What is it with people bashing Josh? I very much doubt that Josh (or Markos at DailyKos) is so all-powerful that what he writes on the front page of TPM, is going to determine the outcome of this election. Josh has a view and I value it. He has a blog and he expresses it. So?

I may not agree with you on a lot of things, Lalo35adm, but you have also expressed some very thoughtful posts in the past. I just cannot go there with you this time. Josh is no slinker. He calls it as he sees it. Don't we all?

Rec, Lalo. ;-)

But you're being too easy on Josh. I'd put him somewhere in the negative numbers.

There will be more vetting of Palin. The more rocks that are turned over, the weaker McCain's selection for VP will become. The McCain fix is on in Alaska with silence being bought for future favors. I do not assume that a political machine that whupped the Clinton machine's ass is sitting on its hands. I don't always agree with Josh, but I have watched him create TPM over the years. He, initially, was more politically neutral, but I do think he tries to look at both sides before he writes. I haven't figured out who follows who, but it seems that the blogs stir the ashes and a couple of days later, the talking heads and editorial writers pick up what's selling. Then the "real" blogging and commenting begins. Written in a thousand different forms, but the same opinionated bs.

There will be more vetting of Palin. The more rocks that are turned over, the weaker McCain's selection for VP will become. The McCain fix is on in Alaska with silence being bought for future favors. I do not assume that a political machine that whupped the Clinton machine's ass is sitting on its hands. I don't always agree with Josh, but I have watched him create TPM over the years. He, initially, was more politically neutral, but I do think he tries to look at both sides before he writes. I haven't figured out who follows who, but it seems that the blogs stir the ashes and a couple of days later, the talking heads and editorial writers pick up what's selling. Then the "real" blogging and commenting begins. Written in a thousand different forms, but the same, opinionated, bs.

There will be more vetting of Palin. The more rocks that are turned over, the weaker McCain's selection for VP will become. The McCain fix is on in Alaska with silence being bought for future favors. I do not assume that a political machine that whupped the Clinton machine's ass is sitting on its hands. I don't always agree with Josh, but I have watched him create TPM over the years. He, initially, was more politically neutral, but I do think he tries to look at both sides before he writes. I haven't figured out who follows who, but it seems that the blogs stir the ashes and a couple of days later, the talking heads and editorial writers pick up what's selling. Then the "real" blogging and commenting begins. Written in a thousand different forms, but the same, opinionated, screaming out for attention.

Sarah Palin played the nasty card fully and completely last night. She used her unwed teenage daughter and own baby as props- even flying in the daddy and doing photo ops of them.

Whining about mean posters on Kos was a very valid strategy until she presented herself as a pit bull. Now it just makes her defenders looks week.

Give me a break. McCain and his new girlfriend are opportunistic liars. They're putting policies and "issues" on the back burner because their policies are those of the radical christian right wing. Not that McCain cares - he'll say anything at this point.

No. The politeness stops now. We always tell the truth but we go after this woman any we can.

The American people are renowned for believing any republican garbage thrown at them (George W elected twice for god's sake) so it's our mission to get the truth about her and about them out there.

Give me a break. McCain and his new girlfriend are opportunistic liars. They're putting policies and "issues" on the back burner because their policies are those of the radical christian right wing. Not that McCain cares - he'll say anything at this point.

No. The politeness stops now. We always tell the truth but we go after this woman any we can.

The American people are renowned for believing any republican garbage thrown at them (George W elected twice for god's sake) so it's our mission to get the truth about her and about them out there.

Fuckin' progressives- lording all their power over the media.

Seriously dude, I understand your a rich, fat cat that doesn't want the working class to get ahead so we can be easily controlled by the likes of yourself.

However, I think you give us too much credit. I wish we had that much sway over the media and McLame's campaign.

Lame argument, lalo. Go trash progressives somewhere else. TPM is one of the few outlets we have. If you don't like it go vote for McLame-Pain and sign on to the Free Republic. Don't let the door hit your ass on the way out.

Fuckin' progressives- lording all their power over the media.

Seriously dude, I understand your a rich, fat cat that doesn't want the working class to get ahead so we can be easily controlled by the likes of yourself.

