GLASS HOUSES DEPT. Since Rick Perlstein has just a written a piece extolling the virtue of anonymity among bloggers, comparing them to the 18th century political pamphleteers -- an idea with an exceptionally well-trodden history -- and saying they are critical to keeping the MSM factually correct, I ask that he not take it personally if I publicly point out on a blog that he erred when he wrote: "Marcy Wheeler ... has only recently come out of the shadows. (She used to be known as "emptywheel.")" In fact, Marcy Wheeler spoke on a well-lit panel at Yearly Kos last June which was broadcast on C-SPAN. I suppose seven months ago could be called "recent," but to those of us who follow this stuff, she hasn't been in the shadows for quite some time. Also, she still blogs at DailyKos and at her own site as "emptywheel," so it's not quite accurate to say she "used to be known" as that. She is still known as that. And her blog is called "The Next Hurrah," not "The Last Hurrah" (first paragraph, last section). High horses are all well and good, but if you're going to mount one, best to tie your saddle tight, eh? Blogs indisputably play an important role in the new media ecology, keeping MSM writers and other bloggers on their toes, and, sure, Wheeler has been doing great work on the Plame trial, but everybody -- even blogger triumphalists like Perlstein -- makes an occasional error. Not every one of them is a milestone in our public discourse.
--Garance Franke-Ruta
