Eric Alterman just started a quasi-blog named Altercation yesterday, with the full rollout today. He kicked it off with a brilliant comment on media bias and the "blogosphere":

Aside from that, all I can promise you is that it will reflect my obsessions: with the actually conservative leanings of the so-called “liberal media”; with the self-satisfied stupidity of the so much of the punditocracy; with the appalling lack of historical, economic, and sociological context of even the best U.S. reporting; with the never-ending wimpiness of the Democrats, with the perennially self-defeating obsession with holier-than-thou moral purity of so much of the Left; with the amazingly insane views regularly put forth by the Congressional Republican leadership and certain members of the Bush Administration (Thanks, Ralph); with the musical greatness of Bruce Springsteen; with Jews in general and Israel/Palestine in particular; and with lots of movies, music, plays, etc, so I can keep up the flow of free stuff. (As God is my witness, however, I promise never to write about anything that happens in my bathroom, my dinners with “Hitch,” and in the extremely unlikely event they ever happen, my car dates with Drudge.

Beautifully put, and a nice summation of why a liberal viewpoint is absolutely vital in any medium. It's tragic that they're so rare. I wish Alterman luck, and welcome his presence online, but I shudder to think of what will happen when the hordes of libertarian and conservative bloggers descend upon his column. Their howling attacks on Paul Krugman (for telling the truth) are bad enough, and he didn't invade their own space.