If you check out this post at Hullabaloo, and scroll through the comments, you will see that I wrote a comment that someone else actually noticed. I rarely comment on the blogs I read - I suppose that's wrong, since that's part of the point of all this; the more popular blogs, however, have too many regulars with too many on-going arguments irrelevant to the point at issue (plus you have to add in the whole troll factor) to have a serious dialogue - but I was moved to do so because Digby was using the media uproar over Paris Hilton's in-then-out-then-in jail experience as an entry point to discussing the banality and absurdity of our present media culture. The point I made was two-fold:
(I) Yes, our old media culture - television "journalism", print "journalism", talk radio - is broken, most likely irretrievably broken. Critiques of the media based upon our own frustration, and that alone, do nothing but feed a sense of helplessness and apathy that, in the long run, are detrimental to forging new ways of doing public discourse.
(II) Lest we forget, this entire discussion is happening within a medium that is quite literally rewriting the rules of who is and is not a serious player in our national conversation. We need to remember that we bloggers, even the bad ones and little ones, are part of a larger phenomenon that had already changed the way we discuss politics, and discuss discussing politics.
I am, quite frankly, amazed at the frustration, even rage, such established pundits as David Broder and Joe Klein feel towards the liberal blogs, with their constant criticisms and carpings. Were these and other pundits more honest, they would understand that what they wrote was never for popular consumption at all. Rather, they were part of a small clique of influence peddlers, traders in Washington conventional wisdom, the main purchasers of which were the various behind-the-scenes figures in Washington who move the levers of power like Frank Morgan behind the curtain in The Wizard of Oz. They should be ignoring our criticisms, because we were never supposed to read what they were writing in the first place.
Of course, perhaps that is part of the source of the anger - the great unwashed are rising above their stations, commenting upon things for which we have only limited understanding, voicing opinions when our task is to imbibe their wisdom. The disconnect between established pundits and the left-wing blogs demonstrate that, far from being the arbiters of wisdom and deep thoughts, our pundits are fallible human beings, entrenched in ideology and occasional sycophancy, while the huddled masses post to breathe free of the the suffocating mass of irrelevant verbiage. We bloggers show a greater grasp of relevant detail, of the import of various stories, and of nuance than is too often demonstrated by our elite opinion-shedders.
It is all too easy to become frustrated with the failure of analysis and logic, the fantasy-mongering, and outright duplicity of too many of our establishment political opinion commentators. If we focus too long upon them, however, we can forget that we bloggers occupy a unique space in a pivotal point in our nation's history. I don't subscribe to the theory that the left-wing blogs are monolithic; indeed, if they were, there would be fewer of them, and even those few would rarely be of the quality one finds among quite literally hundreds of examples soaring through Ted Stevens' intertubes. Yet it is all too easy to find great writing, sound analysis, keen insight with a simple click of the button - and great arguments as well over fundamental differences, a good sign that this is indeed a movement, and it is in its infancy, struggling for identity.
We also need to remember that we bloggers, more I think than any other single factor, have changed the face of our public discourse. In fact, while I doubt it could ever be shown empirically through social science data, I believe that the liberal/lefty blogs are the major factor in the decisive election held last November. By refusing to concede even an inch to the failing narrative of the Republicans and their co-dependent media partners, I am convinced that the Democratic victory is due to the insistence that the controlling narrative of our public discourse was no longer functional, and we liberal/lefty bloggers are rewriting our national script each and every day.
So, along with hauteur of the courtier dismayed at the rabble proposing what the blessed should be disposing, we also might weigh in that most insidious of the old seven deadly sins - envy. The pundits are mad as hell that their attempt to assert control over our national dialogue continue to fail. David Broder can spin his tales of fantasy all he wants; Joe Klein can continue to pretend he has wisdom and understanding of public policy out the whazoo (that's a technical term, by the way); Thomas Friedman can continue to pretend he knows anything about foreign policy in reference to the Middle East; Charles Krauthammer can continue to claim that George W. Bush is Winston Churchill reincarnated. All these things and more can continue to be written, but their relevance is exactly - nil. These people, and all the rest of our typing class, no longer tell us what to believe or think or how to vote. Indeed, one doubts they ever did, yet because there was no feedback mechanism through which critical voices could be heard, they could pretend that they did so. Such pretending is futile now.
To be as succinct as possible here, let me give a bit of a battle cry for all of us bloggers, from level "A" to level "Z" - we are the future. We are the bearers of the narrative of who and what we have been as a nation, and more important, who and what we are to become in the future. The future of America is in our quite capable keyboards. I do believe we should stop whining about how crappy the old media is (although we should never stop calling them on their nonsense) and get on with the business of taking our country back.
Virtual Tin Cup
