A Fun New Blog

I get bored with blogging, and it blog stats are an indication, I am boring as well. I make the rounds every time I can, and have the most fun at right wing blog sites. But even that becomes predictable. Now and then something will come along and spice it up. Currently that spice is Big Sky Cairn.

First let me state the obvious. Blogging is a small world. Even the busiest Montana blogs get only a few hundred reads every day, and very few of those who read choose to comment. Most who do comment are anonymous, as you never know if the boss (or future boss) is watching. (So much for freedom of speech – government doesn’t regulate us – the marketplace does.)

So when Jay gets after Wiley who gets after Matt and Lamindae chimes in, it’s a tempest in a teapot. I’m not saying it’s not fun. But don’t overstate its importance. Political fortunes are not made in the blogosphere. We’re just sharpening our claws, practicing wit on one another, and having fun.

So when another spearchucker comes along, it can only be more fun. And Wiley Cody at Big Sky Cairn is indeed fun. One, he puts out volume – there’s always something new up over there. Two, he’s got attitude. As I like to say, there are two types of right wingers – those who know everything and those who know nothing, and there is tremendous overlap within those two groups. Cody is of the former group – his ideas on various subjects are not only right, but he’s so much smarter than those he disagrees with that they are either stupid or dishonest.

So Cody has been spending quite a bit of time lately telling us that Jay Stevens is dishonest. Jay ought to take it as a backhanded compliment, given the alternative.

Wiley Cody is obviously very young. Politics is more like baseball than football – you don’t get 17-0 win streaks. It’s more like the best team winning ten more games than it loses. There’s very little of being “right” involved in politics, very little outright winning. It’s far more calculated than that. Wiley is talking now about Congressman Rehberg and SCHIP. He can’t see that Denny is playing it ever so carefully, not wanting to take on a popular program, not wanting to support it either. There’s not much victorious backslapping to be had in such an underhanded position, but Wiley is young and truly believes in Dennis, and, well, go read him and find out just how deluded he is.

Just as members of the other side of the coin are deluded about their own. Jay and Matt get starry-eyed about Tester, and the whole of Democratberg is currently taken with Obama. Politics is the art of straddling fences without falling and crushing your balls. But political camp followers are like sports fans – they are emotionally invested and looking for clearcut victory, and it just ain’t to be had.

But it’s not about winning. It’s about playing. It’s about positioning and getting in a good jab now and then, and even sometimes a knockout punch, though I must say that there aren’t many of those to be had.

Anyway, welcome aboard Wiley Cody, you in all your youth and naiveté. You’ve made it fun again.