Eight years ago, the blogosphere felt like a handful of individual cranks fighting with one another. Today, it feels like a universe of cranks …
-- Andrew Sullivan
Actually, that's about as out of context a quote as I could pull without, you know, actually working for the McCain campaign. Sully's piece, Why I Blog is a good defense of this new form of writing, and well worth reading in full if you're still not ready to accept the validity of this new form.
I don't agree with Sully entirely. Probably the biggest disagreement I have with his piece is his implication that everyone blogs like he does -- many quick posts every day, with little or no reflection before publishing. A glance at the friends and favorites in my blogroll shows many bloggers who prefer the considered essay; e.g., John Evo, The Exterminator, Dan Weston, Michael Bérubé, Massimo Pigliucci, Doghouse Riley, Jon Swift, Steve Yegge, not to mention many of the posts on the group blogs Lawyers, Guns and Money, Crooked Timber, and Cosmic Variance. (Well, okay, maybe not every last post on every one of those blogs could be called "considered." But you get my point.) It's also worth remembering that in addition to the furious pace that Sully keeps up on The Daily Dish, he still writes plenty of longer pieces. As, for instance, "Why I Blog." Which, as I say, is well worth a read.
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