However, I think you give us too much credit. I wish we had that much sway over the media and McLame's campaign.

Lame argument, lalo. Go trash progressives somewhere else. TPM is one of the few outlets we have. If you don't like it go vote for McLame-Pain and sign on to the Free Republic. Don't let the door hit your ass on the way out.

Let's let bygones be bygones. Let's do a quick post mortem on this and move forward. No point in losing any sleep over this and even less good will be done if we waste any time beating ourselves up. After all, we are the good guys. And the good guys have a job to do.

From my perspective, like most people Sarah P has her pluses and minuses. But as a total package, she is one big bad onion. Let's peel back the layers and find where she rots. I know there's rot in there, I can smell it.

Dude, the Trig-as-Bristols-baby stories were a plant - like the bug Rove planted in his own office and then called the FBI.

You WRITE reader blogs yourself. Isn't is really surprising that a first-time poster, no record at all, gets their very first post picked up by all the majors? With a story like THAT? And when have you ever known someone who makes troll-posts like that to immediately delete their account once the media uptake was complete?

If you are Rove and just got stuck with this turkey, how would you soften the effects of the media roll out? Plant a horrible story and then blame the disclosure on the press. It's a classic Rovian frame.

The reason Rove always kicks the deomcrat's asses is because they actually love to buy into the reality of the echo chamber he creates as much as the GOPers do.

If you invested even a fraction of the time you spend tearing down your fellow democrats doing something to bring about success, Obama would probably move a point in the polls.

what stupid post. im sure Viacom, General Electric, etc take their cues from Josh Marshall

go away concern troll

I give up. There seem to be an increasing number of "Server Errors" and sometimes that means you need to start over, and sometimes it doesn't. After taking the prize the other day for the most duplicate posts in a row, I must be crazy for even trying. This time, the post I wrote to Lalo a half an hour ago really does seem not to have posted, but I don't have a copy. :(

Oh well, the gist was that the Republicans will always accuse the "liberal media" of all sorts of heinous crimes - it effectively riles up the base and they've been doing it at least since Nixon (when I started paying attention to such things). So it really doesn't matter what Josh or anyone else writes. The truly amusing thing is that this time, the ammo for many of the attacks on Palin has originated with a few Alaskan reporters, the majority of whom, I believe, are Republicans.

I'm copying this before I hit "Send>>" this time.

Its so funny how the cultist followers of ObamaNATION are in a panic and running scared of Sarah Palin... I guess ObamaNATION has met his match... hehehehehe... GO PALIN!!!

The McCain camp as much as admitted that they would have had to out Bristol's pregnancy because the National Enquirer threatened to do so. That's not on Josh, and it's sure as hell not on "liberal bloggers." I don't think Palin's speech would have been any different if we'd "laid low." They wrote it before she was selected, and then edited it to add in the Alaska parts.

Besides, it running against "the media" is not a winning strategy. You may not like it, but people have a right to ask questions of the candidates. Had Palin been vetted, had she been presented well, had she been rolled out in a fashion that gave people some idea of her positions, then the approach to her candidacy would have been very different. Instead, she was a wildcard pick who sent everyone scrambling for information.

The top layer of information yielded precisely what you saw - family scandals and ugly stuff. This stuff might be "off limits" to some degree, for some candidates, in some cases. But in Palin's case, she was initially presented as a candidate running on her personal biography. That meant questions about "who she is" dominated the initial round of vetting. For anyone to bitch and moan about that is to deny the way that news works. She put her family out there as her credentials, so the investigation of her "credentials" yielded the sordid details of her family life. Period. Not Josh's fault. Not the fault of bloggers in general, nor progressives, nor Obama supporters. The only people to blame are McCain and Palin, who showed exactly what kind of judgment they lack by leading us into that miasma. Doesn't mean we don't also focus on Obama. But it's foolish to think that we shouldn't also be interested in finding out whatever we can about the opposition. They're not mutually exclusive.

And I also seriously doubt that anything posted by the readers on these boards has much impact beyond this insular little virtual world.

