Balls and Walnuts
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Steve Gilliard, RIP
Only a few of my readers follow the progressive blogs, and I don’t know how many of you read The News Blog with any regularity. I know (from searching my blog posts just a moment ago) that I have shouted out Steve on more than a few occasions.
Well, it’s been a sad weekend for the progressive blogosphere, since we’ve lost one of our most incisive voices. Karen and I were regular readers of The News Blog. Steve could move us to write, to act, to donate to his blog (which is a bigger deal than you might imagine — we usually reserve our donations for ACLU, Planned Parenthood, Sierra Club, and progressive political campaigns). He could also infuriate us from time to time, which is why I took him off my blogroll at one point. But I kept sneaking looks by way of others’ blogrolls.
Others have highlighted their favorite Gilly posts, like this one from Meteor Blades. This one from September 3, 2005, remains one of my favorite Steve Gilliard rants. He’s writing about the way New Yorkers were ahead of the ball with regard to Bush — it took Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath to wake up the rest of the country. What follows is an excerpt. Read the whole thing here.
Instead of hearing what we had to say about Bush, you called John Kerry a coward, mocked Max Cleland, blamed everything but herpes on Bill Clinton. You enabled Bush into this mess and now you’re shocked?
Now, Fox can be outraged, now, Wash Times and Union Leader call Bush weak? Well, his coward ass disappeared in 2001. But you rather blame Michael Moore for that.
He can’t even explain the Iraq war to a grieving mother.
So what did you do?
Write the most vile things about her and her dead son. Attacked her patriotism and her honesty.
Well, motherfuckers, and that means you, fat ass Goldberg and your master, Rich Lowry, PNAC Bitch Beinart, the racist wannabe white Malkin and the little fucktards at LGF, Bareback Andy and “Diversity” Instacracker, all you backstabbing, fag hating uncle tom ministers, you can see Dear Leader in action. America’s largest port is gone, maybe forever, gas is $5+ a gallon and FEMA is coming. Whores come faster with old men than FEMA is getting to NOLA.
How did your wartime President react? Like Chiang Kai-Shek when the Yellow River flooded in 1944, with corrupt indifference.
Meteor Blades’ pick highlights Steve at his thoughtful best; this post, however, catches his incandescent rage. What a voice. We’ll miss you, Steve.
D.
P.S.: At DailyKos, pastordan has the perfect prayer.
Steve Gilliard 1966-2007…
I don’t know why I feel this overwhelming sadness at his loss. I really didn’t know Steve at all….
For me, he had such a crisp, clear writing voice. Reading him was (I imagine) much like having him on the phone with you — I can almost imagine him saying, “Did you see this latest bullshit?”
Such a loss.
I don’t read the progressive blogs much, but I did read Steve for a long time. It’s strange how the death of someone you’ve ‘known’ online has more impact than, say, the death of someone you’ve only read in the newspaper. I think this is because blogs are interactive to some degree; the person at the other end is obviously a human.
I’ll miss him, a lot. I checked in at least once a week. Sometimes I thought he was talking out his ass, but even then with so much vigor and strenght — you had to respect that passion. And when I thought he was on target I wanted to stand up and cheer and go around repeating every word of it.
Dean, I like to tell my sister (who has lots of pen pals) that blogging is the same thing, only more frequent and more interactive. Still can’t convince her to start a blog, though! Which is a shame, since I think she would find a lot of other teachers online to shmooz with. And stampers. And people with obnoxious relatives. Listening, sis?
As for Steve, I’m with both of you on this. He really could be infuriating at times, but he always commanded respect.