Tim’s new horizon in blogging

It’s well over-time to acknowledge Tim Dunlop’s spectacular blogging achievement in undertaking an in-depth, multiple part review of former White House counterterrorism official Richard Clarke’s book Against All Enemies: Inside America’s War on Terror. Tim combines his book review with an ongoing analysis of current US political events involving Clarke, especially Bush Administration reactions to his Senate testimony, making for a compelling commentary on US political events in the run-up to November’s Presidential election.

I’m especially impressed by Tim’s latest instalment (Richard Clarke 18), which exhibits a nuanced scepticism about Clarke, and a recognition of the complexity and frequent ambiguity of political choices not always present in some of the earlier instalments (and never present in Tim Blair’s work).

This is a series which exemplifies the potential that blogging has to achieve things to which conventional political journalism simply can’t aspire, and a challenge to the rest of us who believe that blogging can fulfill an invaluable role in a genuinely liberal democratic society. Unfortunately it’s a challenge to which I won’t be rising in the immediate future due to pressure of other work (not to mention an all-consuming romantic obsession against which blogging takes a distant second place).

PS – Speaking of Tim Blair, it sounds horribly like the ABC is thinking about saddling him up as co-host on Media Watch with David Marr!!!! Oh God! It’d be like World Championship Wrestling for geeks!!! Can blatantly appalling right-wing bias balance blatantly appalling left-wing bias, I wonder? Or will we just have our intelligence insulted from both directions at once?