What exactly is "tabloid" about reporting the fact that Palin lied when she said she was always agaisnt the "Bridge to Nowhere?" That she was under investigation for abuse of power in her own state? That she once tried to fire a librarian for refusing to ban any books?

What's "tabloid" here?

UPDATE

It seems that 99% of hardcore partisan who commented here have no idea of what I'm talking about.

Palin needs to be vetted and needs to be critized.

But this process had to be coordinated between the Nutroots and unfolded slowly.

Please don't tell me the crap that the Nutroots cannot control the faithful.

That's the reason the blogosphere exists in the first place - to provide partisan slant to campaign news.

If you look at the Republican blogs, you will be shocked that there is no difference in tone and intensity, only the names are reversed, the rest is the same.

If the blogs can whip people into a frenzy, they have control. To say they don't is a cop out. Kos and others have several best-selling books proving the blogs have control and can influence media and fanbase both openly and covertly.

What "progressives" should have done is very simple:

(1) Ignore Palin. Allow the "unkown" to remain a non-story and give her speech to the based.

(2) Start the vetting process to unfolding a slow, layered "drip drip" strategy to create doubts

Instead, progressive acted like the scared and angry teenagers. They dumped all the dirt all at once, fanned the personal smears and instantly turned Palin into a hero.

If McCain/Palin win this election, this fiasco will be added to the list of things "progressives" did to help him.

Lalo,

Thanks for the update to lay out your concerns. Clearly they are valid. We are playing tag with a tiger here. Not Palin. The Republican Noise Machine. They lie and lie loudly, call fouls on the very plays they make every day...deride Tim Kaine for inexperience or Jamie Lynn Spears's parents for neglect, then praise Sarah Palin as an accomplished executive and parental role model...chide Hillary Clinton for whining then call out the media for rampant sexism. And they do it in unison, on every channel, from every surrogate, repeating the same inacuurate statements or smearing themes over and over again. Scary, but effective.

So they can easily "tar baby" us with their very vulnerable VP pick. The Obama team sniffed this trap out quickly and said "don't touch that" to the most tempting tidbits about the Alaskan govenor. And they were right.

As you well point out, this does not mean don't vet her...it does mean let the press do the vetting and stay away from the tawdry. That is THEIR game, not ours.

So we will stick to the issues...you know the things McCain's campaign manager says this election is NOt about.

P.S. Let's not blame Josh or Kos. They provide the room. We do the talking.

Lalo, for me the Sally Quinn piece was enough to make me look around to see where I was. An actual Democratic Feminist saying that a woman with 5 kids doesn't have the time to be both VP and Mom? What the heck is that?

"America's newest Erin Brockovich"

Why because she wants to drill, drill, drill?

CFMA!!

I just wonder when lalo will earn enough McSurge points for that I heart USA mouse pad.

This is war. Republicans are our enemies. Republicans are traitors to democracy. We have to smash them and put them on the back burner of history forever.

EVERYONE SHOULD WATCH THIS creepy promotional video for a workshop at Wasilla Assembly of God (Sarah Palin's longtime church)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJnhRhJW35o

When you watch this video REMEMBER...this was Sarah Palin's church for nearly her entire life.

The man with in the leather jacket donning a goatee was Sarah Palin's pastor from 1999 till 2002.

She continues to have close ties to this church and is involved with workshops there.

Lalo, you bring up a vlid point about not falling for the Palin bait, but you completely dismiss the vetting of relevant issues about her views and past actions as a public official. I don't get you, you always bring up a good point or two, but then fail to complete the circle by offering a better alternative.

It seems you would like us to lay off her record as the Earmark Queen of Wasilla or her blatant lie about the Bridge to Nowhere. A few asshats went off the reservation and questioned her motherhood. But that was just a few idiots who couldn't resist the utter hypoccisy involved.
TPM was among the first blogs to get around to dealing with the real vetting, and it was contributors, not the editors who pushed the tabloid shit. So stop being disingenuous and throwing bombs all the time. You know damn well Josh didn't push the baby shit until it had political implications, based on the sexism charges, and all the BS that Karl Rove fed us.

TPM has been fair, why haven't you?