In a post that's actually about something else entirely, Jesse Taylor writes that Instapundit's Glenn Reynolds "is pretty much antithetical to everything I find exciting and enlightening about blogs, including the link-quote-imploration template that makes me wonder why he doesn't just become MetaFilter's most prolific poster."

Which is fine, of course. We all have our likes and dislikes. But as an old campaign hack, I have to admit that one of the things that interests me about blogs is their utility as an instrument of political communication. And in that sense, Instapundit is pretty damned fascinating. Each and every day, Glenn quite skillfully uses his site to weave the right side of the blogosphere into a coherent, compelling whole, a narrative of conservative ideas and opinion. In short, a message. And despite our signal successes -- the professional-level political and policy analysis being done by some, the potent partisan anger that's bracingly channeled by others -- the left side of Blogdom still doesn't have anything quite like an Instapundit. And we suffer for it. Every day of the week.

POSTSCRIPT: Yes, Glenn sometimes links to sites on this side of the Blogosphere, including the one you're reading now. So you could certainly argue that, with this post, I'm (subconsciously, of course) doing precisely what Jesse decries above -- dragging myself through the over-educated streets at dawn looking for a not-so-angry fix of that crack cocaine of blogging, an Instalink. On the other hand, sometimes a blog post is just a blog post. You make the call.

POSTSCRIPT 2: Sorry about the way-tired crack cocaine of metaphor. But you know, I got started with that Ginsberg stuff, and had no place else to go....

NOTE: Revised 6/13.

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