Josh thinks this vote is momentous.

Answer: Joe Lieberman.

Is Josh afraid that we'll make his site look bad?

Just wondering because it's rather frustrating for me to do so.

This afternoon I saw Josh's post on EFCA, how the compromise would entail cutting out card check. But the lack of comments on his post means I have to blog about it here where he might not see.

It's not that I want him to see what I wrote, but more importantly is this article by T.A. Frank in the Monthly that made the argument that Card Check was the least important provision in EFCA.

That article can be found here and I would hope Josh would link to it in a post.

In the front page post, the Big Boss wonders if the Obamian silence on Nationalizaion is intentional. If so, it's an illustration of the power theory I wrote up back on the old site a long time ago: namely that when you have the power to do something, you don't. Work things around so other people suggest it, and wait until there is nothing else to do, then do it.

In this case, nationalization would have provoked unthinkable furor but if it is moving to the only reasonable position when Obama finally does it, it will be much better recieved and less likely to provoke opposition from any but the GOP dead enders.

Obama's economic policy performance thus far is a total embarrassment to me.

A lot of people are celebrating the end of the Bush Administration. I am happy for them but I can't really because the whole thing is my fault. I for Gore and against Bush in 2000 and 2004, I voted for Obama in 2008. I protested the war in 2003 and have contributed money and time to the cause of battling the GOP of the 2000. I was outraged by the torture, and trampling of the constitution and the law.

But it's still my fault.

I'm a citizen of the United States, born of citizens in-country and that makes it my fault. I recently got into a bit of a discussion at this at another blog because understandably, people who opposed the Bushies with everything they could don't want to be associated with it's failures. And there's something to that. But I pay taxes, I live here, I vote here, this is for better or worse my government. And that means I am responsible at least on some level, for the things it does the bad and the good. I can't just say for example, claim responsibility for sending food and medicine to abroad and not be responsible for Iraq. I can disagree certainly, and that gains me something. Attempting to stop it gains me something more. But because I'm a citizen I have the obligation to suffer the consequences of the actions of my government.

That's why I think the best way to go on is to fix what the government does and taken more direct organizational control. I'm responsible for the rise of Bush, but I'm also responsible for the rise of Obama. I'll take the bad with the good and suffer the consequences of my actions.

So reading the Progressives v. Blue Dogs story I realized what would be handy? A chart showing how many seats, graphically, each caucus has. And then I realized, the entire site could do with some graphs/characters/visual aids where appropriate in stories.

So.... get your web development people on it TPM!

So Bill Clinton's spokesperson effectively calls TPM liars and Josh doesn't respond?

I'm a very critical person of both myself and everyone around me. Simply put, I like to complain but I defy the old saying: I don't waste time complaining! Why? Because if I am doing something I don't want to do and I am complaining about it, I get upset enough to work harder and better at finishing things up and I do it faster than I would otherwise to get it over-with. In this way, complaining actually helps me get more done.

SO! Let's complain about TPM--I used to love the site and now I hate it. It's a chore going to anything but the front page so let me break it down for you. I'm not going to complain about content, but the site itself.

First, load times.
I have highspeed broad band, according to the Speak Easy Speed Test, I have a download speed of 6102kpbs and an upload of 494kpbs. That is pretty fast, and I was testing it as it measured to New York City since TPM has a base there. Yet no matter when I access the site or what part it always take for fuck ever to load. Sometimes it refuses to load at all when I know there's nothing wrong with the connection because I can access anything else just fine. Currenlty I have the latest build of FireFox and its often linked to the tribalfusion ads, but not always.

Second, Logins
No matter what, though I have browser set to accept cookies from TPM and it works with every other site it is without fail that I have to log in every hour.  And sometimes even though I copy and paste my password from notepad so that I know it's right, I still get errors when I log in. Granted it's not as bad as the first 6 months after the Primary Change over but it still happens regularly. I usually have to do it 3 times.

Third Layout
When I open any of the TPM sites, the middle of the screen is a line seperating columns. In most blogs the middle is where the blog posts are at. Even where there exceptions, if I look at the middle of say, DKos or Open Left, my eyes tag the blog headline but that never happens at TPM. I always have to turn my head to the left so I never start off on the right foot. The mothership site gets around this usually by placing a big honkin' picture in the middle. Currently it's one of Palin for a video about a supporter shouting death to Obama.

Continuing on the layout on most sites you have either your user options or you have the top diaries. Instead at Muckraker we have a word cloud. It's one of those that increases the size of the words by number of times they are used in stories/diaries and I find this past useless and very very distracting. Election Central and the Cafe at least have useful stories and their blog posts are a bit wider so instead of looking the line, you are looking at the post itself.

Unfortunately the links to various stories or reader diaries just dont' work for me. I mean I can get to them (subject to the brutal loading times) but they don't stand out, they are so damn bland that they kind of run together into a mushy block of text in my eyes. I really really liked the folder-like tabs that you used to be able to use for these things.

