Taking sides is what blogging is all about

"What is fair and balanced?" Roger L. Simon asks the pajama-clad minions out here in the hinterlands, soliciting the earnest and true feedback of the sleepers that blog. Lots of good comments at Roger's blog, as always, but hey.  Let's not get too full of ourselves here. Like Dick Cheney years ago when asked something deliberately provocative by the MSM, we say to the esteemed Mr. Simon & Company, "I disagree with the premise of your question." Who says "fair and balanced" is the gold standard, anyway?

If we misspell something, we correct it and give credit if someone else calls us on it -- ditto anything else of interest that comes up in the comments, which can often be the kernel of a new post -- but we don't hold this blogospheric chalkboard to be so sacrosanct that we must leave all our typos up there for posterity. We were semi-shocked, shocked today when we found blog pal TigerHawk thinking he had to leave a misspelling of Condi's last name up in the headline of an awesome -- totally awesome -- post linked by both InstaPundit and some other biggie, fergossake. Just correct the headline and make mention of the correction in a footnote.

Fair and balanced?  Whassat?  One of Roger's commenters thinks it means being disinterested, and we couldn't disagree more.  Taking sides is what blogging is all about, but when it's done well, it's evenhanded, attentive to the facts but always driven by a heartfelt worldview that makes it so much fun and worthwhile. We particularly loved this comment from Simon fan Jamie Irons:

As long as you agree with my prejudices -- right of center on national security, left of center on most other matters, very conservative (i.e. rigorous) on education -- that will be fair enough, and balanced, from my point of view . . .

That sounds pitch perfect.

Update:  TigerHawk writes to explain the "hideous reason" why he had to leave that typo in the headline of his post on Condi:

If you change the title of the post in Blogger, the permalink will change. All those readers coming from Glenn Reynolds, Roger Simon and Austin Bay would have gotten a "post not found" error. Imagine my frustration, therefore, to have discovered the typo after Glenn Reynolds linked!

As we replied in the comments, the gods must be punishing him for trying to steal their fire.

Comments

[Aakash]

Roger L. Simon is one of the many liberal bloggers, commentators, and U.S./world leaders
http://uis.blogspot.com/2004_07_01_uis_archive.html#109133309941325229
who supported the Iraq war, and who have been supporting the liberal internationalist foreign policy of the Bush administration.
http://uis.blogspot.com/2004_07_01_uis_archive.html#109133309941325229

I may have, in the past, mispelled Condi's first name - but her last name?

Wait - I just looked at his post update, and I see that it is her first name after all (oops! - not a mispelling, but a typo... in this entry ;-)...

I actually thought that her first name was really spelled "Condaleeza"... Apparently, that's not the case.

[Aakash]

Oops - that was a mistyping on my part. The comment that I typed initially used embedded links, but I then found out that they weren't used here. The link that was about liberal internationalism and our government's current foreign policy was this one:
http://uis.blogspot.com/2004_01_01_uis_archive.html#107455604648659084

I guess that this is the day for mistypings, mispellings, and misteaks.

[TigerHawk]

Sissy, the problem is that if you change the title of the post in Blogger the permalink will change. All those readers coming from Glenn Reynolds, Roger Simon and Austin Bay would have gotten a "post not found" error. Imagine my frustration, therefore, to have discovered the typo after Glenn Reynolds linked!

By the way, it is the second time that has happened to me, which makes it all the more embarrassing. I also had a typo in the title of a post that Charles Johnson linked to back a couple of months ago, and had to leave it in for the same hideous reason.

[Sissy Willis]

Misteaks? Sounds yummy. :)