# Posted 12:22 PM by Ariel David Adesnik  

Noting that most of the conservatives I know tend to read the conservative blogs and most of the liberals go to the liberal blogs, my question is whether you ever feel that blogging is some sense is simply just preaching to the choir?

I definitely get that feeling sometimes. But I also get a constant stream of e-mail from conservative readers defending the President and his advisers from OxBlog’s criticism. And most of these critics write back on a regular basis, which implies pretty strongly that they are reading OxBlog because it provides a perspective so different from their own.

Alongside such anecdotal evidence, there are surveys (conducted by Andrew Sullivan, Josh Marshall and Dan Drezner) which show that while the majority of a site’s readers tend to agree with its perspective, there is a significant minority that sees things very differently. Moreover, almost everyone seems to read Instapundit and The Daily Dish sometimes, if only to find out what the other guys are thinking.

Is the Blog a permanent fixture in our culture?

At first, I thought the answer was definitely ‘no’. After all the irrational exuberance that surrounded the internet bubble, what reason was their to believe that a minor HTML application would have a lasting impact on our culture? But what’s really persuaded me otherwise is seeing the way that top-flight professional journalists have come to embrace blogging as a means of expression. At the New York Times, Nick Kristof and Dan Okrent have their own blogs. At The New Republic, everyone seems to have their own blog.

While there may have been a lot of hype at the beginning about how bloggers are the vanguard of a grassroots revolution, I think that blogging is here to stay not because of its accessibility, but because it is a medium that works just as well for a professional as it does for a college student or a homemaker.

Do your experiences being Jewish influence your postings on your Blog? For instance, Daniel Drezner told me that he tends to avoid ever writing about the Israeli-Palestinian issue because it is both depressing and ultra-polarizing and he finds it easier to avoid it?

As I mentioned above, my religion plays an important role when I write about religion. But I don’t think it plays much of a role in my discussion of politics. A few years ago, I felt exactly the way Dan does about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. You can’t get away from Israel when you go to yeshiva. But you can avoid it in college and graduate school.

That all changed after 9/11. I realized that my intentional ignorance left me totally unprepared for the day when the Middle East became a matter of life and death for Americans, and not just for Arabs and Israelis. With Iraq dominating the headlines, I don’t write about Israel as much as I want. But I am committed to learning more.

Do you ever find instances where you feel the need that you should note that you are Jewish in your blog? At least one blogger told me he feels the need when discussing issues like anti-semitism or policy on Israel.

There aren’t too many goyim with names like ‘David Adesnik’. I also mention my Judaism pretty often in contexts that don’t have to do with Israel or anti-Semitism. Since most of OxBlog’s readers are regulars rather than one-timers, they know to take my religion into account when writing about related subjects.

Overall, how has Blogging changed your life and how do you balance it with all the other demands on you?

I have a relatively hard and fast rule that I don’t start blogging until I’m done with my work for the day. That’s why so many of my posts go up after midnight. