I try to not be “meta” (i.e., not to blog about blogging), but I though I’d point you to a discussion of the internet’s effect on politics on the D&C website. In his typically Tobinesque way, Mr. Tobin criticizes blogs (such as ours) using the most vague, fact-free generalities imaginable:

But what we get on the Web to this point is the opposite: innumerable viewpoints largely scattered to the wind, demanding not change but adherence to political ideologies from tired “liberal” and “conservative” texts, nothing new but just the old said more frequently and at higher decibel.

I found this insulting and unfair so I chose to respond in kind by talking about “entrenched media types like you who just want to keep their heads down and cash a paycheck every two weeks.” Shrill, I know, but we are angry, incivil bloggers here, you know!

I also asked Philbrick of Mustard St. (a high-quality conservative/libertarian leaning political blog that I like to read) to comment,  in order to show Mr. Tobin that bloggers of all political stripes can respect each other when they do a good job. I point to Philbrick’s comments, not just because he had kind words for us, but also because I thought this was a pretty good summary of what blogging is all about:

They follow the news constantly. Therefore, they are able to fold the information from a single story into the larger context of what’s really going on in the local political scene.

I have no doubt that you folks at the paper are saying “So how is that any different from us?”

Sorry. But it is. You tell the news. But after the news is told, there’s a part of the conversation that needs to begin, “And therefore …” (For purpose of full disclosure, this was told to me by a relentless local Republican political hack.) But I think it’s true.

I hope that in the future we are able to work together with more conservative bloggers like Mustard St. on other issues where we agree — like New York state governmental reform, for example.

For those of you who think I’m too tough on Tom Tobin (okay, I have no evidence that anyone atually thinks this), I’m going to start a muli-part series comparing Mr. Tobin favorably with renowned opinion writer David Broder; the working title is “Separated at birth.” You won’t want to miss it.