The Second Stuporpower
Friday, April 4th, 2003
Bloggers determined to prove they can be just as clueless and backbiting as the professional journalists they deride scored a major milestone this week, by piling on Andrew Orlowski at The Register. Orlowski’s offense to the blogosphere? Daring to make fun of them in a witty, inside-reference-packed column about the sudden fuss over an essay by James Moore at Harvard touting the peace movement as “the second superpower.”
A blog-by-blog counter-rebuttal to every counterattack on Orlowski would take all day, so let me just toss in one fact and an opinion.
The factual correction
Claims that Moore coined the phrase himself are just plain wrong. It’s been in use for some time - see examples here and here, or ask your friends closer to the active peace movement. Heck, just ask Dr Moore, who made no such claim in the least. The fact that the exact phrase “second superpower” didn’t appear in the NY Times article Orlowski cited doesn’t negate his observation that some bloggers are acting as if the term were invented at Harvard on March 31st and refers to the power of the Net, rather than to the scope of worldwide anti-war public opinion.
My opinion
The backlash hauls out the inevitable claim that this is yet another hit piece by a professional journalist threatened by A-list bloggers. Yet Andrew Orlowski is a better writer than any of them, as his article demonstrates. He’s smart, funny, insightful, and fair in that he makes fun of everyone, even me. And The Register draws more readers than any weblog - even Instapundit! - every day. Who’s really threatened by who here?
