This summer, sitting in the Tank and reading campaign blogs, you could sometimes get a half-giddy, half-sickening feeling that something was shifting, that the news agenda was beginning to be set by this largely unpaid, T-shirt-clad army of bloggers.

A few blocks down Eighth Avenue, thousands of journalists with salaries and health benefits waited for the next speech and the next press release from the Republican campaign. Here in the Tank, Jesse and Ezra sat resting on the futon with some dumplings. Moulitsas was crashing on a friend’s floor for the week. Atrios had just quit his job as an economics professor, and Armstrong could fondly look back on stints in his 20’s as a traveling Deadhead, a Peace Corps volunteer and a Buddhist monastery dweller.

Like almost everyone in the Tank, Moulitsas started blogging to blow off steam. He seemed as surprised as anyone to find himself on the verge of respectability. —Matthew Klam —Fear and Laptops on the Campaign Trail (NY Times)

The print version of this article was forwarded to me by my university president.