Blogging about blogging

Well, who could resist this interview, which I first saw on Corrente?

All in all, Eric Boehlert seems fair and reasonable as he discusses the rise of the progressive blogosphere and the great left-against-left split that beset the 2008 primaries. A few points:

1. According to Boehlert, Hillary fans became enraged at the sexism displayed by the Obots. That's true, but only in part. In my view, the problem was not sexism but psychosis. The pro-O combat brigades displayed a sheer lunatic hatred -- a daily outbreak of mass insanity -- that many people found both frightening and repellent. Sexism was but one manifestation.

It was both shattering and life-changing to hear former compatriots scream "Racist!" at anyone who dared to suggest that someone other than Barack Obama might make a better president. The incessant Obot lies about Hillary and Bill -- the darkened video smear, the RFK smear, the South Carolina smear, and all the resurrected conservative smears of the 1990s (e.g."Vince Foster! Vince Foster! Vince Foster!") -- were not sexist. They were insufferable. The same can be said of the attacks on Paul Krugman and Joe Wilson, who committed the sin of preferring Another to Big Brother.

The fury directed at Huffpo scribe Maryhill Fowler (who first exposed the bitter-and-clinging scandal) had nothing to do with sexism. That was an outbreak of mass hysteria. When lefties suddenly launched into the Goody-Proctor-is-a-witch routine, the resultant spectacle was ugly and vile. The fact that Obama allowed and (I believe) encouraged this mob mentality told me much about Barack Obama.

2. Boehlert ignores the degree to which the left-wing blogosphere is a right-wing phenomenon. I consider this development fascinating. Moulitsas, Aravosis, and DAH-link Arianna are all libertarians at heart. Marshall may be as well; I've received contradictory reports. We cannot pin the "prog" label on Andrew Sullivan, but he was another prominent pro-O libertarian during 2008.

3. Boehlert (correctly) scores the right-wing blogs for becoming mired in extreme anti-Obama conspiracy theories. He says that those theories keep the righties from being taken seriously. But Huffpo, Kos and D.U. were overstuffed with similar displays of paranoia throughout 2008, and those sites thrived -- a point which Boehlert himself proves when he reminds us of the agent-baiting directed against poor Fowler. I would again bring up the "darkened video" smear, which was every bit as nutty as the birth certificate smear -- and for which Kos has (tellingly) never apologized.

I doubt that Boehlert's book mentions Cannonfire, which -- egads! -- is older than both Huffington Post and Air America, and which has made fairly significant contributions to some of the controversies he mentions. (The birth certificate nonsense provides one example.) Circa 2005, I had my shot at becoming, if not an A-lister, then a solid B. But achieving that goal would have required endless shmoozing, self-promotion, and (worst of all) self-censorship. It's no fun to have to please a boss, and the mob can be a kind of boss -- perhaps the most depressing kind.

It's much more fun to maintain an eccentric little blog that allows me forego politics for a day in order to express my disdain for Roy Lichtenstein or to confess my lifelong crush on St. Bernadette or to relate the latest adventures of my hell-hound. Most of us spend much of life working for someone else, and most of us are sick of it. We all need to cordon off one small corner of the world where we can be ourselves, answerable to none and apologizing for nothing. That's why I blog, and that's probably why so many others do it. Money? There ain't none. This is about the exhileration that comes from pursuing the thing-in-itself. This is about dancing naked in public and flipping the bird at anyone who doesn't like the view.