This blog has become a guilty pleasure. Huff has decsended from a Newt Gingrich aid to a radical leftist and she's brought plenty of company to her blog. Like most instruments of the leftwing media she has a few token conservatives to "balance" the leftist cry.David Frum and John Fund chime in every now and then like William Safire once did at the New York Times. They're only outnumbered 100-1.
The group blog concept is an interesting one, but there are so many people on this site it's more like a mob. I usually read the entries from people I have heard of, but so many of the posts are from people I don't know. You get the feeling that Huff spent years writing down the numbers of people she's met at Beverly Hills cocktail parties anticipating this blog project.
Harry Shearer can be funny, but even he has grown more serious. Unlike a lot of name people, he's kept with the blog posting several times a week.
Tom Hayden plays the Vietnam era Rip Van Winkle. It's like he's been hibernating for 30 years in order to someday wakeup and denounce the next war.
Gary Hart seems to mirror Jerry Brown as a guy who was once a mainstream Democrat Presidential candidate, but has become a Ralph Nader through time. It would be like seeing Jack Kemp or Howard Baker become John Birchers.
I try to read Jim Lampley's infrequent posts and he's a hoot despite himself. His sports insight is quite good, but his emerging radical side is a good example of how we can't take experts seriously when they wander outside of their expertise. He's a big "Bush stole the election twice" fan. He also pushed a story in June about the Bush Administration lying about the American death toll in Iraq. He didn't quite endorse the story, but he was hoping it was true. Since there is an official list of American dead and since family members know whether or not their kinfolk have been killed, there is no way to shield the death toll. Why can't a guy who analyzes boxing see the simple hole in that theory? My favorite Lampley tract is his insistence on a military draft to make things fair.
The current system harbors all the same discriminatory elements as did the draft, but the net result is an even more extreme division, a more pernicious South Americanization, between gung-ho military achievers and poor kids brought in to meet recruitment quotas. There is no leavening of the system with differing talent, with greater penetration of the social fabric across the board, and with all parents having to consider at least the possibility of their children having to go. Those elements come into play only with a draft.
Since Jim is a Boxing Broadcaster for HBO, I wrote this in his comments section:
Jim,
If the socio-economic system is such that a disproportionate number of poor kids risk their lives by joining the military, can't the same thing be said for boxers? I mean haven't a disproportionate amount of poor and working class youngsters fought risking their lives in the ring in order to escape poverty? What can we do to make boxing more fair?
Tom
Posted by: Tom on June 04, 2005 at 01:14PM
Neither Jim nor any other commentor had an answer for that one and Jim had dropped the subject.
Huff spent the end of July trying to discredit Judith Miller in the eyes of her fellow journalists. Ariana is convinced that Miller is in jail to protect her own honor and not a source. Ariana was in love with the topic and even fought a little with blogger Mickey Kaus for a while. That all changed when Cindy Sheehan entered the picture. For the last three weeks or so the Saint Sheenan Tour has been rolling through the Huffington Post. They adore this Dr. Seus looking character. But Sheehan is now in danger of space, because Pat Robertson wants Chavez offed and Ann Coulter says New Yorkers would surrender to terrorists.
The Huffington Post is a good example of how liberal blogs will have the urge to move further and further left in order not to mimic the mainstream liberal press. A good reason to make it a guilty pleasure.
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