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With midterm elections being merely a week away here in the United States, my morbid fascination with what the political pundits are saying has reached a fever pitch. With the explosion of political blogs, particularly this year, even my work hours are eaten up reading undiluted op-eds from high profile commentators across the political spectrum.
While bloggers are still by and large a lot more likely to say something out of synch with their party's platform than say, the heads on CNN's crossfire (hate the Tucker Carlson. HATE.), the fact that polling data for the approaching election reflects a "50-50 Nation" has caused some of the commentariat to get carried away with the partisan bashing.
However much in the past I've enjoyed reading some of the conservative commentariat (Lileks, Glenn Reynolds, even pre 9/11 Sully.), I have to say that by and large they've reverted to type. Instapundit in particular has shown a stark degradation in the past few weeks, becoming merely a place for Reynolds to link to other right wing bloggers who have some "clever" observation about current events (the hobbyhorse du jour being the "sniper" case w/r/t liberals silly ideas about gun control, racial profiling and capital punishment), or the infantile practice known as Fisking (named after Robert "I forgive you for almost killing me wretched Afghans" Fisk of the UK Indepedent ) of any slightly un-doctrinaire op-ed published. It's become what left blogger Hesiod calls "The Right Wing Echo Chamber."
On the left side of things, two institutional, unsigned blogs, TAPPED and The New Republic's &c. (though TNR is arguably liberal nowadays) put out high quality reporting-style blogs, while New York Obsever writer Joe Conason has a more personal blog over at Salon. My favorite blog, and among the best written on the web, is Nation columnist Eric Alterman's "Altercation", which is unfortunately updated only once per day.
Coupled with whoever these major players above are linking to that day, and New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, and Guardian editorial pages, a mass of undiluted opinion and spin is available for your perusal.
Do you read the commentators? Who do you read? Do you read writers that reflect or challenge your own beliefs? Is the commentariat necessary, vital, or helpful in any way? Or am I just a party politics fanboy? |
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