I have read some strange, bitter, uniformed articles on the terribleness of blogs, but I swear I have never read anything so utterly pompous, self-focused, out-of-touch, narcissistic, egotistical, laugh out loud education and elucidation for the plebeian masses  by Culture writer  Lee Siegel of The New Republic. It’s so utterly pretentious it’s laugh out loud, and I think he wouldn’t have a clue why I or anyone else would find his pontificating observations and conclusions funny. It’s impossible to take seriously.
That’s sort of sad really.

His first post ( while somewhat correctly identifies some of the incivility of those that that blog or comment on blogs) I’m afraid  loses any other salient points he may have made. They may have been were blurred by my laughter tears. His first post is: Blog This.

Recently Newsweek did an article on the guy behind Daily Kos - which is a Democrat blog in the US - and it wasn’t all kind of course. US readers who follow politics would be hip to what is going on here.

However, Siegel having received some of those angry vitriolic, potty mouth comments from the unwashed masses, took his left foot out of his mouth and put his right foot in with a follow up post in an attempt to expand on and improve his thesis regarding blogs which really only merit to him.
You can’t make this stuff up: The Origins of Blogofascism. Um, can we spell hyperbole, not being the cultural epitomes of linguistic fussiness like Mr. Siegel?

Hello.
Whisky Ashes among others fisks Siegel’s post and uses some potty mouth words. But it’s rightfully hilarious.  A blogger named Digby from Hullabaloo deconstructed Siegel’s posts into confetti sized pieces.  The wit from one of the unwashed mass is delightful.

However, James Wolcott of Vaniety Fair topped the Siegel fisking pile on in his piece: Hard Fascism, Soft Heads.

 Now whatever one might say about Daily Kos, MyDD, Atrios, etc., it is absurd to float the charge that they express or harbor “a hatred of the processes of politics.” They help raise money for candidates, track polls, sponsor or promote meet-ups, highlight primary fights that might otherwise go unnoticed. They are completely plugged into the process, their championing of Ned Lamont no different than NRO’s cheerleading for Pat Toomey in his challenger run against Arlen Specter. It’s not as if they’re urging blog readers to disrupt campaign stops as a prelude to a beer-hall putsch. In order to make his case that the blogs are breeding a rootless army of deracinated brutes, he delves into Kos’s childhood in El Salvador, making him sound like an aimless drifter looking for a Charlie Manson cult to command and drawing the bizarre conclusion based on a conversation that took place when Kos was nine years old that Kos “loves government” but “hates politics,” which Siegel finds “chilling.” You’ll have to read the full graf for yourself, and guard your head against Siegel’s flailing arms as he tries to make something out of nothing, seeming to criticize Kos for not retroactively supporting the Salvadoran guerrillas that the New Republic didn’t support at the time. I say “seeming,” because Siegel so cavalierly practices psychobiography on the basis of little biography and no psychology that it’s hard to tell what his point is, beyond making a fingerpainting mess. A mess that he blames on the man he’s trying to portray.

Ouch.
Too bad Jesus General  or Scrappleface doesnt tackle the Siegel’s views of life, of the unwashed masses of bloggers, they’d provide more merriment -  but I think all this humorous fisking will be utterly lost on Mr. Siegel in his utter contempt for blogs.
Must be an election year.