you, and Salon, have been part of the problem, and not part of the solution.

Salon, namely Debra Dickerson's article on Obama not being black enough, which you oversaw and clearly approved, was one of the integral media pieces that drove that particular "not black enough" debate. Easy to breeze past that, but that's the truth. Salon published it, and it wasn't until you gave a platform to Dickerson for that nonsense that Colbert interviewed her -- and chewed her up and spit her out for lunch, I might add, and rightfully so.

The Clintons may not be racists themselves personally, but they have shown themselves to never be above using racist code and exploiting racism in society, in order to win. Do I think they are racist? No. Do I think that they will forward/encourage/get behind every "Barack's a Muslim" and racist tactic out there in order to win? YOU BET they will. They have lost their heart -- they have lost their ethics, and they have lost their morals (if they ever had any). They want to win, above all, and no matter who or what gets destroyed in the process.

And in not calling that out unequivocally, whether due to your support for Clinton, dislike for Obama, or because you aren't seeing it firsthand, as many of us are, you and Salon have become a part of the problem.

Sadly, I wish I could say that Salon was actually elevating the debate, as it has in past elections, but this year, you seem to be taking the lowest common denominator role in coverage of the Democrats.

"Journalist," defined:

The style of writing characteristic of material in newspapers and magazines, consisting of direct presentation of facts or occurrences with little attempt at analysis or interpretation.

Sorry Joan. That's not what you're doing here at Salon. You're a blogger, an editor, and a would-be pundit.

But you are not a journalist in the traditional sense. Not with your passive-aggressive Obama coverage, your blog posts and their evident biases, and your oversight and publishing of writers like Debra Dickerson and Camille Paglia.

Take care. Appreciated your writing, and will miss the fact that at least one writer at Salon liked Obama. I don't know Koppelman's bias, but sure hope Joan's Hillary-Koolaid hasn't been drunk yet!!

Good luck at Politico. Keep holding their feet to the fire!

Before you go, just so you know, I agree with you 100%. Joan's modus operandi when it comes to anything related to Obama is damning with faint praise. It's always passive-aggressive -- even if there's a compliment, there's always a subtle -- or overt -- potshot thrown in.

The damndest thing is, those of us who really get it have called on Joan repeatedly to admit that she favors Hillary. Because, with that as a philosophical position, her thoughts on the race are interesting, appreciated, and in context. It would be understood that her blogs and comments are coming from a perspective of someone who is backing a particular candidate.

But instead, she tries to keep all her options in play, claiming to not have decided, all the while taking potshot after potshot at Obama, downplaying some of the truly egregious behavior by the Clintons and their surrogates, and generally writing in a VERY partisan-for-the-Clintons manner. And then when she's called on it, she claims that she's a journalist, that she's not biased, that she's taking a "wait and see" approach.

I don't know whether this is a lack of self-awareness -- that she is truly expressing some subconscious bias she herself doesn't even recognize (I doubt that though), or if she's underestimating the intelligence of her readership (very possible), or if she's quite ambitious, and is pinning her future career hopes on Hillary winning (an administration job, perhaps, or a higher-profile TV pundit gig), but can't quite come out and say it until Hillary is a done deal, because if Obama gets in, she needs some wiggle room in which to reposition herself as an Obama person, and angle for her career that way.

Even staying at Salon, if Obama wins, it won't look especially good for the editor of a supposedly progressive web magazine to have openly backed the less progressive losing candidate, so Joan's apparently decided that her position is to hedge all bets on the record, while still overtly doing whatever she can to diminish Obama and prop up Hillary.

Now with Tim Grieve gone, is there anyone left at Salon who isn't on the Hillary bandwagon?

Sorry, danb, but Joan has not been objective about Obama, not in her own writing, nor in her editing and oversight of other writers here at Salon. Just go read Debra Dickerson's "Obama is not black enough" article that Joan greenlighted. There it is, in black and white -- pun intended: Salon's early injection into the ugly efforts to "blacken" Obama. And Joan gave it Salon's imprimatur.

No, sorry, any editor that gave the okay to that article alone has lost any right to claim impartiality or objectivity.

Impartial coverage is not Joan's strong suit, anyway. She's an engaging "columnist" and pundit, and she has heart, but she has no more claim to the title of impartial, objective journalist than Maureen Dowd.

Joan has been unable to write a single article with anything positive about Obama that didn't also contain passive-aggressive and unnecessary potshots -- the "damning with faint praise" that TexasDem pointed out so accurately.