Patrick Ruffini and correspondents discuss why many leading blogs tend rightward. But many of us are far from conventionally “right-wing,” and differ in many ways from, say, Republican orthodoxy. The war on terror obscured and obscures these differences and now that domestic matters are returning, you’re beginning to see some nuances. I’m socially liberal and fiscally conservative, for example, which is almost the opposite of the current Republican establishment, which is socially conservative and fiscally liberal (they dropped the fiscal conservatism as soon as a Republican won the presidency). It’s equally hard to pigeonhole Glenn Reynolds or Mickey Kaus, let alone the vast, diverse bunch with less bandwidth. And blogs definitely favor such idiosyncratic types – those who don’t fit into the kind of ideological conformity that lies behind, say, the Weekly Standard or the Nation, and so don’t have a magazine to support and promote them. As to the greater eclecticism of those broadly on the right, I’d say Patrick’s onto something. I’m forgetting who coined this phrase but I think it’s largely true that today’s right looks for converts whereas today’s left looks for heretics. That’s why the left tends to be duller, more self-absorbed and generally less entertaining than the right. The right is always trying to build an audience; the left is busy purging theirs’.
ORWELL’S RELIGION: It turns out this famous atheist had a supernatural side. Voodoo, to be precise.
ANOTHER LEAKED MEMO: This time, from yours truly.
POSEUR ALERT: “But as ballsy belligerence gave way to millennial flakiness, so cleansing emerged as the cosmetic ceremony du jour, with its modish connotations of purifying, stripping bare and revealing the inner outer self. If moisturiser is the double espresso of the beauty world, then cleanser is its camomile tea… something I look forward to, a cathartic close to the end of the day. Besides, it’s so now, so this time of the year.” – Hannah Bett,s the Times of London, as reported in Private Eye.
The Dish 