As the community is growing and the threads (especially in the Reader Blogs) are getting long, I've been thinking a lot about how we can encourage a culture of discussion here at TPMCafe. Rules and software tools are good (and I'm sure some folks will have advice on that count), but I'm of the school of thought that you should only go there if you can't solve the problem with community culture. In other words, if we can collectively come to an understanding of what you can and can't do here, and collectively push back when folks violate TPMCafe cultural norms, explicit management moderation or comment ratings may not be necessary.

Then this morning, I found a chart (after the break).

Read more »

A warm-up for next week's Book Club.

In the New Yorker, George Packer argues that Rick Perlstein, author of next week's discussion book Nixonland is too pessimistic when argues that the divisions that Nixon exploited and helped sow in the 1960s will exist for another generation. Packer, in essence, argues that the recent failures on the right (three special elections, and the 2006 midterms before that) and the increasingly silly and unsuccessful attempts at Nixonian red-baiting and general name-calling ("elitist," "appeaser," etc. etc.) prove that Nixonland is coming to an end.

My sense is it's too soon to tell. Those tactics may yet work. But for the sake of conversation let's say he's right. If Nixonland is coming to an end, what's replacing it? (And if you say "Obamaland where everyone loves each other," I'm going to assume you're either joking or stoned.)