Peter: Can I coin the term "blahg"? I find their proliferation incredibly annoying. From Kaus, to Sullivan, to Alterman, ad nauseum, I find the phenomenon to be both solipisitic and narcissistic. E-lists can be populated with bores and cranks but at least there's a dialogue going on. The only worthwhile blahg I've come across is rabbitt blog
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For now, I'll leave your substantive arguments to the tender mercies of others on this list.
I plead totally guilty to self-indulgence. What would life be without it. But as far as dialogue goes, my blog has a ton of it. Just the other day I posted an entry that has drawn 107 comments, at last count. I don't filter them. More than a few are uncomplimentary, you might even say unkind.
A lot of blogs don't allow for comments, or the author posts one or another at his leisure. Mine is much like a listserv, except I get thousands of readers a day.
You can bet your ass that my chances of penning a response to CH in the Post or any comparable forum are nil. Ex-leftism is a marketable commodity; continuing leftism (even in my personal, watered-down form) is not.
I had read the Post piece before writing but I wasn't thinking of it as much as some of the comments on my blog. I will probably deal directly with the column in a day or so.
Look at it this way: what could Hitch say of a leftist who supported the Kosova intervention but opposes the Iraqi one? All of his arguments about "The Left" go to the imputed character of his adversaries, and his aspersions on character are based solely on a difference in political world view.
When the argument goes to inherent feasibility or coherence of U.S. policy, or to underlying reasons for that policy, he turns into moralistic mush, albeit articulate all the while.
mbs