Sorry about dropping out for a few days.  It wasn't a case of not having anything to say; rather, it took me a while to figure out how to say it.

It all started Friday evening when I interviewed David Poole, NASCAR beat/features/ commentary writer for the Charlotte Observer and its online NASCAR entity ThatsRacin.com.  Mr. Poole is hailed by everyone with more than three functioning brain cells as one of the very best at all of the above.  The interview was for my NASCAR blog.  It was a fascinating session loaded with quality comments and observations by Mr. Poole; I hope to have it posted in a few days or as soon as the transcript gets here, whichever comes first (had to farm it out as I'm focused on the Sean Doty chapter for the new book).

After completing the interview, I dealt with several realizations, the kind discovered only when you learn something not previously known, or at the least fully understood.  The amount of work Mr. Poole does to cover a race; his comments about the blogosphere... wow.  Definitely made me stop and think about what I do both on the NASCAR blog and here.  With this experience plus what I learned when I interviewed Lee Spencer of FOX Sports, my understanding and corresponding appreciation for what the press does is growing by leaps and bounds.

It's not a case of blanket approval; bad reporting is still bad reporting and should be called out as such.  However, going along with this shouldn't the blogosphere seek out good reporting to promote and praise it with the same fervor shown hunting down inaccurate or disingenuous reporters and reporting?  After all, the blogosphere's mantra is wanting the media to exercise fairness, accuracy, and accountability.  If it is not willing to exhibit these in examining all aspects of the MSM, why should it be surprised to be disrespected in like kind?

Tied into this is the blogosphere's obsession with tracking down every flaw, real or imagined, in the MSM without considering where the topic/subject/person(s) involved ranks in importance when compared to genuine issues of the day, or much of anything else involved in this process referred to as life.  A prime example of this comes from two people who ought to know better, namely Michelle Malkin and Mary Katherine Ham.

The Associated Press, currently every conservative blogger's favorite whipping boy over the Jamil Hussein "he doesn't exist/oops, well okay he does exist but he's still making stuff up the AP swallows whole" kerfuffle, in its employee directory has one Ilana Donna Arazie, who has a video blog detailing her and her friends' lives and times.  It's rather silly and self-obsessed fluff on the part of all concerned; hardly a must-see.  But it is what it is, and for reasons known to itself AP has decided to include it as part of its 'ASAP' service aimed at providing multimedia content for the under thirty-five crowd.  Nothing worth getting worked up over.  Ignore it and move on.

Oh no, can't do that.  We must attack!  We must pounce!  We must demonstrate our superiority in every way!  And so, Ms. Malkin and Ms. Ham have devoted a video blog and written blog post respectively to the subject, excoriating Ms. Arazie for the unspeakable crime of being a single woman who along with her friends talks about things like sex (try reading the Girl With A One Track Mind blog sometime -- by comparison, Ms. Arazie's video blog is more wholesome than Ozzie and Harriet) and, of course, the AP for adding Ms. Arazie's video blog to a branch of the company dedicated to providing content for... um, people who along with their friends talk about things like sex.  The nerve.

Is there nothing better to blog about?  House Speaker Pelosi's overseas trip, Hillary Clinton's first few presidential campaign appearances, the war, the Senate debate over the minimum wage law... c'mon.  Even a serious, Scriptural examination of the mindset evidenced by Ms. Arazie and her friends would be better than another screech from the electronic birdcage liner about the rotten, evil MSM.  However, given that a serious Scriptural self-examination by Ms. Ham of the vapid coquettish act paraded throughout every episode of her video blog in which she plays the part of Queen Ihima ("in here I'm Miss America") to the hilt would result in possibly providing something of genuine value in her video blogs rather than fantasy food for lifeless blog comment writers, perhaps the examination should first be directed inward.

The man Ms. Arazie and her friends need in their lives is Jesus Christ.  The same also applies to Ms. Malkin and Ms. Ham.  However, the latter claim to know Him; Ms. Arazie and company do not.  There is therefore no excuse for Ms. Malkin and Ms. Ham wasting their time tilting at trivial windmills when actual giants menace the land... especially when one of the two is guilty of the same crime, namely vanity, for which she berates others.