Four, Comments
Assuming I can log in, when I hite reply I am catapulted to the bottom of the page where I enter my comment. If I want to review the original thing that prompted me to respond, I have to click and the screen pops up. Why wouldn't you just extend the little comment box right under the post so you can see where it is in relation to parent comment? Why not provide the comment itself in a quote box like many many other forums do? More over you can't rate comments. If I see a good comment I want to tell them so, if I make a good comment it feels nice to see the numbers going up and you can check the comment to try and see where you went right so you can repeat it. Moreover, the 'nesting' effect is so subtle it's often times hard to tell who is replying to what which was something the old site did leaps and bounds better. The only thing that is even remotely good about the comment system here is that it is faster than the the old one.


Five, MyTPM
Whats the deal why the hell did we all lose our pictures? Our bios? This stuff has been around for years and years (I've been a member of TPM Cafe since its inception) and now I come and find out it disappeared and we all have pictures of what? Black and white Thomas Paine? What? And what's with the huge distortion of the profile picture when you try to upload and the shrinkage of it when you actually comment. What is the right size supposed to be? It's horrible they are too small to see one minute and too big to bear the next.

The Dashboard is a nice idea but once again it suffers from slow loading and the white backgrounds always always ALWAYS pops last so I have to wait or be a bit blindsided when it happens. On the Edit Profile, whats the deal with "password recovery" being a required field to change anything? What does THAT mean? I figured out that if I put my password in there it lets me make changes but that's a really un-intiutive and unhelpful way to label things. Here again, my profile pic is perfect size but anywhere else it's either huge and pixelated or two tiny to really appreciate.

Finally the Blogging bit: This is actually good but again the loading is far far too slow. How much bigger is Kos than you? How much faster is his site? The moveable type thing is nice, but I don't have the little blinking cursor while typing the post and its hard to see where it is actually at compared to say a standard word processor.

Well there you go, that's about the size of it. Frankly TPM has mostly gotten worse at least for the last year and maybe longer. The blogging bits are far better than they were though the visual style itself is rather poor.

...can't say I didn't warn you what the title of this post would be! Well keep the good work and stop doing the bad.

I've been a bit busy lately but I thought I'd comment on this post Josh made about credulous reporters. This is not the first time he's said this kind of thing and I completely agree.... but it wouldn't be a post if I didn't criticize him.

When these reporters tell you that Josh Marshall, do you.... TELL THEM the truth? Try to make them see? I know you see yourself as a journalist first (which I've complained about and will continue to complain later) and as a democratic partisan blogger a distant second, but isn't it incumbent on you to set the record straight?

All I ever hear is a complaint: Josh you're in a unique position to be part of the solution.

Once AGAIN responding via diary because we cannot comment on front page posts.

When Josh Marshall says Obama should have campaign in Kentucky the last few days, how does he define the last few days? He had an 8,000 person rally on May 12 after all. So sir, update tomorrow on what you meant?

PS: The most likely source for the right wing talking point on this matter comes from Mark Levin over at National review.

Just a short blog to congratulate Josh Marshall on the birth of his new son Dan.

He seems like a good kid so far!

I don't like Matt Stoller. I've never liked Matt Stoller and I don't think I ever will. However, that doesn't mean he doesn't write or do a lot of worthwhile things and in that vein I'd like to draw attention to this post he made on Open Left. In it he details 5 things the Obama camp is doing:

Voter Registration
Obama Organazing Fellows
Money
Field
Message

He says that there are feelings and rumors that Obama is subtly discouraging people to fund third part progressive organizations and links this to Obama's attempt to control the entire party as a means of building a new political arena to engage in--that is, it's one of his methods of changing the tone. As Stoller says, he doesn't intend this as a criticism against Obama and points out that it is indicative that the Obama team really does "get it." Stoller wonders if it'll work on the Republicans the way it has to win him the Dem nomination, but what does it mean for the blogosphere right now?

Stoller sez: You know all that old-style Washington politics preventing real change?  As hard as it might be to handle, in a lot of ways he means that those of us who believe in partisan hard edged combat are part of an outmoded system.

And again, I'll stress that he doesn't mean this as a criticism. This is the opposite basically, of the image Edwards portrayed. In many ways Edwards positioned himself as a blog favorite and never got enough traction to stick around. Edward's lack of success relative to Clinton and Obama helped me rethink several assumptions and made Clinton's "I am a fighter for YOU!" speeches largely ineffective on me.

There are a couple issues I'd like to bring up that Stoller does not address.

1. The Future
The one concern I have with this, is that while Obama himself I think is a good person to make this change, what happens after at most, 8 years when he is out of power? If the movement is tied into him as opposed to institutions it begins to crumble away. In many ways this is what happens with Clinton in the 1990s and led the disasters of the early 2000s. Now that disaster had to do a lot with the WTC attacks and the fear that most of the country felt could only be alleviated by handing over their rights/critical thinking abilities to Bush who does not know how to do anything. Stoller to his credit recognizes this at the end, when he says we need to figure out how to move the country in a more progressive direction. But it's a sentence at the end for now and he avoids stating the main point, without Obama whether in 2016 when he runs out of terms, of earlier if he runs into a bullet, what happens to this movement?

