Kash, I agree with you 100% (rare in this place, lol) on the feeling of kinship here and the great posts. I'm not just talking about Obama supporters, I'm talking about people like Billy Glad, who is one of the better bloggers here.

I agree 70% on the slant that Eric and Greg give to Hillary's talking points of the day.

The reason I only agree 70% is that 30% of me is glad to see someone is still publishing them, and I make a point of reading them daily. It provides me with insight into what Hillary's campaign is going to argue next, and what to expect from MSNBC and CNN when I get home.

It armors me.

It's my hope that TPM's newfound conference call relationship with McCain's camp will do the same in the months to come.

So, it's all good, really.

PS: Thank you so much for the support you've shown me on my blogs. I enjoy yours too.

Hmmmm... Yeah, I've heard it said that there is bias, but it has always seemed to me that TPM goes out of its way to be fair to both Obama and Clinton. I think that shows they respect the intelligence of the readership. I've noticed bias in both directions a very small number of times. The examples you cite above you cite seem accurate, factual, and don't report talking points uncritically. I think there is such a huge pro-Obama bias in the progressive blogosphere, TPM's attempt to provide balanced coverage is misperceived as bias. I don't want TPM to turn into Keith Olbermann on the Net or the Barack Obama hour. I want to hear a variety of Democratic perspectives, and fair coverage of all the candidates.

I want to know what's going on, and what I see is reporting on the latest silliness from Hillaryland. If you don't want to read news you don't like, don't read the news, or the posts, or whatever.

The Ickes post ends with this:

Assume for the sake of argument that none of these decide between now and June 3rd. And assume she ends up with 100 delegates less than Obama, as Ickes predicts.

She would then need at least three-fourths of those nearly 200 super-dels to support her -- and not Obama -- in order to overtake him. That's hardly "a few," obviously.

This is one of a bunch of posts complaining about TPM staff and their incessant reporting of things Obama supporters don't like (OK, not me, other Obama supporters). It's as though TPM is supposed to make us feel better about the ugly crap coming out of the Clinton machine. It's as though this is supposed to be a safe place for us beleaguered Obama supporters where we can be warm and cozy.

It's not. I don't take my news with a splash of slant; I want it neat, straight up, and I want the bad stuff first. Greg gives me the bad news, and reports it straight, and adds his ironic twist at the end so it's clear he doesn't buy it. I'm fine with that.

For slant and pre-digested content I watch Jon Stewart, who softens the blow by reacting for me. For news, I come here, stay off the posts, and read the news.

Seeing No Evil Can Come to No Good

http://www.slate.com/blogs/blogs/xxfactor/archive/2008/05/27/seeing-no-evil-can-come-to-no-good.aspx

... another way in which we in the media have not learned all we might have from the fiasco of 2000 is in our peculiarly American determination to see strategery everywhere but no evil, ever.

... What an odd paradox in which we assume we are always being played—but never with really bad intentions. Especially since it was fear of appearing to be too hard on Junior that got us this president in the first place. And, as even his former press secretary Scott McClellan says outright in his new memoir, that's also how we marched off to his purposeless war.

The assumption was that Bush (and even more to the point, Colin Powell) would never have told us the war was necessary if that weren't the case -- because who would do that? No one we'd put in charge. Just as Hillary would never have stirred the pot on purpose—because that would be evil and she isn't evil, thus she couldn't have done it.

For a bunch of skeptics, we really have a weirdly high opinion of human nature.

We've been ill-served by a See-No-Evil media, by mavens who want to ref the game but then act like they're too cool to stoop to calling foul.

Josh is not afraid to call foul. That's what got me hooked on TPM. I don't think TPM staff should get all righteous when readers respond to TPM EC's reports of the latest Clinton strategery by seeing evil.

TPM slanted to Hillary??? Man, whatever you been smokin' you need to put down!

Rocky doesn't respond to "Kitty", but on the other hand he doesn't respond to "Rocky" either. So long as I feed him he's happy.

Don't worry, I won't go away. Sorry if I came on a little harsh. True, at some point news outlets can become mouthpieces for a source. In this case it seems tricky. Hillary is the source for the most insane stuff out there, and TPM expects us to tear the story apart, as that's what we seem to be here for. Perhaps there should be a separate "Heeeeere's Hillary!" section of the site, and only substantive Hillary news, like maybe that she's resigned, should be posted.

Anyhow, I don't love it either. I just find that since I've managed to get over my constant defensiveness and panic over her nonsense, I simply want to watch what she's saying without having to read Fox News, and then sometimes see some discussion about points other than the fact that people hate her.

Dude, this is really unfounded. Or at the very least, the evidence you marshal falls far short of proving anything at all.

That Ickes piece was critical of him, pointing out that the Clinton camp is soft-peddling the huge mountain they have to climb on super delegates as "a few." Greg ends the piece essentially saying "a few? hardly!"

The idea that you would see that as a pro-HRC piece is pretty absurd.

We're open to criticism from the community, but you have to bring evidence to back up your claims, especially when you put them as starkly as you do here.

I've been reading Kash's posts lately, and from what I've read he's not one to be on the attack, to be mean-spirited or to take a "party line." He's gone out of his way to foster unity, not division. So I appreciate what he has to say and feel he has earned credibility. In short, he seems like a really good, sensible, guy.

I have "seen" bias myself, but as an Obama supporter, I am bound to see bias in one way and not the other. Besides, the readers of TPM seem definitely to lean towards Obama -- more than just a little. A lot!

However, I do wish that TPM could clarify its relationship to Blumenthal. Is TPM receiving any special information from "friends" from one camp? This is an awkward question to ask, but I felt sad that TPM never addressed the issue when it was brought to the fore some weeks ago. It would not be an issue if TPM treated such emails as personal and did not use them in publication (to get ideas for stories or as a basis for stories).

However, once we start using our friendly contacts anonymously, we get into dangerous territory. Liberals are not immune from the dangers of cronyism, which is just another word for friendships that are "taken to work."

Anyway, that's just a small concern. I am new here, and I appreciate what TPM has to offer.

Every couple of weeks somebody makes this claim. Of late it's been that the site is biased towards Hillary. But people used to say that the site, and Josh and Andrew were biased towards Obama.

Now I know that what TPM did to Mike Gravel* is unforgivable but can we just accept the fact that the TPM staff, no matter which candidates they prefer, are fair and honest about the coverage and analysis they offer up?

*TPM didn't do anything to Mike Gravel.