Matt Welch points to an interview with his buddy Tim Blair about life, the bloggyverse, and everything. Blair’s a funny guy, and the interview is largely amusing, but Blair seems to suffer the same tired sense of victimization that many conservatives wrap themselves in:
John Hawkins: Why do you think that so many of the popular political websites on the web are conservative?
Tim Blair: Because conservatives are starved for conservative content and analysis in the general media. Lefties always point out Rush and O’Reilly and Will in the US and the few con pundits who exist in Australia, but these people are massively outweighed by the liberal bias of the non-pundit mainstream press. And, for that matter, by the non-con punditry as well. I don’t see the government helping fund a right-wing NPR.
Remember those red-lensed glasses with cardboard frames you’d get as a kid that let you see “secret messages”? The secret messages were hidden under red ink, so putting the special glasses on allowed you to filter out the red ink and see what was there. I swear, conservatives must wear some kind of special glasses that filters out “conservative content and analysis in the general media” and makes them see nothing but NPR and Maureen Dowd. It doesn’t matter that all evidence suggests that there’s plenty of conservative voices in the newspapers’ op-ed pages, conservatives will complain that they’re starved for conservative content.
When Rush Limbaugh, G. Gordon Liddy, Oliver North et al started dominating talk radio, it was because conservatives are starved for conservative content and analysis in the general media.
When FoxNews launched with its “we report, you decide” slogan and started killing CNN in the ratings, it was because conservatives are starved for conservative content and analysis in the general media.
When right-wing publications like the Wall Street Journal, the National Review, and the Weekly Standard created popular web sites, it was because conservatives are starved for conservative content and analysis in the general media.
Now that blogland is awash in highly-trafficked conservative and libertarian sites, including Blair’s, it’s because conservatives are starved for conservative content and analysis in the general media.
Hey, Blair. Is there any point at which you guys are gonna start eating and stop whining?