Friday, December 21, 2007
A very nice compliment
We are blessed to have civil readers and we get a lot of very nice comments for which I am grateful, but I am particularly proud of this one, which came in last night to my "blogiversary" post on Tuesday:
You are filling a very very small niche, which is being a blog that can both be linked to by Instapundit and not completely piss me off. This is one of the places I come to feel uncomfortable about (for example) opposing the surge, because you manage to write a pro-war stance in a non-partisan, non-"macho", real-live-person kind of way. Keep it real.
I like that compliment because I hope it is true. I am manifestly right of center, especially regarding economic, regulatory, and national security matters, and I therefore have a strong tendency to favor Republicans, but I am not partisan in the sense that this blog is not in the service of political advantage. We do not raise money or regurgitate talking points emailed to us by our Roverlords, and we do not defend Republicans because they are Republicans.
Thank you.
4 Comments:
By 
, at
Fri Dec 21, 12:01:00 PM:
It takes a couple of readings, but, yes, actually that's a very nice compliment, given the source. First you have to read this line a few times:
"which is being a blog that can both be linked to by Instapundit and not completely piss me off."
and then you realize the guy's a Lefty, although a somewhat moderate one if he's checking in with a Libertarian like Glenn.
So, yes, any compliment from a Lefty here in the rightosphere should be treasured. Maybe it was satire. :)
The only problem is that (we assume) he misspoke when he said:
"This is one of the places I come to feel uncomfortable about..."
Yep, Tige, that's why we all come here. To feel uncomfortable. :)
This, however, was one of most nicely-written phrases I've read in a while:
"this blog is not in the service of political advantage."
How nicely put is that? When it comes to importance, though, along with not regurgitating the party line, I think one of your strongest points is that you haven't officially jumped on a candidate's bandwagon. Yet. I would well imagine Hugh Hewitt's readership plummeted when he jumped on Romney's bandwagon last summer and started badmouthing the rest of the pack. His "It's all over, you can go home now!" (I paraphrase) to the Fred! group back then is particularly delightful in lieu of Michelle's poll the other day where Fred clobbered everybody. Well, until the Paulbots arrived, but that's another story.
By , at
Sat Dec 22, 04:18:00 AM:
Tigerhawk wrote:
> I am manifestly right of
> center, especially regarding
> economic, regulatory, and
> national security matters,
And I guess we can also add to this list social issues, or at least, the welfare state.
http://tigerhawk.blogspot.com/2006/12/some-of-things-i-believe-but-cannot.html
Any more postings like the above one?
Vilmos
By 
Papa Ray, at
Mon Dec 24, 01:13:00 AM:
Well, hell. This reminds me of something my Dad told me many years ago. Forgive me if I don't remember exactly as I'm old and have forgotten most of what I know.
Something like this..
Son, you have to take a stand on most everything, take it and hold it, because if you don't, you won't ever be able to hold on to anything.
Papa Ray
By Noumenon, at
Mon Dec 24, 03:06:00 AM:
Hi, I am the commenter and I really did mean it. Dr. Mercury read my meaning correctly, but I'm not as moderate as he thinks because Instapundit isn't even in my bookmarks folder -- when I read him I always felt that he was deliberately trying to make me mad. I do have Captain Ed in there, and Coyote Blog, but mainly I read stuff like Kevin Drum, Brad Plumer, and Obsidian Wings.
When I go to those blogs, I feel comfortable, like smart people agree with me and our view of the world explains things just fine, even if we disagree about what to do next. So I didn't misspeak, I come here to feel uncomfortable. I think you can learn more from finding out you might be totally wrong, even though it creates a lot of mental stress.
I just had to sample a lot of blogs to find a few that mainly give me stress because of their worldview, and not because they like calling me a traitor. I mean, emotional language like "traitor" goes along with the kind of posts that are persuasive about me being wrong, but too much of it makes me get defensive. TigerHawk is capable of writing posts like this one, that let me think about whether opposing the war is misguidedly close to treason without feeling like I was accused of it personally. Also, the caption contests and stuff give common ground that makes it easier to identify with the pro-war positions.
