Formerly known as the Yearly Kos, Netroots Nation gathers this weekend for its third annual convention in Austin, Texas. In just three years the event and the blogosphere itself have become a prominent part of our political conversation. Last year, of the Democratic candidates, everyone but Joe Biden made an appearance at the convention. From Howard Dean’s virtual rise and fall to Barack Obama’s web savvy campaign the net has been hyped and some would say over-hyped.

On our roundtable Sam Seder, host of the Sam Seder Show on Air America, Robert George a columnist for the NY Post, Justin Krebs of Living Liberally, and Katie Halper, a blogger and co-founder of laughing liberally discuss how progressive bloggers can influence the ’08 election and what will become of the netroots if Obama wins.

Halper says that a brief recovery period after Bush leaves office will be necessary but that the left will not retreat. These are after all not the Clinton years. According to Seder the liberal media will continue to grow and in fact become more liberal.

Also on tonight's show, Laura talks with T.J. English, author of Havana Nocturne about the rise and fall of Havana’s mob in the decades before the 1959 revolution. And the American News Project on the role that Justice Department lawyers played in approving the use of torture—“enhanced interrogation techniques”—in Iraq and Afghanistan. Finally, The Last Conquistador, a new documentary premiering on PBS’s P.O.V. explores how one man’s dream and one community’s hero has divided the city of El Paso, Texas. All that and more on GRITtv.