Joshua Green, who was there at the creation, describes the early days of Talking Points Memo. At lot of us online oldtimer fans remember the earliest editions of that website with pleasure. I think most who knew the blog knew it was bigtime important, even during its earliest, most wrinkled days.
One way you could mark the change in the election cycle was when the rubber Al Gore mask was replaced by one of George W. Bush, alongside the fake rubber vomit in the display window. The staff consisted of me and Nick Confessore, now with the New York Times. Although Josh must have been about 30, and Nick and I in our twenties, the whole vibe of the place was like some John Hughes movie where the daft parents have gone off and left their adolescent kids run of the house. It wasn't that we threw a lot of keggers or anything. Just that the traditional, grown-up, stuffy "boss" figure was palpably absent, which fostered a wonderfully loose and creative environment.
