April 14, 2003
So why do you read him?

Kevin Drum has had enough of Glenn Reynolds:


Glenn's schtick has always been a bitter and cynical one, but the end of the war seems to been a watershed for him. Like Rush with his "stack of stuff," Instapundit has turned into nothing more than a clearinghouse for bile, with post after endless post explaining that anyone who disagrees with him is really motivated by a seething hatred of America and a desire to see everything that is good and true torn limb from corrupt limb. The level of rage and contempt that it takes to continue extracting pleasure from banging out this kind of stuff on a daily basis baffles me.

Which leads me to an obvious question: Why are you still reading him? It looks to me like Kevin feels his intelligence is being insulted and his time is being wasted. So why bother? There are plenty of interesting non-lefties out there to broaden one's perspective. Why reward someone who holds you in such contempt? I don't get it.

Posted by Charles Kuffner on April 14, 2003 to Other punditry | TrackBack
Comments

He should be reading me... at least I smack myself in the forehead and shout STUPID! every now and then to deflate the ego. ;)

Posted by: Laurence (Amish Tech Support) on April 14, 2003 8:50 AM

I think there is a wide perception in the political weblog world that unless you know what's on Instapundit you're not really "in the know".

I gave up reading Instapundit long before I settled into my current form of blogging. He's a neocon hack who claims he's a libertarian because (like so many of us) he objects to having his personal freedoms curtailed. And his claim to be just a guy with a computer and a blogger account wasn't true when he started, much less now.

I'm glad the leftward end of the blog world is beginning to notice that the emperor has no clothes and that Glenn Reynolds' online persona (as opposed to his in-person persona, which I have always heard is quite charming) is something of an asshole.

Now if some of these people making this realization will just *shut up* about him, my blog-reading would really get better. Particularly the people who are obssessed with him and call him "Insty" and post snide, juvenile comments about him.

Here endeth today's rant.

Posted by: Ginger on April 14, 2003 9:39 AM

I had never even heard of Glenn Reynolds or Instapundit until after I started my own weblog back in December. Having looked at it only a few times, I have to say I have never understood what all of the hype was about. There are far better blogs out there (hell, even mine is better, which ain't saying much) with only a fraction of the hits.

Unless Reynolds was one of the first webloggers out there, I can't understand why he is so popular and has literally millions of hits. The best thing I can say about him is he's best left ignored.

Posted by: Susan Nunes on April 14, 2003 11:36 PM