2. Were/Are the bloggers part of the problem.
Yes and no. Now there are certain bloggers who Obama wouldn't consider part of the problem, and I'm thinking those who focus more on policy (think Ezra Klein or Matt Yglesias) or new media (TPM) or are just too moderate to get riled up about much (Kevin Drum). But agitating blogs and I guess DailyKos is a good example, are a bit different. They are part of the problem, but they also weren't.

Now I realized that Obama considered us part of the problem back in January and late December and it took me a while to come to terms with it but I did. I did because I think Obama's way IS a better way, and with the ultimate challenge of Global Climate Change facing our species we can't afford to do anything less than the best we can. We were necessary in our time, when we were the only ones battling Bush, and had to provide 99% of Democratic backbone, but those days are starting to pass. In many ways we'd become a victim of our own success as we showed Dems that fighting does not equal defeat (think FISA, except for Steny Hoyer who needs to get taken out behind the woodshed by the Prog. Caucus but I digress). In many ways we were necessary to battle the VRWC, but with destruction of the government by the republicans they have lost a huge amount of power. They can continue to scream but it does far less good, and that means we can focus on something else than just fighting. In the end, I see the blogosphere as having bought time, and pushed aside enough space in the discourse for a candidate like Obama to emerge and try and completely change everything.

Frankly, I think it will be a relief when we don't have to spend our energy keeping our foot on the necks of the GOP anymore. I don't want to live like that, 51% keeping the other 49% down, until they switch. I would much rather live in the culture/country that Obama is trying to build. If we have to we can always pick up the fight again, but don't be too busy fighting that you miss an opportunity for real peace.

I point any visitors to this post by Josh Marshall on the mothership. In particular, take a look at this statement: "But in this case, as Editor & Publisher of TPM and TPMmuckraker, I'm considering endorsing Dann's decision to stay in office at least for a few weeks so that we have enough time to dig into this story and wrench as much schadenfreude from it as possible."

Schadenfreude is taking pleasure in someone else's bad luck--and apparently Josh Marshall feels a little of it, or enough to joke about it.

But Dann is a fellow Dem.

I'm not calling for the kind of corrupt blindness that Republicans routinely practice, but I find it offensive for someone ostensibly a Democrat to take pleasure in the very public fall of a fellow Democrat from office. Dann likely should go, But it's nothing but a black eye for Democrats. Why does Josh feel happiness at this train-wreck when he didn't seem to for Spitzer's fall?

As I've said time and time again, Josh Marshall needs to remember that he is a Democrat/Lefty first and foremost. That's why the site did so well. Look it's clear he's not that serious. But it still feels like a betrayal and remains my greatest criticism of TPM.

Am I piling on the over-worked staff of the TPM media empire? Absolutely!

Why? Well I expect better, and I expected that TPM would be able to hold out as it was while the most heated Dem Primary in a generation (1992-2008) raged across the land, with important contests in all 50 states (except those states HRC loses, those don't count and allow me to welcome Vermont to the ranks of oblivion).

Okay, so technically what's wrong?
I constantly have to log in, I'm talking every 5 minutes.
I can't seem to get spaces in my profile, no matter what HTML I use.
I couldn't even access the "Blog Now" link until last week. I just got a blank page.

What's socially wrong?
Lots! Look, I tended to talk "smarter" here than at DKos or other sites. That was a function of the beautifully embedded way comments were structured. You could follow an entire conversation between posters much more easily than now and thus could really get into a tone of conversation.

And that's another thing. Columns. I liked the column format before. I could look and see, hey, who's clustered to the top today and what are they saying? It was an excellent way to keep a good handle on the articles of the day. Now those get crowded out. It's not easy to keep up and you have to dig a long way through, which, with the clunky interface takes sometime. It's difficult for a site to pull this off, Kotaku can do it. DKos can mostly do it, but things just get buried here now.

Finally why can't I rate someone? Just recommend--and not even comments?
I'm a narcissist about intellectual things, I craved positive ratings. I'd love to see that aggregate score and examine who recommended me for what and who thought I was an ass and troll-rated.  My theory is that the ratings were a huge part of why comments became conversations. When you scrolled and saw someone have a high rating on a comment you had the little bell go off in your head "Oh, lots of people think that comment is worthy!" and then you'd go read it and maybe join the conversation.

And you STILL can't have comments over on the mothership! I wrote to Sullivan about this earlier (as he had a poll 60-40 against comments) and it drives me crazy.

Well in conclusion about the only thing I really like so far is the profile pics that are attached the comments.

Look, I really liked TPM. I still do to a point. That's why I'm harsh. I want you to to better because I know you can, and above all, actually address the problems. Even something as simple as "Well I don't see it as a problem" is better than silence.