Steve Gilliard, 1964-2007

The first blogger I ever read was Jorn Barger's Robot Wisdom Weblog. When he drove me away with his anti-semitism, I was happy to become a hanger-on at the Metafilter community. Then came the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and I soon discovered other blogs: Stephen den Beste, TomPaine.com, Arthur Silber. Around the same time, Kos and Eschaton and Josh Marshall. And then I discovered Steve Gilliard and his News Blog.

Steve quickly became my favorite blogger. He was my favorite until the day he died. The News Blog community was my hangout. I could discern a Hubris Sonic comment from a Gracchus observation from a "Doc" Jesse Wendel diagnosis from a LowerManhattanite gem, before seeing the names at the ends of their comments. For a long time I commented under a variation of my real name, and then as Queequeg.

I was missing Steve terribly just a week or two after his hospitalization. I read today that he fell ill in February, and it was shocking to realize how long he had been out of commission.

I miss his perceptiveness and his combativeness. I miss his stentorian predictions: Bush would resign before the end of his second term; the Democrats would win both houses of Congress in 2006. Steve was right about the latter and let's hope he was correct about the former.

The Internet has a big hole to fill. Let's hope Hubris Sonic, Julia, Gracchus and yes, LowerManattanite can put together a permanent group blog to follow Steve's tradition.

I will always miss him.