My first taste of Washington politics was in late 1998. I was working at the American Prospect in Boston and I’d written a couple freelance pieces for Salon.com. I don’t remember the precise chain of events. But I think they found themselves briefly without a Washington correspondent as the Impeachment charade was getting underway. And somehow — because I was available or because I begged, I can’t quite remember now — I got to cover it for them. (This page has links to some of the pieces.) That was also when I met Joan Walsh, who was my editor on those pieces. I think she’d just started at Salon then. And now she runs the place. I think everyone in journalism has one of those moments, the first time they really felt in the thick of it, like they’d amount to something and that their writing mattered. This was that moment for me. And Joan as my editor is written into my memory of the whole thing, a wonderful editor who somehow didn’t make me feel like as big a neophyte as I actually was.
I mention all this because Joan’s just set up her own blog at Salon. I just stopped by for the first time and I’ll be making a habit of it. This post is about The Politico and beltwayism.
