The musical chairs of the center-left blogosphere continue to move. Kevin Drum is leaving Washington Monthly to take what I presume is a higher-paying gig at Mother Jones and Steve Benen is shuttering Carpetbagger Report to take over Kevin’s old spot. Oddly, they’ll also be cross-posting most of Hilary (Hilzoy) Bok’s content from Obsidian Wings. And, of course, Matt Yglesias will be taking his show on the road again before long if past patterns prevail.
Congrats to all. Despite seldom agreeing with their politics, they’re all in the Must Read list in my RSS reader (which, ironically, I haven’t been reading much the last few days becuse of a high opstempo at the Atlantic Council).
This is especially great news for Steve, who’s finally getting his big break after working as a freelancer for years.
As for Kevin, the move seems strange at first blush. While Mother Jones is a venerable name and presumably more prestigious than relative newcomer Washington Monthly, its reputation is much more Far Left than his more DLCish current haunt and therefore a strange fit for Kevin’s more moderate worldview. He assures us, though, that MJ has changed much since the 1970s. In any case, he’s the same blogger now as he was in the long ago CalPundit days, so the venue is irrelevant to us.
Finally, while I think Hilzoy is a great addition to the blog, I’m at something of a loss as to why Washington Monthly would want cross-posted content from another blog as a regular feature. That’s not only odd from a branding standpoint but bad search engine optimization.
