Anyone with a mere passing interest in political blogs has read something that Greg Sargent wrote. Even if the name did not stick in your mind, the writing did. Greg has been a powerhouse lefty voice and stellar reporter over at Talking Points Memo, one of the most highly regarded progressive blogs (and deservedly so). In fact, in my book, Sargent and TPM are the gold standard of the genre. So, it was quite a surprise to read yesterday that Sargent is leaving TPM.
In his farewell post, Sargent wrote: I'm heading over to The Washington Post, where I'll be writing the lead blog on a new site that WaPo is launching. This will drive you mad with curiosity, unfortunately, but the details on the new site and blog will only be forthcoming when it launches the week after next.
Instantly, the lame rightwing blogs were awash in criticism of the Washington Post -- hiring this far left ideologue, blah, blah, blah. Why don't they feature a right wing blogger, blah, blah, blah. Redstate.org whines: I’m sure Greg Sargent is good at what he does, but I’m also sure the Washington Post would not even consider hiring someone directly from the right-of-center blogosphere.
A little visit to reality on the time machine is in order here. The Post (much to my dismay) was one of the first traditional media to sign on a fulltime blogger in 2006 and it was a wingnut of the first order ---Ben Domenech, a former speechwriter for Texas Senator John Cornyn and book editor for the hideous pulp-spewing Regnery Publishing, where he edited books (I'm using the term "books" lightly here) by top wankers Michelle Malkin, Ramesh Ponnuru, and Hugh Hewitt. Oh yeah, and the folks over at Red State who now are crying foul at the Sargent hire might delve into their memory banks -- Domenech was a co-founder of the right wing blog, Red State! You gotta forgive the wingers memory lapse here, however. Domenech lasted less than a week at the Post; he was forced to resign under allegations of plagarism.
Second, and more importantly, any one decrying the Washington Post as a bastion of liberalism hasn't been reading that paper in the last decade. Yes, its editorial pages once reigned at the top of the lefty scale, but those days are long gone. Charles Krauthammer, Robert Novak, George Will, Michael Gerson and yes, even Richard Perle dominate the opinion scene at WaPo. Eugene Robinson is about the only progressive voice to be found there these days.
But back to the case at hand: Sargent's move and the rightwing's frothy reaction to it. Even the Weekly Standard begrudgingly paid a bit of respect to Sargent's work .... if you can call this complimentary:
Sargent is an unrepentant Democratic partisan, which means he should fit in well with the staff at the Post, but also a top notch reporter. During the campaign, Sargent would ping the McCain press shop with questions all day long. Because TPM is so overtly partisan, he rarely got the answers he was looking for, but for his persistence, if nothing else, Sargent earned a grudging respect from the McCain staff.
Sargent pretty much carried TPM over the last year, and it's not clear to me how that site survives in its current configuration during a Democratic administration (which they have no interest in investigating) and without their best reporter. Still, for online partisan reporting, TPM set the bar pretty high this election. Republicans have no equivalent outlet. Any strategy to revive the party's fortunes will require developing the kind of online infrastructure the Democrats now have in place, but you can't do that without a bunch of right-wing Greg Sargents.
TPM, even without Sargent, will outshine any of the rightosphere screeds and I'll bet Josh Marshall and the gang will be plenty rough on an Obama administration. They already have cast a critical eye on some of the Cabinet picks. What the righties don't get about TPM is it is their primary source reporting and analysis that sets them apart (and often ahead of) the traditional media. The Standard is correct, however, in acknowledging the wingnuts have no equivalent blog to TPM.
On a personal note, Greg Sargent's move to WaPo is motivation enough for me to renew my (free) online subscription to the paper. The Post is my hometown paper; I had read it for decades. Heck, I even worked for the paper many eons ago. It lost me in its lurch to the right that began during the Reagan years, but blossomed into all its ugly wankery after Katharine Graham died. A big dose of Greg Sargent might be just enough for me to be able to stomach a tiny dollop of Gerson or Will (sorry, I can't ingest any Krauthammer... not ever.)
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