At its best, in my view, the political blogosphere serves as a watchdog of the MSM, showing what it is up to, putting pressure on it, etc.  But the suggestion that some sort of replacement is in the works is a huge reach, and if you want to assert something like this, my friend, it is you who neds to show data as proof.  Again, this whole conversation is brought to you courtesy not of BTD's original brain but rather Time Magazine, to which we are all responding.

Now.  Like you I am participating in a conversation here and I stated my view, just like you are stating yours.  I boldface not to scream but because people here seem to either misunderstanding my point or ignoring it.  You, for example, mock the boldface but fail to address the public ed analogy.  That's too bad.  I'm used to conservatives on this blog treating me this way, not people like you.  But then, I guess everybody has their botbuttons.  Perhaps you are so married to the idea of the blogosphere as the second coming of the French Revolution that you just cannot bear anyone pointing out its limitations.

My purpose here is not to declare blogs obsolete or even to attack them, but rather to point out its substantive limitations and to argue that all of you who are so ready to declare the death of MSM are not only echoing, right down the freakin' line, such Righty bastions as Little Green Footballs but also A)Dead wrong and B)running the risk of letting the powerful MSM off the hook.

Just like public education, the MSM and its powerful influence on our lives aint going away.  We can use the blogs to challenge, improve, and pressure these Outlets but we aren't making them obsolete in any way.  If my pointing this out sounds like an assault on egalitarianism to you, then that's pretty strange, but it won't change the truth of it.

Much of what you have said in the above post is far more similar to what I've been saying than you seem to think.  Maybe like BTD, you are just so incensed that i am finding soemthing of value in a comment by Brian Williams that you are not willing to go any further with it.

I have said several times that the blogosphere plays a useful watchdog role, provides news modes and cahnnels of interpretation, adds voices, etc.  I have also consistently added the fact that this role does not consitute a replacement of MSM power.  A valuable check, most certainly, but not a replacement.

And you know well that I neve said the Internet sucks.  It is patently true though that ifninitely more bandwith on the Internet goes for shopping and porn than for political blogging.  And then of course there a a millionfold other uses of the Internet that have nothing to do with any of these things.

Time magazine said, to paraphrase, that the bloggers are doing their job for them, and for free (cue triumphant sentimental music).  This is a retarded statement, I continue to maintain, as few bloggers are politicalo or even concern themselevs with News at all, and even the ones who do devote to these things are overhwleminglyh linking to MSM sources.  These things are facts, not positions I am taking.

As for your and others' implication that I am an elitist: again, it is totally eerie how the deeper this conversation goes, the more symmetry develops between you guys and the Right.  You're an elitist if you think the creationists in Kansas don't have equal authority as the Scientific community.  You're an elitist if you believe that the homophobes are simply dead wrong.  You were an elitist during the runup to the Iraq War if you opposed it, because Joe Six Pack was the real Patriot.  Etc.

Stating that some people know what they're talking about and others don't may be a mark of elitism, if so, then I'm an elitist.  NBC, CBS, ABC, and all major Newspapers as far more qualified to tell us information about world events than the average blogger.  Which is proven, AGAIN, byt the fact that every political blog I have ever seen, Left Right and everywhere in between, derives the majority of its analyses by first LINKING to places like Time Magazine, CNN, etc.  

(MSM, by the way, is of course far better qualified to discuss world events than cesspools like Little Green Footballs, a site whose traffic by the way, outstrips that here at TL.)

You and BTD and others here, in essence, strike me as arguing for pure populism, which is revolting to me.  Pure populism would dictate that the perspectives at LGF are just as valid as the perspectives here at TL, which is ridiculous to say the least. (boldface for you, sailor)

You snarkily ask why I even bother entering discussions here.  I have given one of the reasons why I do so, and I will here give it again, in case you're actually doing me the courtesy of rreading my post this time: political blogs like this have a wonderful capacity for energizing people towards pressuring, cleaning up powerhouse Outlets in the MSM, even as we at the same time attempt to counter the cacophony of trash that is also out there on the Internet seeking to do the same thing.