Not me, but one my best* employers.

Microsoft had been talking about selling Slate for months, but for some reason I thought it would never happen.

It did. The Washington Post is the proud new daddy. Nice fit. This could mean good things for them. Hopefull. My one concern was all the traffic MSN delivers, but apparently a continuation of that arrangement is part of the deal. For now, at least.

Stories: from WP's Howie Kurtz, NYT's David Carr, Slate editor Jacob Weisberg.

*(Best not in terms of quantity, but definitely in quality. They've used me twice in a year and a half, and I was extremely please with both the editing and the coverage. They made them both cover stories and they drew a lot of attention. The Columbine piece got me two write-ups in the New York Times, and eventually led to a book deal.)

And in an odd little twist, this change may come just in time to assist me in my sudden subpoena battle with the Air Force.

Oh, did I not mention that yet? I've kinda had my hands full with this sudden subpoena battle with the Air Force. Ugh. No, I'm not kidding. And I know I'm burying my lead. It gave me a little chuckle. More on that soon. (The battle, not the chuckle.) I just got the word Friday.

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I wonder if this will give a nice boost to Salon stock?

Update:

No sir. Salon dropped 18% today. Odd. It's volitale, so that's no biggie, but I would have thought it would help. Maybe a lot. Wrong.

That's the headline of my Slate story, just posted.

Long story of how it came about, but the short version is that last week I came to the conclusion that I may never revive my Columbine book project, and made a last minute decision to pitch the pretty big news I had uncovered researching it as a magazine piece during the media window of the five-year anniversary (today).

Slate really got behind it, and they will be moving it into the cover slot as soon as they get the graphic set. And they just notified me that MSN is picking it up as their cover shortly, too, which will mean a lot more exposure, which this story really needs.

And best of all, I really like the edit they did on it. Thank God. I always worry. We had to cull it down from 10,000 words to 3,000, including the sidebar--which is still extremely long for them--and I had nightmares about whether we could do the ideas justice. But I'm really pleased with the way it turned out. I really like my editor there, David Plotz. Really talented guy. Which is great, because that is NOT always the case with editors. He really made it better--trimmed the fat, kept the meat. How it's supposed to work.

I'm also really happy that they're going as aggressive with the conclusions as I believe they deserve. (So nice to have an editor believe in your story.)

The head of the FBI's investigation in the case and the other top shrinks they brought in don't believe the "why" of Columbine is not any great mystery at all, and they're ready to explain why.

I always get excited working on a big story (to me, and what I've spent a good chunk of the past five years on, it's a big story), and I was in this case as well, but I'm also incredibly relieved to get it out there, and off my chest. I have spent so much time with Columbine over the past five years--it really had an effect on me. And the frustrationg so many people felt about how it could have happened really bothered me, when I had access to a very different view and could not share it. I have never felt this kind of relief as a journalist before.

(God, I hope this doesn't sound self-serving. I'm just spilling my thoughts and feelings as I feel them--same as I ever do on this blog. Feels a bit weirder knowing strangers may come here after reading the story, though, and then see me blabbing like this about it. But that's what I do here. Blab like this. Heeheehee. I also have barely slept in the past 24 hours, so consider cutting me a little slack.)

And I'm eager to hear what you all think. I'll try to answer any questions here. I'm sure there will also be a discusson in Slate's The Fray.

Check out my friend Rolf Potts in Nicaragua in Slate. (It's called Virgin Trails: Travels in the Other Central America. More on the piece later.)

He's making his way round the planet top to bottom (and round again), in a nine-month Drive Around the World.

Think I should take his place?

Seriously. He needs to leave when they get to the bottom of Chile (or is it Argentina?) in a few weeks. He wants me to take over somewhere in SE Asia or India. I really want to, but a little uneasy about leaving this job for 4-6 weeks. Let me know what you think.

And definitely check out Rolf's Vagabonding book from Random House (he used to write the Vagabonding column for Salon), and his Vagblogging blog. He's a great guy and a really interesting writer.

(And there's a link to his blog on my blogroll to the left. In fact, it's at the very top of the list, and has been since about the time I restarted this blog this past summer. Rolf will keep posting reports from South America there.)

That question headlines the Slate co-cover story at the moment. There and everywhere else.

Or lord, give me strength.

Here's the opening of the Slate piece, by William Saletan, whose coverage this year has ranged from occasionally insightful, to generally annoying and idiotic:

Is Howard Dean toast?

That's what pundits are suggesting, Republicans are hoping, and Democrats are fretting in the wake of Saddam Hussein's capture. Dean surged to the front of the Democratic presidential pack by opposing the war in Iraq. As the postwar turned bloody, expensive, and stagnant, it looked like a brilliant bet. But this morning, reporters and analysts seem convinced that the latest card drawn from the deck leaves him with a losing hand.

The first problem with that argument is the premise: "Dean surged to the front of the Democratic presidential pack by opposing the war in Iraq." That's the standard pundit line, in spite of historical evidence to the contrary. It's just so easy, I guess. And the only explanation they could come up with. For some reason, "Because he really connects with people" just doesn't work for them.

The point of the Saletan piece is that Dean is not necessarily toast, but the point of my post is how retarded the freaking question is.

But since we're talking about Saletan, and the question, he makes a nice case for how Bush swept Gore's acheivements into past history, and how skillfully Dean is reframing the Saddam capture with this statement:

"Our troops are to be congratulated on carrying out this mission with the skill and dedication we have come to know of them," he said this morning. "This development provides an enormous opportunity to set a new course and take the American label off the war. We must do everything possible to bring the U.N., NATO, and other members of the international community back into this effort. Now that the dictator is captured, we must also accelerate the transition from occupation to full Iraqi sovereignty."

Notice how Dean repeats every element of the 2000 Bush approach. Somebody other than the president—in this case, our troops—gets the credit. The mission becomes history. Capturing Saddam becomes a means to a more difficult end: getting the United Nations into Iraq, and getting the United States out.

But the funniest thing about Dean, the military and the media is that Dean was never the anitwar candidate. If you listened at all to his remarks, right from the beginning, he has been a pretty hawkish guy, with a strong opposition to this war.

The mischaracterization in the press may have helped him in the primaries, and his correction of the record will get him back where he needs to be in the general. Saletan refers to this as repositioning, which I guess it is, though no mention is made about who mispositioned him in the first place. Regardless, the Slate piece ends on a positive note for Dean:

It's clear from interviews Dean gave to reporters Saturday (written up in Sunday's Washington Post and New York Times) that he's repositioning himself as a more hawkish candidate in the general election. He was planning to claim that position tomorrow in a major foreign policy speech. Now he'll have maximum attention as he does so. Bush's aides would be unwise to assume that Dean can't make their latest triumph vanish into history. They should know.

Eventually Saletan gets a clue. If only we could hope for half as much from the rest of the media.

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You can read the full text of the Dean speech in question via the Dean blog here.

My apologies if you have had trouble accessing this site the past few days. The RadioUserland people who run it for Salon claim it's because one of the Salon blogs, The Julie/Julia Project, was featured in the New York Times this week, getting so much traffic she doubled the normal Salon-blogs usage. That should peter out soon, or they'll figure out the real problem if that's just a smokescreen.

In the meantime, I'm going to drop the number of days appearing on my home page to four (it may take awhile for it to take effect). If you're interested in General Wesley Clark's run, I had a lot on him on Monday, so click there on the calendar, or his name under categories.

And problems have been pretty intermittent: when a page fails to come up for me, it usually works if I try it again a minute later. Please email me or post in the comments any difficulty you have been having. It will help a great deal in solving it. Eventually, I may have to switch providers.