Good sir,

Just so you don't get the impression that all your readers live in or around DC, here's a fellow Californian speaking up to say, well, we'll miss you. And we'll always have a few acres for you when you decide to come back.

July will be a tough month for the many among us who read you daily and eagerly, but thanks for the warning. I do wish you all a good trip. Can't help you with where to send your kids to school, nor invite you for a beer when you get there (hello, boundaries, people?) -- but I will take the liberty of expressing my hope that your wife and especially your kids manage the adjustment well. You and the puppy I'm not too worried about.

Conrad Burns' presumptions notwithstanding (you weren't actually at that picnic with him, were you?), your take on things has always seemed very much an outside-the-Beltway one to me. Here's raising my stein to the hope that it remains so. Give them back that WH press pass! (Wait, what do you mean Salon doesn't have a seat in the briefing room?) I hope it's true what they say: You can take the guy out of Sacramento, but....

So good luck out there. I'm sure it'll be a fun ride. But when the dust settles and the kids are enrolled in the appropriate magnet schools, and you get the other lab puppy, and have a few drinks with your fans at the Ratskellar or whatever that place is called, I have one more suggestion for you: Tell your editors that it's high time they gave you a weekly byline column, dadgummit, and let you ease off the War Room gas a little so you have time to work on the longer-form pieces. After all, you just gave up living in one of Sunset Magazine's 10 Most Livable U.S. Cities for the cause.

Go get 'em, Tim.

It's rather refreshing, actually, to find the magazine's Senior Editor doing some real pound-the-pavement reporting out there. Too often we seem to find the senior pundits of the loftier news outlets going to the primary state of the moment just to (apparently) sit in their hotel rooms, scan the news and the polls, and write their take on what everyone else is writing about. It may make for worthwhile reading, but it doesn't necessarily justify the "field time." I do appreciate that you took the time to try to chase down the origins and extent of this news cycle's intrigue about foul play among Nevada Latino union members, including the key individuals involved, and your story seems to bring as much clarity to the issue as one could hope for. Keep it up.

Tim,

What a shame that some people can't manage to be gracious and set aside their disagreements with you, even as you wave goodbye. (It's like the blog-comments equivalent of attack politics -- don't these people get tired of the squabbling?)

If I had time I'd dig through some of your 4,000 posts and come up with a highlight reel of some of my favorites -- but even if I had time, it would be awfully difficult to choose.

I've been reading you more or less daily since you took over from Geraldine, and I remember it hit me after a couple of months, and you found your groove, that War Room had found its best, true voice in you -- and that Salon was lucky to have you. I still think it's a shame, as I've commented more than once to you and the editors, that you didn't get to do more feature-length writing for Salon -- more frequent articles, a weekly column, something. And I'm sure you've got good reasons for moving on to the Politico, whether or not that has anything to do with it.

So I just want to thank you once and for all for the remarkable work you've done under the very demanding circumstances of your War Room gig. It's been a great pleasure to read you all these years, and Salon is truly poorer for your loss. I would point out, too, what I'm sure I'm not the only reader to feel -- that what makes War Room such worthwhile reading is NOT that I always agree with you (I don't, though I usually do, and think your instincts are keen), not that you're the first, the loudest, the flashiest, or the angriest, to say most of the things you write about. It's above all the quality of your writing itself -- the WAY you say things, the wry, pointed, non-combative tone, and the keen humor and sense of irony that runs through it. Those occasions when you seized the chance to write a mini-essay on a particular point were invariably original and persuasively argued.

Thank you for making the politics of the last three years infinitely more bearable. I wish you all the best of luck at the Politico and in your future career. And I'll be looking for a book to come under your name one of these years.