See What Happens When I Go Away For A Weekend?

Sorry for the flippant headline, but I think that Steve would like it if he could see it.   At least, I like to think he would.

Man, oh, man.  Another great one is gone too soon, too soon.

Steve Gilliard is the reason you’re reading this blog.  Shortly after I got online in the mid-’90s, right in the middle of the GOP’s Hunting of President Clinton, a friend of mine forwarded me a link to something Steve had written for his Gilliard News.  I liked it, and wrote to Steve to tell him so.  He e-mailed me back to tell me about this great new online magazine called Salon that he thought I should check out.  I did, and promptly fell in love – this was the Salon of Murray Waas and Mollie Dickenson, back when they were doing the best political reporting in America.  I checked the site several times a day, and got hooked on their “Table Talk” message boards, the place where some of the bloggers we all now know and love used to hang out:  Atrios (he called himself “Kurt Foster” then), TBogg, and a host of others.  

I, and I suspect a lot of other folk, owe a lot to Steve.  He was a pioneer with a genius for encapsulating the most complex concepts in simple, powerful answers.   As Stormcrow noted in the comments to MEC’s post on this yesterday, he was also one of the few online lefties who was able to talk knowledgably about military issues.   This came in handy when discussing Iraq.

Steve had enough military knowledge to be able to predict, before it happened, just what a bad move (militarily as well as morally) invading and occupying Iraq would be — and to be able to convince righties (who like to mock lefties for being ignorant about such matters) that he knew whereof he spoke.   He was able to direct us towards military histories that went far beyond (and in many cases, directly contradicted) what we learned in high school, and we became better citizens thereby.

Furthermore, Steve had the sort of faculty for incisive, direct speech and action I tend to associate with Marines.   To wit:  He’s the one who gave us the vivid imagery of Moqtada al-Sadr sipping coffee at the Balad Starbucks after Balad’s eventual and inevitable forced repatriation to the Iraqis.  There are many ways to depict the monumental hubristic stupidity of Bush and the PNAC Platoon in thinking they could easily impose their will without penalty on Iraq, but for sheer slap-in-the-face, wake-up-stupidhead power, few can touch that image of Steve’s.

Ave atque vale, Steve!   I’m glad you’re not suffering any more, though I wish you could have stayed a while longer.