Nancy Nall:
As a long-time reader of Lileks in print and online, I've found him a fascinating study. I used to like his Newhouse column, until his hardening right-wing sensibilities ruined it for me. Close your eyes, and you'd swear his words were issuing from the mouth of a 33-year-old Grosse Pointe soccer mom in a blonde pageboy, about to climb into her Hummer H2 without guilt, thank you very much, because it makes her feel safe. He never irked me as much as Albom or Greene, probably because he never made it as big as they did, but many times I set aside his work with my eyes crossed in either boredom, rage or frustration, wishing I had the last three minutes of my life back.
But what really bugged me about him was his Janus-faced b.s. about the news media and the internet, the way he threw meat to his MSM-hatin' buddies by hatin' right along with them, and then quietly cashing his check on payday. His complaints about news coverage, whether in Iraq or St. Paul, ring hollow from a man who stands up today and frankly admits “writing straight news is a skill I lack, and I take off my hat to those who've mastered that discipline.” Really? You do? I must have missed those Bleats. They must have been hidden between the ones hailing the Web as the end of the lecture-based form of journalism, and explaining the secret liberalism that stalks American newsrooms, this from a man who works from the kitchen table in his $600,000 house.
Read the whole thing, which is really a fascinating meditation about the economic changes and slow death of mid-to-small circulation dailies.
