Here is a pretty decent article on political blogging written by Australian political blogger Tim Dunlop that takes a look at several things.
Dunlop gives a brief overview of blogging and plunges into the meat of pundicy.

So that’s the first thing to note: the second is that blogs are politically engaged, not artificially detached. Few bloggers try for “objectivity” in the traditional journalistic sense and most are happy to declare openly their political allegiance. This is both a strength and a weakness, as we will see, but ultimately it is the nature of the beast and nothing to get upset about. In fact, it goes to the heart of my understanding of bloggers as the new public intellectuals, and I will elaborate shortly.

He then moves into the fact that most bloggers and commenters quickly run up against others that are more informed than they are or come from the discussion from a different perspective, and wind up do a lot of learning and growing up in their ‘public space.’

Lasch’s ideal was that arguments aren’t won by shouting down your opponent but by changing their minds. Now, I’m not going to pretend that blogging comes anywhere near this ideal, and in fact, there is probably more shouting than mind-changing by a factor of about ten-to-one. However, the point is that blogging does provide a way of realising that other aspect of his ideal, namely of creating an environment where ordinary people can use argument to increase their knowledge on a topic. Believe me, if you put up a post about something based more on your prejudices than the facts, and that post gets blasted by another blogger who manages to show up your prejudice and lack of knowledge, then I’ll wager you’ll make some considerable effort to find out a few more details about the topic before you write about it again.

And I agree with him. It is important in public discourse to cut the other person some slack. He then takes some serious time to explain the concept of the public intellectual. I’m missing some meaty stuff here…

What I am saying is that there is a strong overlap between the idea of a “public intellectual” and an active citizen, and if we stop concentrating on “the” intellectuals and think instead about intellectual practice, then the distinction between the two melts away, loses its force - or at least somewhat.

I’m not saying that this means “we are all intellectuals” in some Monty Python sense. But I am saying that the distinction between “the” intellectuals and the citizens is often overstated and tends to be anti-democratic, assigning the vast mass to the passive role of spectator in most societal debates.

And here’s where blogging comes in. Blogging changes all that to an extent that wasn’t imaginable even a year ago. By giving an increasingly legitimate forum to anyone who can hold the attention of an audience, blogging has provided at least one of the technical means of dissolving the division between intellectual and citizen.

So rather than being in decline, as it is fashionable to suggest, the category of “public intellectual” in this sense is exploding.

Many of us don’t use our blogs just to shape our citizenship and debate, and if we do, we certainly run into others who want us to feel we are making mistakes or expressing an unpopular opinion with the intent of silencing us.

The blogosphere can be vitriolic, petty, unfair and mean. But I really don’t want to say that as if it was altogether a bad thing. Democracy needs a bit of amateur rough-and-tumble to get its juices flowing, and in an age where politicians increasingly hide behind media experts and image consultants, where media people themselves have been co-opted by business and political machines and by a star system, where key journalists are spoon-fed press releases and background material by faceless partisans, where almost the ultimate affront is for a journalist to ask a probing question, and, worst of all, where so much decision-making takes place behind closed doors, something had to give.

One of the best posts I have ever read on blogging is at John Adams. He mentioned something that has stuck with me, particularly in regards to some political pundits and their needs.

Everyone has a different idea of how people should argue. That may sound a bit comical, but it’s true. Those who have spent time on debate teams, and/or watch the O’Reilly Factor on a regular basis are generally more prone to argue forcefully, and to insist that their opponents remain within the boundaries of debate. They will often call their opponent’s bluff if he/she ventures into “ad hominem attacks” or “emotionalism.” They are trained to win, and they mostly do just that.

But some people are less interested in debating the finer points of [insert topic here] than they are in “dialoguing” – a friendly-sounding word for voicing one’s opinion without fear of having it decimated by people with straight A’s and no cavities. I do not presume to know where the balance must be struck, but please keep in mind that people are very rarely persuaded by heavy-handed replies, no matter how chock-full of logic, reason, and hard facts they may be.

Dunlop link via signposts