Patron saint of blogging?

George Orwell?

The question was, of course, rigged. The great critic and editor Cyril Connolly fell into despair over the prolixity of Orwell’s wartime writing: “Being Orwell, nothing he wrote is quite without value and unexpected gems keep popping up. But O the boredom of argument without action, politics without power.”

Connolly was the constitutional opposite of Orwell - a spry wit given to sloth, a portly bon vivant who masticated away his genius. But he recognised, in effect, how awful Orwell would have been as a blogger, and how he would fall into the kind of dross exemplified by the author’s “In Defence of English Cooking”: “Here are some of the things that I myself have sought for in foreign countries and failed to find. First of all, kippers, Yorkshire pudding, Devonshire cream, muffins and crumpets. Then a list of puddings that would be interminable if I gave it in full: I will pick out for special mention Christmas pudding, treacle tart and apple dumplings. Then an almost equally long list of cakes: for instance, dark plum cake.”

It's a long slog to get through before you get to that enjoyable little nugget. Otherwise the article is standard issue "wry reporter who gets paid to write is amused by the megalomania of 'the blogosphere' and its pathetic bleatings that it will soon 'replace the MSM.'" He talks to Glenn Reynolds and a few "lefties" like the former Wonkette.

But what gets lost in these pieces is that the lefty side of "the blogosphere" doesn't expect to "replace the MSM." In fact, unlike Powerline and the rest of the Peignoir Media club, we don't want to. Quite the contrary. We want the "MSM" to be tough, to be curious, to be relentless. It's something that's been missing too often in these great times of ours, but that doesn't mean I want traditional newspaper reporters relegated to the trash heap. It's the right that wants that. They don't want reporters to be tough, curious, or relentless in finding the truth. Because if reporters and their editors were that way, we'd like not have had to suffer through the endless journalism head shakes over Whitewater and Vince Foster. And Iraq would still be an ugly little sore in the Middle East, not a sucking chest wound.

We want "the MSM" to remove their epaulettes, not turn in their press badges.

Atrios, thinking along similar lines (to several thousand more readers).