The Antidote

South of the 49th Parallel
77°02' West to 122°23' West

Not long ago we got a little carried away and described Heather Mallick as an 'Anti-Coulter' to call our own and the 'Mark Morford of the North'.

We were probably a little off the mark with both suggestions but that doesn't mean it wasn't worth bringing up because we all need to know who's out there trying to do the right thing.

Maybe the bigger question is - is there anybody south of border right now that can really take it to the greedheads, unyieldingly, and win?

Clearly, that person will not, and cannot, come from the mainstream media because of the level of control and coercion that anybody working for the big Trusts must operate under these days.

So, is there a blogger with the POV, the guts, the integrity, and the writing skills to do the job?

At first we thought that person was going to be Billmon before he self-destructed Nov. 3rd after he was struck dumb by the realization that American exceptionalism, at least for the time being, is dead.

But now we've stumbled across somebody else who seems to be up for the job.

His name is Steve Gilliard.

Initially, we started hanging out at Mr. Gilliard's place because of the writing.

And the POV was pretty good as well.

But this past weekend it became quite clear that Gilliard has all the integrity and guts he needs to make a go of it as well.

You see, the Re-thug integrity-challenged Screamers (ie. the New Republic Online, Instapundit) had a go at Mr. Gilliard after he suggested that Armstrong Williams, the black media shill who took money from the Rovians to boost the 'No White/All Black Children Left Behind' initiative on his talk show, was an Uncle Tom.

As a result, the Screamers sent their swarms of locusts (aka 'trolls') over to Gilliard's where they started shrieking that he was a spineless, bitter, liberal racist (and worse).

Gilliard and the regular posters on his site stood their ground and the resulting fireworks were most interesting.

Even better, today Steve had this to say:

"What stunned me with the trolls was the idea that they could call me a racist and I would care.... Conservatives make the assumption that liberals care what they think and will react to it.

There's a tendency for liberals to try and be fair, to consider other viewpoints, so we get baited by them in debates on terms that they set. I'm going to act on the following: I don't care what conservatives think. The NRO Corner thinks I'm a racist, I don't care, their opinions on race are meaningless.......

.....I'm not writing to make conservatives happy. I want them to hate my opinions. I'm not interested in debating them.

I want to stop them."

Isn't that something? And you don't have to just take our word for it. Folks with a much better nose for this sort of thing, people like James Wolcott, have this to say about Gilliard:

"Gilliard is a good guy who sometimes uses bad language, according to the girls in the bridge club. I haven't noticed this myself, but then again I was raised by Wallace Beery and Marie Dressler, two names lost on most of you."

What's that we see off on the horizon?

Could it be the real thing?

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btw - in case you haven't caught on, and it took us a while (and the Screamers even longer), Mr. Gilliard is, himself, black.