"The Huffington Post": A Week in Review

I find myself falling somewhere in the middle between the people just criticizing this new "celebrity" blog because it brings together mostly celebrities and those who think it's hip and cool and somehow gives justification to the whole venue of blogging.

I neither despise nor love The Huffington Post and - unlike some of my blogleagues (shortening blogging colleagues into a single word) - I'm not especially driven to try to get my blog listed on their blog roll. Any blog roll that includes David Frum, the "gushing bride" of the Bushies, who is just so wrapped up in himself, a Jewish version of LaShawn Barber perhaps who also is ultimately concerned with how the rest of the world orbits around her very unimportant axis, isn't one I lust to be featured upon.

A good blog informs, at least picking apart and analyzing what the mainstream media does present to us. You find some of that at The Huffington Post.

Some blogs, like Josh Marshall's Talking Points Memo, offer original reporting and interviews. We haven't seen a lot of that so far at The Huffington Post, but they've been around en masse for one week. Give them time.

I do get a little irritated with Huffington Post with its over abundance of celebs. Larry David has made many, many millions of dollars being an insensitive prick; he brings that to Huffington Post and I'm not at all certain the world is better for it. His first post, a tongue-in-cheek on why he likes John Bolton because Bolton treats people as badly as David himself does, doesn't do much for me.

But there's better than David there and it's not other celebs like David's wife (OK, I like her activism but I despise the character as she's depicted on David's "Curb Your Enthusiasm" where she's a shrill, difficult type who feels ever so entitled), Julia Louis Dreyfus and her hubby, John Cusack (playing those 20-somethings in movies is really getting old, John), and others with the celebrity mantle. Being famous isn't enough to make me want to sit through their posts.

Instead, give me those like Walter Cronkite has been a wonderful voice since he left CBS News and especially since 2001. Huffington Post has him, along with the venerable David Corn, and a few other good voices. But the HP also offers the likes of Frum, Scarborough (the O'Reilly wannabe), and Dennis Prager who offer absolutely nothing to any debate. That they're highly paid idiots simply proves we don't live in a meritocracy.

So yeah, I'll probably drop in on HP. But it's not going to be my most regular stop.