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• I think the topic is worthy and compelling, and I certainly deplore the nation's class stratification, of which political nepotism is a symptom... but on this hard day's night I can't think of anything pithy to add on the topic.
• FWIW, I'm astonished that JKP1000 omitted Frank Sinatra, Jr., from his list of dynastic performers.
• And am I correct to think those "Editor's Choice" stars have just debuted here? I know they're standard on those other Salon columns I rarely read, much less comment on. Meh. If Glenn himself awards them, OK. I find the concept irritating for reasons I won't bore folks with.
• Also, while I fully respect and support Glenn's editorial decisions, I'm more bitterly opposed than ever to comments censorship since I was a victim of CommonDreams' post-election Night of the Long Knives purge. I'm by no means sucking up when I say that Glenn's approach is an exception. He practices what he preaches, and obviously weeds this English garden with great care, restraint, discernment, and discretion. In a word, Glenn is fair.
No offense to anyone, but I'm extremely wary of the idea of Glenn deputizing volunteers to assist him in this function. I certainly wouldn't want the responsibility, even if I could spend the required time here-- not that I harbor the conceit that my name leaps to mind, BTW.
It's too much of a slippery slope; I've seen too many sites in which vigilante comments commissars delight in their power to zealously attack supposed "trolls" or "disruptive" visitors who challenge cliques of regulars or disrespect the host.
Sometimes the intervention is compounded by deliberate ambiguity over whether the commissar has actually been appointed by the host, or if they're taking it upon themselves-- of course, if they can actually censor or delete offending comments, it's obvious that they have administrative privileges conferred by the host.
Frankly, although I don't want to Name Names, I don't think much of certain popular leftish bloggers who, unlike Glenn, respond to the admittedly difficult issue of controlling pathological commenters by a combination of cultivating an "in-group" of bouncers and implementing harsh top-down, authoritarian, draconian rules because they don't have time to "babysit" the comments, etc. Especially when they can't bothered to clarify ambiguities or inconsistencies in their ground rules.
I'm reasonably sure that I'm not in danger of being banned by Glenn for the crime of being an occasionally tedious and always garrulous pain in the ass, and I enjoy the ephemeral sense of "community" that comes from long-term participation in blog comments. But in my experience, recruiting comments police is not the answer.
