A non sequitur from well-meaning Sheri Annis:
I almost spit out my rather unsatisfying new-mom coffee recipe of decaf and soy milk. Author Annie Lamott wrote on TPM Café, a blog edited — or not in this case — by liberal Joshua Micah Marshall:I am able to believe, about half the time, that Bush and Rove would be capable of orchestrating a second terrorist attack on America, if and when they deem it necessary to instill martial law, which they will.At first I figured Lamott must be joking, but then I realized: 1) It isn't funny; 2) The blogosphere had hit a new low, if that's possible.
Well, leftists are retreating from political and intellectual defeat into fantasy, trying to recapture those non-falsifiable propositions about Western civilization they had enjoyed until September 11th — but how much of that is a reflection of weblogs? Read Derrick Z. Jackson, who has made possible for years the commercial syndication of opinions to be found in both the Boston Globe and anachronous looseleaf diaries of the institutionalized. Or tune into a public statement by Senator Edward Kennedy, Washington fixture for God-knows-how-long, God-knows-why. The merciful thud with which Dan Rather's career in broadcasting crashed was thanks to the tenure granted Western elites which, though weaker in this century than the last, tends to insure a personality against what they say or do nowadays on account of what they were back then. Weblogs are young, and may hold the meritocratic promise in citizen journalism. Finally, consider that Anne Lamott is a novelist who established her literature and politics on paper, happened to transmit her particular suspicions to the internet via TPM, and has done no more damage to the blogosphere than she would to telephony by dialing 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue at three in the morning and breathing heavily.