Peter Suderman had no Internet connection for a couple of days. He discovered that withdrawal from the blogosphere is … withdrawal:

Like most people who spend all day in front of a computer, I am hopelessly addicted to news and blogs. As many people have discovered, there’s something strangely compelling, in a narrative sense, about regular updates on your favorite news stories or from your favorite online commentators. Let me put it like this: I don’t watch soap operas, but I do read Matt Yglesias and The Corner—along with about a zillion other blogs and magazines.

But going without them, even for a relatively short period, is somewhat frightening. My mind starts to think about them, to wonder about what’s being written where and by whom—and there’s nothing there. I imagine it’s sort of like when one loses a limb and gets phantom itches (except not completely traumatic, and, obviously, entirely trivial in comparison).

I know what he means. I had hosting/domain issues earlier today and lost contact with my blog and freaked.***

———-

*** Except now I don’t worry anymore about losing all my content, because I use blogbackuponline.

That’s a free plug! ’cause I’m happy with the product.

[update: here's a nice piece, similar in feeling to mine, from Robert Poole at Reason]

Back when I was a snotty whippersnapper and I was contemptuous of anyone who didn’t think like me and my obviously morally superior cohort, I worked in the same down-at-the-heels prewar building on East 36th Street where the National Review had its offices.

When I read this tribute, I was reminded of just how culturally out-of-favor the NR was back then in the post-Vietnam era:

Before Rush Limbaugh; before conservative talk radio; before Fox News Channel; before the Weekly Standard, The American Spectator, the Heritage Foundation and even Ronald Reagan, there was Buckley and his magazine. He burst upon the scene in the early 1950s, articulating concepts and ideas that were largely dismissed in that era–and even more out of favor in the 1960s. Still, Mr. Buckley never wavered, and his brand of conservatism became part and parcel of the Reagan Revolution that followed.

I’m no Republican. Having grown up among Republicans, I had a lifetime’s worth of exposure. I don’t even visit the Corner unless I’m sent there by a link. I’m just not interested in what conservatives are saying. I’m interested in my own tribe, not theirs!

Nevertheless, I admire William F. Buckley for his style, his wit, his erudition, and his persistence and faith, with which he built a place where the loyal opposition could talk amongst themselves. My hat’s off.

This is what happens when you don’t stand up and forcefully repudiate a preacher of hate like “Minister” Farrakhan:

The state GOP on Monday issued a press release under the headline “Anti-Semites for Obama” that begins:

“The Tennessee Republican Party today joins a growing chorus of Americans concerned about the future of the nation of Israel, the only stable democracy in the Middle East, if Sen. Barack Hussein Obama is elected president of the United States.”

The release cites Obama’s support from Nation of Islam Minister Louis Farrakhan and other controversial figures.

I would note only that even Walt and Mearsheimer were smart enough to immediately repudiate David Duke when he hailed their “Israel Lobby” paper.

Barack Obama abysmally failed the easiest test of the night by refusing to jump in and reject and denounce the support of the hateful Louis Farrakhan, who spreads his evil seed far and wide in the black community.

Obama’s failure was particularly notable because it happened on the same day that John McCain raced to denounce a surrogate who made inappropriate remarks about his opponents. Not only did Obama not reject and denounce Farrakhan, but he objected to being asked to do so. Then he made a joke of the fact that there’s no difference between denouncing and rejecting. He flashed a big smile in response to Hillary’s very effective attack on him. Obama tried to be reasonable, claiming that he can’t very well reject someone for saying he’s a good guy.

Sorry, Barack: Yes you can.

John McCain did it hours earlier on the same day. And his surrogate is a nobody, whereas your surrogate, a hate monger, takes the opportunity to spread his evil seed as far and wide as he can.

It’s pretty obvious that Barack Obama’s Jewish crew consists of the deracinated, not those of us whose families were hunted down to the farthest corners of “civilized” Europe, persecuted by their neighbors, and exterminated by people who fell in love with rhetoric just like Louis Farrakhan’s.

Andrew Sullivan picked up on it right away, and he is right to be concerned.

10.09 pm. Farrakhan. Does Obama understand that saying he has consistently denounced him is not the same as simply saying, “I denounce him”? A weak response - reminiscent of Dukakis. … Obama’s Farrakhan response suggests to me he is reluctant to attack a black demagogue. … Weak, weak, weak…. His worst moment in any debate since this campaign started. I’m astounded he couldn’t be more forceful. His inability to say by himself, unprompted, that Farrakhan’s support repels him and he rejects it outright really unsettles me.

I have not believed that Obama has an ounce of sympathy for a creep like Farrakhan. But Obama has now made me doubt this. If David Duke called John McCain a good man, would McCain hesitate to say he’d rather Duke opposed him? If this is how Obama wants to tackle this emotive issue, he needs to get real.

Sullivan’s readers told him he was wrong—that Obama carried himself well. In response, Sullivan explained why he felt the way he did:

I guess I am Marty Peretz sensitive on this. Proud to be. I’ve been to a Farrakhan rally and he is so disgusting I find Obama’s calm distancing insufficient. I also think this will be used against him and worry that it will become a distracting issue. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe it’s unwise for Obama to raise the temperature on this issue. We’ll see. But he really disappointed me.

[e.a.]

I have been a consistent critic of Sullivan’s operatic Obama-love. I applaud him for his honesty here.

Barack Obama fucked up big time. His refusal, even when pressed, to forcefully denounce a preacher of hate marks him as a typical, weak-willed knee-jerk academic leftist who, in seeking to understand evil, accepts it.

It marks him as unwilling to face—and denounce—evil.

It marks him as unfit to be the commander in chief of a country at war.

I am of the left. I feel most at home on the left. I agree with many of Obama’s positions.

But I hope that John McCain drives a truck through Barack Obama. He will deserve it.