And me?

So in the below post I go on a bit of a rant. It seems I'm good for one good rant a week. In the case of the post below, I rant about the archetypical conservative personality. But what of mine?

Posting again what Rall said:

Bloggers are ordinary people, many of them uneducated and with nothing interesting to say. They're sitting in their rec rooms, regurgitating and spinning what real journalists have dug up through hard work. They don't have sources, they don't report, and no one holds them accountable when they make mistakes or flat out lie. Yeah, there's a new sheriff in town. Unfortunately he's drunk, he's mean, and he works for the bad guys.

How does that apply to me? I know what I'm writing really isn't that interesting. If it were, I'd be doing it for a living, and I'd have more than 15 visitors a day. That really doesn't bother me, because my intention was not to entertain - which is what even the best left wing blogs essentially have to do to keep 300,000 readers a day coming back. The rhetoric IS the entertainment.

I don't sit in my rec room and write. I sit in my study and do it. Am I regurgitating and spinning what real journalists have written? Ya, I think so. I'm not sure if Rall is passing judgment on me for not being a real journalist and writing my own original stories. I make sure I link to the original story so that I cannot be perceived of taking small quotes out of context.

That said, I think of myself more as an columnist, or commentator in a different style than the traditional commentator. I present the news and put my own personal spin on it. The important part - the part that most right wingers don't do - is I clearly indicate where the news story ends and where my opinion starts. Right wingers write their commentary into the fabric of the news, thus trying to blur the truth via spin. There is a huge difference in what those styles mean.

I also don't think Rall is quite right when he says no one holds blog authors accountable. There is a certain measure of credibility and reputation that goes along with being a big time blog writer. If you're Kos, or Atrios, or Instapundit, and you have 300,000 people a day reading you, there is accountability.

For me, it really makes no difference if Rall thinks I'm not contributing anything original. The important component is the intent. My intent is just to share thoughts with people I know. If my intent was to reach hundreds of thousands of people, I'd have to focus on a topic that I'm expert in. I'm not so sure that would be a good idea.. :)