Back

OK. Where to begin?

I don’t stay wired during vacations, so I was reliant on the Los Angeles Times during the showdown over the filibuster. (In fact, the only time I read the physical newspaper anymore is when I’m on vacation.) Upon my return, I’m turning more to politics, and, after sorting through all of the analyses, I would’ve been fine reading a single site: Mark Schmidt’s Decembrist. Although there’s not much more to add at this point, I do want to highlight this post from last week on immediate speculation that the compromise deal would unravel.

In it, Schmidt, a former senior staffer for Senator Bill Bradley, observes that the camaraderie forged by the “Gang of Fourteen” won't be easily upset, for most senators are senators for a reason: they enjoy being, well, senators: the raison d’être for senators is deal-making. Majority leader Frist, who clearly does not share their predilection, has quashed the impulse in enforcing one-party rule, and the deal-makers want out.

As a radical centrist, I welcome Josh Marshall’s TPMCafé, which opened shop only this week and features some of my favorite commentators: Marshall and Schmidt, Steve Clemons of the Washington Note, Marshall Wittman of Bull Moose, and Ed Kilgore at NewDonkey. (TPMCafé has absorbed Matt Yglesias’s blog as well.) The, er, café’s flat structure makes it a little hard to maneuver, but the first guest-blogger is none other than every centrist’s favorite 2004 Dem, John Edwards. Go see how he’s fixing for his 2008 run (and burnishing his foreign policy credentials) by dropping in.