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April 28, 2006
Link of the Day
Armando, of Daily Kos fame, and Josh Trevino, the artist formerly known as Tacitus, have created a group blog named Swords Crossed. The concept -- get this -- is to have a blog where intelligent, articulate defenders of the left-wing philosophy and perspective will coexist and interact with intelligent, articulate defenders of the right-wing philosophy and perspective. I know!
I've expressed this to them privately, but I hope they (or some other high-powered, bipartisan coalition) create a forum for, basically, blogger match-ups. All across the sphere, you've got policy experts, brilliant writers, incisive commentators with particular knowledge in one or another area, but you rarely see the best engage with the best, everyone preferring instead to beat up on the weak, lame, and stupid. I'd like that to change, and since I don't see the incentives for it to happen on individual sites, someone should exploit the vacuum and create an explicit home for such confrontations. And hey, I'll even volunteer for a health care debate to help start it off. But if my imaginary blogger thunderdome isn't yet in operation, Swords Crossed is, and it definitely deserves a glance.
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Sadly, No and Pandagon reminded us of a recent post by Ezra Klein on his desire to see a blogosphere Battle of the Titans:
Armando, of Daily Kos fame, and Josh Trevino, the artist formerly known as Tacitus, have created a group blog named... [Read More]
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Comments
And for the left: (honest men and women, in no order)
Ezra
Jane Hamsher
Steve Soto
Michael Yglesias
Laura Rosen
Holden
Athenae
Pessimist (left coaster)
Digby
Billmon
Christy Hardin Smith
Brad Delong
mcjoan (dkos)
georgia10 (dkos)
Glenn Greewald
Josh Marshall
Chris Bowers
Brad Plumer
John Aravosis
Angry Bear
David Sirota
Michael Froomkin
and oh so many more
And on the right:
John Cole
(you've got to be kidding - they can't field a team of honest men and women....)
Posted by: JimPortlandOR | Apr 28, 2006 6:01:50 PM
I've been waiting for more of this sort of thing to happen. The honest and genuine debate concern is real. I'd also worry about saying "we've got someone from the left and someone on the right!" as various other forms of media have shown us how limiting this can be. It might be valuable to add in some honest technocratic opinions, or people who don't fit the simple left-right mold in such a universal fashion -- if any such people exist for the issue at hand. (I see a lot more of this among the blogs of economists than elsewhere, but such people do exist and write online.)
I wish you the best of luck with this, as it seems like both a natural evolution of this whole web log thing from individual-centric to small, topic-focused group-centric discussion with a diverse writerbase, as well as a way to productive move forward to bridge gaps, rather than highlight them and yell. This could be of obvious benefit if we saw, say, the democrats take one half of congress and, shockingly, legitimate compromise and middle-ground come back into vogue after a long exile.
Posted by: lb | Apr 28, 2006 6:40:44 PM
Josh Trevino? last time I read something he wrote he said "the Left" had a "bottomless opposition to parents". That definitely sounds like someone with whom valuable time should be spent debating.
Posted by: Kathleen | Apr 28, 2006 7:12:15 PM
Did "Dick Swinging Contest" not fit on the banner?
Posted by: Amanda Marcotte | Apr 28, 2006 7:30:33 PM
Is that a tilde over the "n" in Trevino's last name? Is there any particular reason for that, or can anyone take one?
Posted by: Iron Lungfish | Apr 28, 2006 8:53:51 PM
Yes, that is a tilde at their blogsite.
With a normal 'n', the ending would be 'ino' (likely Italian). With a tilde, the ending would be 'inyo' (likely Spanish). I'm not aware of any other language except Spanish that uses a tilde over the 'n'.
In English, a word with a n-tilde takes the form of 'canyon'. In Spanish the deep earth crevice is 'canon' with a tilde over the 'n' (a
'ny' sound and an accent over the 'o'(long O sound).
Posted by: JimPortlandOR | Apr 28, 2006 9:23:53 PM
And so it comes to pass that a person with no obvious rational deficiencies -- besides this one -- appears to believe that Jane Hamsher, Digby, Billmon, Christy Hardin Smith, Brad Delong, and Froomkin are "honest men and women."
Truly, strange times.
Thanks, Ezra.
Posted by: Josh Trevino | Apr 28, 2006 9:29:34 PM
Josh:
Say what? Of course they are honest.
We all may be wrong on one thing or other, well your wrong on alot, but these are honest people.
Troll warning. Heh.
Posted by: Armando | Apr 28, 2006 9:57:28 PM
Dan "I'm not really a liberal" Froomkin isn't even honest about himself. And please, please don't make he go through all the reasons Hamsher is a pathological liar.
Posted by: Josh Trevino | Apr 28, 2006 10:06:27 PM
Brad DeLong isn't honest? And Digby? You may disagree with them, but if you're serious about your project, you can't be mixing up people you disagree with with dishonest, bad-faith individuals.
Posted by: Ezra | Apr 28, 2006 10:12:32 PM
I personally have no use for Michael Yglesias. That guy is definitely a bad-faith individual.
Posted by: Stephen | Apr 28, 2006 10:23:05 PM
Ezra:
It's the Domenech thing. Josh, in my opinion, is too close to the situation to be reasonable about it.
I have my moments like that too.
Posted by: Armando | Apr 28, 2006 10:26:56 PM
Hi Josh! Glad to see ya out and about again! Does this mean we are gonna have a war in Iran? That was my speculation, ya know, call of duty and so on. Or maybe just the midterms, but I figured the batlight was shining somewhere.
Gosh, I have gotten lost in blogosphere trying to follow Trevino around. I think he starts a project a month. I visited Crossed Swords, but it seemed all Armando, and I figured I'd wait.
