Arrogance and scorn

Go to this article and look at the photo of the author, the Nutty Professor Steven Levy. Do you really need any other reason not to take his attack on bloggers seriously?

If anybody deserves condemnation for "name-calling and intolerance of opposing points of view" during this election year it would have to be the mainstream media. Now they've been caught in a feverish, obsessive and dishonest attempt to smear Bush's service in the National Guard, as though anybody really would care. And whose fault is that? Dan Rather's? Mary Mapes? Noooo. Glenn Reynolds! Charles Johnson! The Power Line bloggers!

So the fact that most political bloggers take sides means what? All it means to me is that they're more honest than the pundits. That they are passionate debaters, engaged in the rough and tumble of political argument, and not willing to passively swallow the baloney they're offered by people like Levy is to their credit, and far more in keeping with the First Amendment than the old media has become.

Levy and his fellow effete snob journalists have been peddling this nonsense for the past 50 years, that they are the Constitutional Fourth Branch of Government, and therefore immune to criticism or questioning, as though our republic depended on the judgment of a bunch of self-appointed pseudo-aristocrats. I guess getting a by-line must seem like a great achievement, and bringing down a president even more so. It's the heady stuff that young reporters must dream about, as normal kids dream about scoring the winning points in a championship game.

Yes, a free press is important, but it is not limited to those with J-school degrees. We have been witnessing an answer to the liberal monopoly emerging through talk radio and the new technology of the internet, and suddenly, being a reporter, even an anchorman, doesn't seem like such a big deal anymore. Now any schlub in his pajama can have as wide a distribution as a NYTimes columnist, without having to work a lifetime to gain that rarified position. So we're all back to the starting line, being judged not by our fellow reporters and editors, but by the great unwashed.

Power is one of the two great temptations in this world, which is precisely what our Constitution seeks to undermine. Nearly every position of power is subject to, and must take account of the opinions of the rabble. America has no true aristocracy. It was made specifically with that in mind. The best way to get laughed off the stage is to write stuff like Levy's sniffing, sneering little pout. Now, he's getting his moment in the limelight as bloggers cover him with rotten eggs and garden produce.