The News & TeleGraff

I'm starting to write a weekly political/Washington column for the magazine website entitled "Capital Commentary," playing off my section, Capital Comment. The first column deals with the Netroots Nation convention in Austin, Texas, where I spent the last week. It's certainly come a long way since the first convention two years ago in Las Vegas.

The blogger convention in Las Vegas, then called YearlyKos, was fiery and filled with the tensions of a new power base emerging in the party. Columnists like Maureen Dowd trooped out to the Riviera Hotel, on the seedy end of the Las Vegas strip, and Democratic leaders like Harry Reid spoke, albeit warily at times.

The environment this past weekend bespoke a new level of maturity and acceptance among the blogging crowd. This year’s location, the glassy and professional behemoth that is the Austin convention center, is best-known as the setting for tech’s biggest confab, the South by Southwest Interactive Festival, and the national press corps was mostly elsewhere. The bloggers are not news anymore.

You can read all my future Capital Commentary columns on the Capital Comment blog.