So what happened at Politico? The big problem is that it grew and you cannot clone Mike Allen, whom everyone generally trusts even though some mistake his affability as pro-Obama tilting. Jonathan Martin and Ben Smith were great second round draft picks though Smith breaks left far more often than he breaks right.

The rest of the team, though, has been built from standard issue, anti-conservative journostriplings who don’t even know their own bias. The tin ears of the senior staff miss headline lurches like this day’s random grab, and whoever came up with the idea of Joe Scarborough to carry the conservative torch is a plant from the Washington Post.

Too bad. I wanted Politico to succeed, to have a site that aimed for comprehensive coverage, that genuinely hit the middle, reported it all without fear or favor and in which when the inevitable bias of political reporting surfaced it could at least be balanced by its opposite number –for every anti-GOP take, an anti-Democrat take. For every pro-Republican piece, a piece that could circulate with “good job” scrawled on it round the White House staff meeting. Most of the time I just want the facts, without the snark that the kids think makes them stand out.

I wanted to trust it to report what was happening, but cannot. The accumulation of left shifts over the last few months has gotten to the point that I just cannot be bothered.