Remaking The Blogosphere In Their Own Image

by tristero

There is only one possible reason why Time provides this idiot with an opportunity to blog. And that is to provide other Time pundits with conveniently stark proof that the blogosphere is as vapid and ignorable as they wish it was. Heck, they needn’t even venture beyond their own firewall!

Memo to Time’s Publishers: If you wanna understand the attraction of the blogosphere, but you’re too scared to wander down into the nidorous depths of the Internets, you don’t even have to look at any blogs! Just read Paul Krugman.

Briefly, Krugman writes for a print outlet called The New York Times, which once had a stellar reputation but has since been tainted by scandal and unskeptical regurgitation of government propaganda. Recently, on its op-ed page, the Times pioneered a new innovation in self-destructiveness. They hired a new pundit named William Kristol who has but two qualifications: (1) he wants the government to investigate, muzzle, and further suborn the Times; (2) he’s always wrong about everything.

Paul Krugman is everything Kristol and your own Scherer are not. By actually writing intelligent, useful, essays based in reality, Krugman, along with a clutch of brilliant reporters who have broken a series of important stories, represents the best of what the Times once aspired to be. And what inspires some of the finest writing out here amongst the Google.

h/t to Duncan, who ruined my Sunday morning when I made the mistake of clicking on his link to Scherer’s post.

Update: from digby (sorry to intrude.)

Fineman should sue for plagiarism. Remember this?

You knew Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama in high school. At least I did. They were candidates in the student senate election. She was the worthy but puffed-up Miss Perfect, all poodle skirts and multicolored binders clutched to her chest. He was the lanky, mysterious transfer student—from Hawaii by way of Indonesia no less—who Knew Things and was way too cool to carry more than one book at a time. Who would be leader of the pack?

Presidential elections are high school writ large, of course, and that is especially true when, as now, much of the early nomination race is based in the U.S. Capitol. It is even more the case when the party in question, and here we are talking about the Democrats, is not sharply divided ideologically. They have a good chance in ’08 to oust the fading prep/jock/ROTC/Up With People alliance.

Lance Mannion took care of him here.