Postman pulls out

I was going to wait until Ralph Thomas actually walked out to note his passing, but now that another 33 percent of the Seattle Times' capitol bureau is leaving, I guess I'll look 'em in the eye.

Postman, like a certain quarterback who left Green Bay, seems to be leaving great seasons unplayed. Thomas, too. But Thomas didn’t have a blog, and here I thought the key to sticking around so far was a blog – what else but bloglessness could evict former dean of the Capitol press corps David Ammons? (I kid there, but at least it was a theory.)

Postman was a professional blogger. It's what he did (does for now. Whatever). The only traditional, mainstream journalist in the state paid to blog on politics first, and write articles for the paper second. He sat on the cutting edge of change in the field.

How weird it is to watch the top guys in a very small club walk away. It's about a 21 percent reduction in the Capitol press corps in six months. And unlike Brett Favre, I don't expect to see any of them pop up again in the same slot in a different town. Jeezy-creezy.