Thursday, 16 September 2004

Fair and balanced, part II: Okay, now I have more right-of-center reading material than I know what to do with, in part thanks to Donald Sensing and his readers. Here are the blogs that people suggested to balance out my reading list, along with my first impressions of each:

• Andrew Sullivan's Daily Dish. I've read it before, and if I had to sum it up: The main topic of Andrew Sullivan's blog is… Andrew Sullivan. It's a great source for learning what Andrew Sullivan thinks on the issues, what Andrew Sullivan is watching and reading, and various other Andrew Sullivan-related things, but beyond that it doesn't offer much substance. Not that the entire blogosphere doesn't give new meaning to the term "vanity press," but I think he saves his better prose for TIME or The New Republic.
• Sgt. Stryker's Daily Briefing. As Sean pointed out, the namesake Sergeant isn't blogging much these days; I liked Kevin Connors' article on the Nature Conservancy, even if I didn't fully agree with the sentiment, and was impressed by the link to TalkLeft showing bipartisan concern about our shrinking Fourth Amendment rights. I found I was skimming the majority of the articles here, though, so this may not be my cup of joe.
• Belmont Club. Very solid blog with a lot of original content; I was surprised to find myself mentioned in one of the articles, and Wretchard is one of the rare few on the right who can talk about Dan Rather without spraying spittle all over the monitor. Definitely high on the list.
• Winds of Change. Some good posts about assault weapons, nation-building in Iraq, and a very meaty article on alternative energy sources, which was one of Steven Den Beste's pet topics. More substance and variety than most right-wing blogs.
• Daily Pundit. Lost me with the first article, and went downhill from there. No thanks.
• Roger L. Simon. CBS, CBS, CBS, CBS, CBS, CBS, CBS, CBS, CBS, CBS, CBS, CBS… I lost interest at this point. Actually I lost interest somewhere around the fifth article, but kept going because I figured it would end soon. It didn't. This may be a bad week for sampling right-wing blogs, but anyone this fanatical about one topic is probably not going to hold my attention.
• EuroPundits. I like the international flavor, what with being overseas myself; the main (only?) contributor appears to be from Brazil. I'm not sure I have the attention span for the long, dense articles, though: I found myself scrolling to the bottom of each one to see how long it would take to read. (Insert your own joke about Steven Den Beste's writing here.)
• Michael Totten. Good writing, interesting perspective, but too centrist for this exercise. I might add him to my blogroll anyway, though.
• Diogenes Corner. A new blog with four articles so far, one of which is his introduction; another combines a touching story of involuntary medical discharge with some fairly low blows aimed at Josh Marshall and others. I can tolerate someone who says the left is wrong, but "stomping on the dreams of those they claim to care about" is too much malice for my tastes. (Not that searching this blog's archives wouldn't find me guilty of worse, I suspect.)
• Hugh Hewitt. …is calling for Congress to investigate CBS. Next!
• The other recommendation was for Daniel Drezner, but he's already on my reading list — I consider him one of the best-informed writers about economic issues in the entire blogosphere, and politically one of the least partisan bloggers out there. Besides, any blog with articles on the Foreign Direct Investment of Hooters is okay in my book.

If I had to choose today, it's between Belmont Club and Winds of Change. Of course the second prize in this contest should be two links in my blogroll, and there's no rule that says I can't start reading more than one new blog — except for the limits on my available time, which are unfortunately vast and numerous.

Nonetheless, this has been a fun and interesting exercise to expand my reading horizons. Thanks again to everyone who offered a suggestion; it's good to know there's a variety of non-rabid right-wing blogs to choose from.

- Posted by Scott Forbes at 10:19 am. comments.