So Conor Friedersdorf in a post today refers to the Atlantic Monthly as a "magazine of competing opinions". Well, they may be competing, but they are not nearly equally expressed. Matt Yglesias, the subject of Conor's post, took a lot of heat for calling the Atlantic a "center-right publication". But just look at the blogroll. Some people try to put Jeff Goldberg on the left, when discussing this phenomenon. But today, in a post of his own, Goldberg reacts to being called a liberal like this: "Liberal? Me? A "looser," maybe, but liberal?" So much for that.

So we have Andrew Sullivan, conservative. Ross Douthat, conservative. Megan McArdle, conservative. Marc Ambinder, largely neutral reporter who many (including me) believe is a conservative. Ta-Nehisi Coates, liberal. James Fallows, liberal. Jeffrey Goldberg, conservative. Clive Crook, conservative.

Not that all conservatives and liberals are created equal, of course, and I'm generally not a fan of strict one-to-one liberal/conservative representation. (It's a parody of diversity.) But I think many conservatives would say that, if there was a similar proportion in the other direction, it would be evidence that The Atlantic is just a self-evidently liberal magazine.

Update: Let me clarify: the Atlantic's blog stable is predominately conservative. I rarely read the magazine.

I may be on thin ice here. But I do think this is illustrative of something.