[Joe Bonforte]

Still, no one has really found the right formula for conducting a political discussion.

Untrue. Lightly moderated boards like FR and LibertyForum work pretty well. You can't stop the idiots from wandering in, but if you keep the signal-to-noise ratio high enough, they eventually wander away.

Blog board discussions seem to do pretty well also. Again, the board owner can stop the obvious slop.

[cornelis]

Lightly moderated boards like FR and LibertyForum work pretty well

It's as good as good is. Lightly moderated, but by whom? And that will make or break it, as far as excellence is concerned. If you have a group of 1200 people, and they all get to have their say, that's nice arithmetic, but no mark of excellence.

[CyberAnt]

This is a trial balloon.

This is an article to get the whispering started about how terrible it is for all this political talk on the internet. The dems/libs are so terrified of it, they are already trying to put a stop to it.

If we let them, they will destroy the internet with their regulations and taxes. I truly believe this is their goal.