Writing at new places

I see that they've got TPMCafe going. I'm looking forward to more Mark Schmitt output, and I'm really happy that Matt Yglesias got such an awesome position as one of their featured bloggers.

One of the things I felt in my time guestblogging for Ezra was the way new environments reshape the way you write. It wasn't just a question of trying to write for Ezra's audience -- an audience which I take to be quite interested in arguments that advance the debate on substantive policy issues, as opposed to partisan rah-rahing or goofing around. (My Robby Gordon mockery was the only real departure, I think.) To a certain extent, Ezra's own past output constrained my output, and I felt some need to make my posts fit with his in style as well as content. This was a very good thing, since he's an excellent writer and I can profitably move in his direction.

I look forward to the time when Matt gets entirely comfortable writing in the Matt-style at TPMCafe -- I don't think it's happened yet. I think he's entirely comfortable on TAPPED:

My friend Julian Sanchez wrote a defense of judicial review for Reason a little while back that I also think is worth reading. The thing about Julian, though, is that he's a libertarian and Reason is a libertarian magazine. If I, like him, subscribed to a morally bankrupt fringe ideology I, too, would be a judicial review enthusiast because fundamentally (in the common-law context) it's a libertarian institution providing an additional check against government activism in all spheres.

I can see how writing at TPMCafe could shift your style in odd ways. He's in a new place with a whole bunch of heavy hitters. I wouldn't have thought of this before the guestblogging experience, but now I see it. (I hope the new typeface he's got at TPMCafe isn't swaying my opinion. I associate Matt pretty strongly with Arial, not TNR, and there could be some weirdness going on there.)

Update: Now I'm really worried that it's just the typeface.