I guess 4-5 years, but it feels like decades I have been reading Tacitus. Still do. I vouch for the dude, he is an honest man. A fastidious writer, good enough to be interesting for what he doesn't say. IOW, hiding much in plain view. Just read and weep. Turned me from a magnanimous libertarian into an open eliminationist almost by his lonesome. If the archives exist, the Abu Ghraib month sticks in my memory. Somehow coincident with revelations of atrocities, ole Tac turned on a dime from hostile critic to reluctant supporter, as if the survival of the Party depended on the survival of Bush. At any cost. Broke my heart, he did.
Enough.
Posted by: bob mcmanus | Apr 28, 2006 10:40:24 PM
Ezra, the offer still stands to participate in a podcast with us on the topic of health care. I'd like that very much, if only for my own edification.
If you're short on time, we can just skip right to the part where we all curse loudly and hang up our respective phones. If you're even shorter on time, you can just leave a voicemail for me, saying something along the lines of "you illiterate libertarian bastard!" We'll do our parts later. :)
Posted by: Jon Henke | Apr 28, 2006 11:02:41 PM
I was down to do it -- you guys just never gave me a time last time (though, admittedly, I flaked the first time!). But yeah, let's git er done.
Posted by: Ezra | Apr 28, 2006 11:06:30 PM
I think it's truly wonderful that Dick Fight, the Blog, will provide an unlimiteed venue for Ticky Tacky to demonstrate why "Jane Hamsher, Digby, Billmon, Christy Hardin Smith, Brad Delong, and Froomkin" are not honest.
Posted by: Atrios | Apr 29, 2006 1:41:57 AM
As much fun as "Crossed 'Swords'" might be, I kind of prefer the genial nerdery of Bloggingheads.tv. Even when Mickey Kaus is on. Hell, especially when Mickey Kaus is on! The bizarre writing tics he uses on his blog may be annoying as hell, but on video he comes across as an affably daffy human muppet. Put him next to Robert Wright and you've got the Statler and Waldorf of the blogosphere. Have Yglesias hook you up, Ezra. You could be having webcammed policy debates with geekily polite centrists in no time!
Posted by: Iron Lungfish | Apr 29, 2006 2:12:27 AM
Two bloggers enter, one blogger leaves....
Posted by: Thlayli | Apr 29, 2006 8:46:34 AM
The trouble with "honest" debate is that it is too likely to result in agreement. One side or the other is going to come over, or they will meet somewhere in the middle.
In the present state of political dichotomy, any honest pundit of the Right is going to end up on the "Left".
Honest debate requires an acknowledgement of reality and an acceptance of the requirements of logic and reason, not to mention some very general principles governing a humane conception of what's Good or Right. You cannot do that, and be a Republican anymore.
Oh sure, you can be a complete nutcase -- a pacifist, Communist, thumb-sucking, bleeding heart moron, if you like -- and a Leftist, but even if you wake up and smell the coffee, make uncomfortable allowances for inevitability of conflict, the impossibility of equality of outcomes, the ugly sides of drug use or sexual libertinism, you are still "on the Left". A right-winger, who acknowledges reality ends up a Kevin Phillips decrying the corruption of Bush, a William F. Buckley calling for withdrawal from Iraq, a Governor Riley (of Alabama) calling for higher, fairer taxes.
Posted by: Bruce Wilder | Apr 29, 2006 11:31:24 AM
It's an interesting idea, certainly. Pity that this one is being done by the peripatetic tacitus, who I'm not really interested in reading. (For having an interesting perspective and the ability to link words together, I used to enjoy reading him; but on further exposure I came to realize he's a hypocritical hack with logorrhea).
Posted by: Brian Palmer | Apr 29, 2006 2:52:11 PM
FYI, there used to be a blog that matched up outside bloggers. It was not particularly well implemented, but theoretically interesting.
http://theironblog.blogspot.com
Posted by: Dave Meyer | Apr 29, 2006 4:57:51 PM
I can't really speak to the issue of the honesty of the most of the bloggers that were listed above so I'll assume that they're honest, but I can point to some questionable actions from Brad DeLong. DeLong didn't agree with some comments made by physicist Steven Hsu (see http://infoproc.blogspot.com/2005/09/pc-censorship.html for his account of the incident) so he deleted them in order to steer the discussion to his favored conclusion, but he inadvertently left comments from other participants that quoted the deleted comments, so the ideological editing became quite visible. DeLong, having been caught, then comes clean:
http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2005/09/in_defense_of_b.html:
And, while we're at it: never get involved in a land war in Asia; . . . and never post about human genetics on you weblog.
Posted by: TangoMan | Apr 30, 2006 2:28:02 AM
Dan "I'm not really a liberal" Froomkin isn't even honest about himself.
And this has what to do with Michael Froomkin, who was on the list?
Posted by: Matt Weiner | May 1, 2006 1:28:58 AM
And please, please don't make he go through all the reasons Hamsher is a pathological liar.
The lemon up Tacky's arse appears to have been replaced by a grapefruit. Perhaps that blog should be called 'Pompous and Circumstance'.
Posted by: nick s | May 1, 2006 11:34:26 AM
I love how in comments to a post about something getting off the ground it all goes to shit. Goodtimes! There is nothing that I wanna see more than "blog matchups" because there isn't enough of people taking themselves too seriously around here, I mean the transition from well read, good research wonky style blogging to lazy-ass, just-so punditry is inevitable with everyone, really, so let's just hasten it somewhat with inane arguments. How about having arguments where the ground rules are set in advance where individuals have to at least consider a core amount of source material, instead of just pulling stuff out of their asses? Then it couldn't be bloggers, I guess. Also, anything related to that chunky fart Tacitus has got to be a joke as his comments here define the term "undermine" in relation to his new project.
Posted by: Pinko Punko | May 1, 2006 12:40:28 PM
