Joe Windish at The Moderate Voice worries in “Study: there aren?t many blog readers in the ideological center” that this polarization “makes us a niche read here at TMV!”

I think a good part of the appeal of blogs that are our brand of partisan is a belief (supported endlessly with facts) that we can't trust the MSM to investigate or present quality journalism. We fact-check with our partisans, and though they may present their own inaccuracies, we get more perspective on the news. I suppose it would give us even more perspective to read a bit on the other side, and I try to. TMV does provide more diversity of opinion than most because it is not strongly partisan in either direction.

As a side note, I doubt Joe and others have time to expand this blog, but I'm a big fan of the Reader Posts section over at TPM. They provide a good opportunity for more writers, and some of the readers are pretty talented writers. The “Recommend this” button allows reader posts to be voted on and elevated by other readers. Sorry to plug another blog here, but thought I'd mention it.

One could hope so, but unfortunately, the tone of a lot of articles here gets pretty harsh. One might even say, immoderate. It seems infrequent that a problem is taken from a couple of viewpoints, or even examined through in a pro/con sort of way. I'd go so far as to say the tone of a FOX or NY Times piece is more centrist.

This is still a portal site for me because of the blogroll, but at times, some headlines and articles feel like teeth pulls. Even Joe seems to have started to drift off into a bit of anger.

Although, in the bigger picture, perhaps it is impossible to have a blog without some vitrol in it since a certain amount of what makes a blogger keep on blogging is their passion. I'd wish it weren;t so, but I guess that may be a fact of it.

A subject that I've been mulling over came up in the video: the responsibility of bloggers, if any. Volokh seems to be a rights purist, and he pretty much dismissed the question of responsibility as having a chilling effect on free speech, plus not having the staff to do fact checking or comment content chekcing.

While I agree that any attempt at regulaton would likely end in disaster, I must say that the total lack of concern about personal responsibility is alarming. .Reputations and lives have been ruined on the blogosphere by false allegations and the rumor mill. There is not much the victims can do, because even a successful lawsuit wouldn't erase the allegations.from linked commentary and comments. Free speech vs ruined lives is not a opic that should be so easily shrugged off.

Not being able to fact check, at least at some rudimentary level, seems rather like a lame excuse, as well. If you can't do a job adequately, then why should you claim the right to do it at all?

I've always felt that rights and responsibilties should be linked, pragmatic applications deciding the cut off point. Not a very popular point of view these days, it would seem.

On the other hand, one should be careful not to use blogs to understand the body politic. Some small percent are at Kos, TMV, and Michelle Malkin. The majority are still online but perhaps reading CNN or their Google News Read. Of course, this group is largely passive….

One of the issues in getting real, honest debate is time. I once thought of starting a blog by inviting people of various political persuasions who seemed to be better at engaging in debate of issues and not attacks on people, but real debate takes energy and time. I'd have to actually research something instead of just give a take off the top of my head, which is my stunning contribution here.