There are bloggers who are fine thinkers and writers. An excellent specimen from among the Higher Beings is Joshua Marshall of Talking Points Memo. Though his prose style is more journalistic than literary, he writes the occasional essay as well as anyone who has appeared in the yearly Best American Essays collection.

What of the other liberal Higher Beings? Kevin strives to be clear and concise about an array of topics while eschewing the short-cuts of Glenn Reynolds and succeeds. Atrios' main interest is in being timely and prolific. He likes to be the first blogger to write about a topic. Sometimes, that means being quick and dirty, as we say in journalism. One then goes back and explains the material more thoroughly in a subsequent entry or entries. The follow-up is usually better written, too. DailyKos' subject matter determines his style most of the time. He is a purveyor of political information and of analysis of that material. Kos, who has been a print journalist, has a good nose for news and the ability to make the complexities of the electoral systems in the states and nationally comprehendible by regular folks. None of these bloggers strike me as inferior to the Right Wing bloggers they were compared to in The Truth Laid Bear's ecosystem at all. Au contraire. I believe they are better, if one has a standard for blog writing that is above Free Republic.

Note: I have never gotten around to producing one of those 'best of' lists. But, this archival entry would likely be on it if I did. I think it is pretty revealing about blogging and the blogosphere. I've edited the entry for Blogcritics. It originally appeared at Mac-a-ro-nies.