Uncritical Linking

This is a very minor observation about a growing phenomenon. I get more and more complaints from readers, mostly liberals, for linking to op-eds, blog posts, whatever without fully critiquing and fact checking every detail in said article. For example, this morning I made a joke about how David Broder of all people had started a controversy by linking to a NY Sun editorial. I received this overheated email, from an ostensibly conservative reader:

Jonah, I get tired of the blogger’s cop-out of just posting links to “controversies” without comment. (Well, in your case the comment was something unintelligible about “end times.”) So you found an editorial in the New York Sun to back up Broder on Reid. Congrats for knowing where the fish will bite. I doubt you’re able to actually defend the editorial, which operates under the assumption that as long as we have soldiers in the theater, the war by definition can’t be “lost.” I and the majority of Americans who favor withdrawal didn’t realize it was a “last man standing” affair. And Reid probably didn’t either. You supported this war in the most arrogant manner conceivable, then made a very belated, half-assed admission of error, and now you think you can be cheeky about people who are prepared to face the reality of your own party’s f**k-ups, simply because they might make some politically clumsy remark. There’s moral equivalency for you. The notion that the occupation can only prolong the instability in Iraq seems lost on you. Correct me if I’m wrong. The Sun makes an absolutely disgraceful connection between Broder’s army service and his ostensible credibility on Iraq. Apparently Broder’s service puts him in a different “culture” than the entire Democratic party, in spite of the fact that neither Bush nor Cheney served and many Democrats did. And here we have the NY Sun bending over backwards to admire our military “defending freedom abroad” when there’s no evidence they’re successfully doing any such thing, and which characterizes the occupation in a way that should deeply offend the Iraqis themselves, who are the victims of this so-called defense of freedom. What an unfortunate pretzel to be twisted into. The question is, can your side get any more intellectually dishonest? I’ve been reading the Corner for years and have watched a steady degeneration of quality. There is such a depressing lack of shame.

Me: On a completely different front, Brad Plumer over at The Plank suggests that Steve Hayward is a hack because he “approvingly” linked to an Alexander Cockburn piece without ripping it to shreds first.

Now, you’ll note I am completely ignoring the substance of both Plumer’s post and the above reader’s. You know why? Because I am trying to make a different point than the one some reader wants me to make. Which, in fact, is my point. The idea that I have to offer a considered and lengthy judgment (invariably one that conforms to the opinions of some critic) whenever linking to a third party item is absurd. Part of what good blogs do is call readers’ attention to other stuff. Period.

In my early morning post I was joshing about how rare it is that Broder stirs controversy. If some reader wishes I had instead used that opportunity to crawl on broken glass to apologize about the war, that’s his problem. Similarly, all Steve Hayward was doing was playfully pointing out something eminently true: that Cockburn’s column must be annoying his colleagues at The Nation. That hardly makes him a hack.

I bring up these example simply because they’re fresh ones. But these sorts of complaints are definitely on the rise. I’m not sure what it means.

Update: Posted without further comment: