane Obama supporters will see your type for what you are - separated from the Clinton-Obama issue - because now you are venting your hateful paranoia on someone they like.