I stopped paying attention to her (except when used as a punchline) when it became apparent that the only thing she was moderately good at was manipulating media/political hype. And she wasn't even good at either of those things separately. She could only manage it when she blended them together in useless, unatural combinations.

Now this blog thing of hers fails to even generate significant hype. Smart money, I'd say, is this being the first in a series of ungracious exits from the spotlight.

It's unfair (and a bit smug) to say that politics is easy. In politics, your efforts are measured against those of a (possibly capable) adversary, and there are no prizes for finishing second. In blogging, you can finish 83rd and still feel you've won.

I still can't tell Arianna's voice from Teresa Heinz Kerry's.

Hmm. Reminds me more of something like townhall.com than it does of a blog...

Some of us remember her from her time as a journalist in London. A succesion of ever richer walkers was how it seemed to work.
BTW, did you know you’re on her blog roll? Except that it goes to vodkapundit.blogspot.com?

I dunno. What with articles like Hilary Rosen of the RIAA complaining about DRM, it has potential to become one of the better humor blogs around. And by "humor blog" I mean "laughingstocks of the internets".

Where can one find a picture of Wonkette's killer rack?

I like to see things like her blog. I believe that the more information we have access too, the better off we’ll all be in the long run.

I see an analogy here with the old “you have to get a cockroach out into the light before you can stomp on it” line. Too many celebraties have hidden behind the Hollywood facade for too long. Finding out if they really have active brain cells, and an actual ability to communicate could be very enlightening.

Acting is supposed to be all about communicating, right? Well now, lets see them try to put their thoughts and feelings into words.

Of course, my fear is that they will hide behind their publicists and ghost writers. But even that might still give us a little insight into what they are really thinking (or FEELING). If their blogs turn out to be more fluff than stuff, they’ll never last on the top 10,000 list.

Unfortunately, jmaster, most can only recite (extremely well!) what others have written for them. Shakespeare had it right, for what is Hecuba to him or he to Hecuba?

Writing an original thought or synthesizing different concepts into a new idea is much, much more difficult.

At a glance, it reminds me of The Onion.

That might be a compliment.

I like The Onion, but I still don't visit much (almost never).

dorkafork,

Have you seen Jim Lampley stating, apparently without any trace of irony, that the betting lines on Kerry in Vegas PROVES that the election was stolen? Who had Lamps winning the "Most Unhinged Lefty" among all the worthy candidates?

Hey, I went to vokapundit.blogspot.com just to see what's there and the answer is "not much," but there is a blogroll and for the hell of it I clicked on Protein Wisdom because I haven't visited that site in a while out of shame over making an ass of myself in the comments section one stressed-out day, and the link took me to the dictionary.com entry for "retard."

How did you know?

"Or maybe her stable of writers will figure out that building a blog audience (I refuse to type "blaugience")..."

But you just did, Stephen. You just did. Oh, the horror ... ;)

SaveFarris --

And Congressman Conyers comments in his own entry:

'On Huffington Post today, Jim Lampley brings the story back to its essential question: who are you going to believe -- what the mainstream media tells you or your lying eyes?'

By golly, it *is* a live blog.

If there's such a thing as inertia in the blog world, it's a short-lived thing.

I dunno. I'm still getting a thousand visits a day to my main page.

With all due respect, Mr. Den Beste, some of your posts had their own gravitational fields -- never mind momentum ;-) You are doomed to fame even when you decline to write.

Is it just me or is she doing a really bad impression of Zsa Zsa Gabor?

I read it on Monday and laughed. Made the mistake again today and laughed harder.

If I keep reading it I might get a big head and convince myself I KNOW more than the writers.

Wait a minute! I do.

Three cheers for Steven Den Beste!

I thought the fake Vodkapundit was done with some wit, at least...or half one, anyway.

Can someone please explain how Arianna has any credibility at all? She married a rich guy, who turned out to be gay, so now she hates Republicans. Yet she is a typical blue-blood Republican flying around the country showing up everywhere commenting on everything. Who cares? Who invites her? Isn't she Jim Jeffords or John McCain in drag? What's next? Maybe a reality show featuring Arianna and Martha Stewart called "Getting invited to where you're not wanted."

What a horrible post on the betting markets. First, those prices weren't "set," by any social-professional bookmakers, they were just the prices at which the latest trades had cleared. Second, the markets showed Bush with a comfortable lead for months before election day. Third, the markets moved at exactly the time when the leaked exit polls hit the internet. Conclusion: speculators got burned by investing off of bad information.

Even in Hollywood, the mediocre star eventually flames out. And, when they look back on their career, what can they take pride in?

On the other hand, there are those actors who may never break into the top billing, but who deliver a solid, meaningful performance each time. We'll all seen that guy, film after film, crafting gems out of small parts. They don't make the big bucks, but they build a career that spans decades. Sometimes, late in their career, they get some way-overdue glory. More often, not.

But they are actors. Not stars.

In real life, you get your satisfaction from a job well done, not the adulation of the crowd.