Obviously, this was no one-source scoop. And Marshall acknowledges that. Heck, I’d throw in DailyKos as influential on this story, too, as it amplified many of TPM’s posts to an audience of influential Democratic activitists, who pushed members of Congress to keep the heat on this scandal.

Without TPM (and from there, Kos and Estachon, etc.), this story would still have been reported. But I think it would have been a “one and done” story with few political consequences for the adminstration.

Print reporters have acknowledged TPM’s influence in keeping this and other stories alive. The blog has become a source of story ideas, and story angles, for the Washington print press corps (at least the bureaus of non-Washington news organizations — I don’t think the D.C. pundit crowd gives a rat’s rear about actual reporting anymore…), much in the same way that L.A. Observed’s become a tip sheet for scribes here in L.A.

My analysis is that the evidence shows otherwise. There’s a lot more variables here.

At the same time, since I know that TPM is doing such a good job of keeping up on this, I’ve been checking the site regularly, and have quoted it at times and, other times, quoted others whose work I found through TPM.

It’s a wide network that has been beneficial to all and helped the public get a better understanding of the scandal.

With the release of so many pages of e-mails, we’ve all worked together to sift through it. That has led to good reporting.