The great thing about TPM is that Josh has established a network of correspondents who scan the local news and pass the twitches forward to the TPM mothership. The US atty firings were covered locally, but the reporters/editors had no ready way of knowing that these were part of a pattern. TPM, at the center of a spiderweb of contacts, put the elements together, and its first stories were [link|http://time-blog.com/swampland/2007/01/running_massacre.html|mocked] by the MSM courtiers there in Byzantium-on-the-Potomoc.

The only reason I maintain a flickering confidence that the Republic will not have decomposed entirely out of recognition in my lifetime is my hope that Rove and his [link|http://z.iwethey.org/forums/render/user?userid=4&backurl=http%3a//z.iwethey.org/forums/render/user/userStatistics%3fbackurl%3dhttp%253a//z.iwethey.org/forums/render/board/show%253fboardid%253d1|co-enablers] even down unto the most modest levels were not prepared for the rise of citizen journalism of the kind that TPM exemplifies.

cordially,