Who's "Serious"?

George Will ups his narcissism ante in his column today criticizing Time magazine's person of the year. Now I won't defend Time's choice, which is obviously nothing other than craven pandering. But Will's column is, if anything, even stupider. Even by the editorial standards of the Washington Post, Will gives us one of the worst non sequiturs I've seen in a few weeks:

"There are expected to be 100 million bloggers worldwide by the middle of 2007, which is why none will be like Franklin or Paine. Both were geniuses; genius is scarce."

Everyone with the slightest familiarity with the world of political blogs knows that there are geniuses out there, and in far greater proportion than provided to us by our elite newspapers. Josh Marshall, Kevin Drum, Billmon (when he's writing), Digby, Glenn Greenwald, and Publius all offer progressive-leaning commentary superior to anything available from establishment-approved outlets. Atrios is a great editor and has an eagle eye for news. I could go on. Even though genius is scarce, if you have 100 million bloggers writing, there will be some geniuses among them. And the blogging marketplace outperforms the Washington Post editors and their ilk in identifying and granting them influence.

Will then approvingly quotes a self-serving article by Brian Willams who expresses concern that blogging narcissism will lead us to "miss the next great book or the next great idea, or . . . [to] fail to meet the next great challenge because we are too busy celebrating ourselves and listening to the same tune we already know by heart."

Who is going to miss the next great idea? Who? How about the people who ignored and botched the biggest news story of the past 4 years? Will and the "serious" people and institutions he praises are the same people and institutions who ignored questions about the Iraq war before it was launched, who kept questions off the front pages, who parroted administration stories that couldn't hold up under the slightest skepticism. The blogs were almost the only place where there was serious dialogue about the war in 2002 and 2003. Meanwhile the "serious" news media were too busy looking for the the missing white women and groveling at the feet of Commander Codpiece and his "sexy" Secretary of Defense.