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What follows is navel gazing of the worst kind, so there’s no need to remind me of this in comments. But the chart below is sort of weirdly fascinating anyway. Based on data from Andy Baio, it represents the linking behavior of the Washington Monthly’s Political Animal blog over time. Positive numbers indicate that a blog links mostly to stories favored by liberals, and my linking behavior, from January 2007 through August 2008, was moderately biased to the left (a value of .05 places you in about the leftmost 20%). Then Steve Benen took over, and the blog immediately began linking overwhelmingly to stories favored by liberals. But over time, Steve became more ecumenical, and by January of this year he was favoring liberal stories only slightly more than I had.

I have no conclusions to draw from this. It’s just pure wankerific navel gazing. Do with it what you will.

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With only days left until December 31, we've raised about half of our $400,000 goal—but we need a huge surge in reader support to close the remaining gap. Whether you've given before or this is your first time, your contribution right now matters.

Managing an independent, nonprofit newsroom is staggeringly hard. There’s no cushion in our budget—no backup revenue, no corporate safety net. We can’t afford to fall short, and we can’t rely on corporations or deep-pocketed interests to fund the fierce, investigative journalism Mother Jones exists to do. That’s why we need you right now. Please chip in to help close the gap.

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