Josh Marshall
From Free net encyclopedia
Image:Talking points memo screenshot (21 nov 2004).png
Joshua Micah Marshall (born February 15, 1969 in St. Louis, Missouri) is a moderate-liberal American political journalist and writer. He writes one of the most prominent U.S. political blogs, Talking Points Memo, which debuted on November 12, 2000. Marshall is also a columnist for The Hill, a Capitol Hill newspaper.
He began his journalism career as an Associate Editor at The American Prospect in 1998. Later he became the magazine's first Washington Editor before leaving in early 2001.
Marshall's blog covers a wide range of topics including U.S. foreign policy, domestic politics (especially at the federal level) and domestic policy. During the first GW Bush administration, he wrote frequently about foreign policy and was especially critical of administration policy towards Iraq and North Korea. After the 2004 election, Marshall began to focus on the Bush administration's proposal to privatize Social Security. Bush and other Republicans eventually abandoned the term "privatization," referring instead to "personal accounts" or Social Security "reform." Marshall continued to refer to Bush's proposals as "privatization" or "phase-out" of Social Security. In addition to criticizing the substance of the proposals, Marshall argued that a unified front in the Democratic Party would deny Republicans political cover and force a loss for them on the Social Security issue.
Marshall closely tracked the positions of members of Congress on the issue throughout 2005. He asked readers to monitor local media for comments from their own members of congress, and using reader tips he created public categories for politicians on this issue: wavering Democrats were the "Faint-hearted Faction" and Republicans who doubted the President's plan were the "Conscience Caucus." Marshall also coined the term "Bamboozlepalooza", in reference to President Bush's 60-day (it was extended) tour promoting social security privatization. These terms have since gained use amongst the wider liberal blogging community.
Another Marshall project is a companion website called TPMCafe, which debuted on May 31, 2005. This site features a collection of blogs about a wide range of domestic and foreign policy issues written by academics, journalists and former public officials among others. It also has a "Table for One" section where a notable person guest-writes for a week; John Edwards was the first such guest. TPMCafe is notable for its rich community features; readers can not only comment on the main posts but also initiate discussions and write their own blogs. Further, the comment section for each post includes a ranking feature to promote more intelligent posts, which has been guardedly successful in that aim.
Marshall recently expanded his operation to a new blog, called TPMmuckraker, where journalists working for the TPM collective, such as Paul Kiel, investigate political corruption.
Marshall is a graduate of Princeton University and has a Ph.D. in colonial American history from Brown University. He married Millet Israeli in March 2005, and the couple live in New York City.