Heroes of Journolist: Dan Froomkin, James Surowiecki, Jeffrey Toobin, Michael Tomasky — and founder Ezra Klein

For instance, when Sarah Spitz, a producer for NPR affiliate KCRW, fantasized aloud about watching Rush Limbaugh’s “eyes bug out” if he had a heart attack in front of her (Spitz apologized following TheDC’s reporting on the incident), Toobin defended Limbaugh.

“Rush cannot be replaced. What people miss about Rush is that he is just astonishingly good as a broadcaster.  He is compelling, funny, entertaining. I haven’t heard Thompson often, but he’s probably pretty lame. Ingraham is ok. I never listen to Hannity on the radio. But Rush is the man,” he said.

On another occasion, Toobin warned against likening Tea Partiers to Nazis: “For what it’s worth, I think it’s better to stay away from any use of the Nazis in discussions of contemporary politics. I know you weren’t saying conservatives-are-Nazis, but people just shut down when they hear that analogy drawn.”

There were other examples, and Toobin came across as one of the least caustic members of the list.

Honorable mention: Michael Tomasky, the Guardian

While Tomasky did play a role in some important instances of list coordination, at other times he showed a keen awareness of his role as an independent journalist. Further, he displayed an ability to empathize with those with whom he disagrees, an admirable quality.

When MoveOn.org infamously called General David Petraeus a traitor with its “General Betray Us?” advertisement, many members of Journolist were livid with MoveOn. In their view, the ad was a public relations disaster for their side.

As then-Mother Jones (and now-Politico) reporter Laura Rozen put it, quoting a friend, the ad “‘accomplishes nothing: it preaches to the converted, persuades no one, and only serves to piss off the other side and make all Dems look bad.”

“Enough aiding and abetting the enemy! as Cheney says,” she added.

Tomasky remarked that calling Petraeus a traitor was wrong in itself.

“Also: A conservative would have a field day with this thread noting that no one has yet plainly called the ad objectionable on the merits, or on moral grounds,” he said.

In another instance, he noted that while the editor of a liberal magazine he would correct interns, “and not always politely” when they referred to Democrats as “we.” Tomasky explained in an interview that journalists, even opinion journalists, “need to retain enough independence to criticize when criticism is called for.”

Another time, Tomasky recalled when a New York Times reporter he felt had been unfair to Al Gore in the 2000 presidential election said in a public speech she found Gore “annoying,” which Tomasky found inappropriate.

New York Times reporter “Kit Seelye actually said, at an event, in front of 70 or so people, many of them media insiders etc., words to the effect that she found Gore deeply annoying. I wish to God I’d written it down, because lacking the exact words I can’t ever write about this, but I just couldn’t believe that she would say this. I don’t know if Al (Franken) would remember but he and I looked at each other like, did she just admit in public (at the Shorenstein Center no less!) that her coverage, in the world’s most important newspaper, was driven by (or at the very least inseperable from) her personal annoyance with the candidate? And with a smirk on her face to boot,” Tomasky said.

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