Blogs: Good or Evil?

"I had come to this realization before, but the moment would pass, and I would find myself percolating with small, quotidian stories that I wanted to share: This funny thing happened on the subway; you'll never believe what so-and-so said. Not revelations by any means, but I live alone, and blogging was a way to vent the daily ups and downs that might otherwise be told to the cat. Also, I couldn't help but notice -- even the cat couldn't help but notice -- the growing number of successful bloggers-turned-novelists. They were sexy, dishy women with pseudonyms, Wonkette and Opinionista, like they were dispatching from behind enemy lines. I was starting to feel like the only one left in the blogosphere without a book deal . . .

"Blogging had been the ideal run-up to a novel, but it had also become a major distraction. I would sit down to start on my novel only to come up with five different blog entries. I thought of them as a little something-something to whet the palate -- because it was easier, more immediately satisfying, because I could write it, and post it, and people would say nice things about it, and I could go to bed feeling satisfied. But then I would wake feeling less than accomplished because a blog wasn't a whole story told from beginning to end. I had shelves lined with other people's prose while my best efforts were buried on a Web site somewhere, underneath a lot of blah-blah about American Idol and my kitty cat."

Turning to politics, you might wonder how members of Congress are coping with three-buck gasoline. The answer: They're fighting:

"Fearing public ire over rising gasoline prices," says the Los Angeles Times, "Republicans on Thursday unveiled a sweeping -- if politically impractical -- package of measures to give consumers some relief, including a proposed $100 taxpayer rebate.

"Democrats derided the Republican proposal as insincere, noting that it incorporates ideas already introduced by Democrats and contains provisions sure to torpedo Senate passage, including a measure to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling that has been voted down repeatedly.

"With emotions running high on both sides, a Democratic senator even staged a five-hour filibuster, refusing to leave the Senate floor in an effort to force oil companies to pay more in royalties to drill for oil on public lands."

No wonder Congress has a 22 percent approval rating in a poll I just saw.

Scripps Howard Columnist Deroy Murdock praises the Tony Snow appointment and says he should function as media-critic-in-chief:

"Showcase the media's shortcomings. Snow should not be the press' errand boy. While he should provide journalists with information for their pieces, he also should remind them daily what they are missing and strongly persuade them to cover details and entire stories they neglect.

"Correct journalists' mistakes. Snow should approach each day like a professor reviewing his students' homework. "Terry Moran, here are three glaring errors in the first 15 seconds of your latest ABC News report," Snow might say. "Let me try to help you."

" In a new feature called "Here's What You Missed," Snow should present TV footage the media actively ignore. . . .Showcasing such complete remarks and publicly handing journalists DVDs of corresponding video will make it harder for liberal reporters to spread half-truths by feigning ignorance of inconvenient facts. . . .

" Don't leak; speak. Bush's mistake in partially declassifying intelligence data was his failure to use them to explain Operation Iraqi Freedom. He erred by leaking this information to The New York Times' Judith Miller rather than announcing it to the entire country. Snow should argue for sunshine rather than narrowly tailored points of light.