With apologies for the self-focused nature of this post, thought I should post briefly about the wacky experience of being on liberal AM talk radio as Articleman, talking about recent posts and the issues in them, and some thoughts coming out of that.  Was on KRXA540 out of Monterey/Santa Cruz for about 20 minutes doing a pitch-and-catch on various issues with Hal, the owner/GM of the station.  Hal has uber-cool NoCal theme music, and plows through issue after issue briskly and with detail, so it was really fun.  I totally thank Hal, and hope to be back.  I was actually a little nervous, which is weird for me, I don't get nervous arguing to a jury or speaking in public.  Really wanted it to go well.  Here are the thoughts I wanted to share, though:
 
1.  Humorous Point:  Hal complained on the air, as we all have here, about the difficulty of finding anything on TPM.  He said it's easier to find a poster you like on Google than to bother within the site, which he said has the most confusing architecture of any he's seen.  From your lips to Josh's ears, I said, and I'm going to send a mail to Andrew Golis as a followon to that.  When the media starts talking about how your website's functionality cuts against its content, that's a sign.
 
2.  Ironic Point (for me):  We talk within this blogospace about how insular and irrelevant our dialogue is.  Judging from the points of concern to Hal's listeners, as raised by Hal, I think the things we obsess about are actually more representative of general concerns that I had thought.  The Hillary debt thing, and the widely held misconception that Obama could pay it from his campaign fund, was raised.  At the end, the question of whether to flog Pelosi for not impeaching was raised, as that's of great concern to his listenership.  (I argued vigorously for Pelosi and against the effort.) 
 
3.  We Are, Collectively, the Rise of Progressive Media.  Josh Marshall.  Air America.  Hal's station.  Your posts.  My posts.  Our comments.  This is important.
 
Hal was talking about how much of AM is conservative.  I really like our collective pushback, as I mentioned to him.  When I was in college in the 80s, I founded a liberal newspaper to compete against the local National Review clone that was schooling and placing into the MSM all kinds of George Will emulating drones -- Terry Teachout, Dinesh D'Souza, blah blah blah.  There was no liberal counterpoint movement in the years of Dukakis et al. on my campus, or most.  We were losing a step on the march in schooling new soldiers in the fight for our values, and in getting our message out, and in seeming like we were competing.
 
The rise of Limbaugh is part and parcel of 1994, which was a movement against us and what we are for.  O'Reilly is the second wave of that crap.  These waves were stronger than we were at one time.  But just now, Olbermann's ratings top O'Reilly's, for the first time.
 
Progressives, organizing around the net, around MoveOn, raising money for Dean, MoveOn, now Obama, liberal radio against the dittoheads, all of it, we're a rising tide.  My dad generally votes Republican, and likes O'Reilly better than Olbermann.  But he said that KRXA was more substantive in focus and less personal in its other offerings he checked out than the conservative media he more frequently takes in.  We are talking to people, and judging from the poll numbers, we are taking the natural swing of the pendulum, now toward us, and pushing it as far as we can.  Which leads to . . .
 
4.  The Unity Pony.  I will always remember one of our commenters saying in my Unity Pony thread, F*** The Pony.  Rather than call that person a ponyfucker, which is humor too easy by half, it reminds me not to be dishonest (I really didn't like Hillary's campaign) but to try as hard as I can to talk with and not at or against other Democrats (Naderites, Clintonistas, anyone).  I had two or three openings on that show to lay into Hillary or Pelosi, and I think it is of utmost importance to keep our eyes on the 2008 election, not failures of our party's leaders to avoid war in 2003, or hubris in 2008 as one side or the other sees it.  WE HAVEN'T WON A TWO PERSON PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION BY MORE THAN A POINT SINCE 1964.  OK?  So our site, and talk radio as its mirror, give us the choice.  Do we ride the pony, or do what our colleague in my unity thread told us to do to the pony?  For me, it's no choice.
 
Ride the pony.  Win the election.  This is our greatest year as a party since 1992.  I'm having a blast, I hope you are too.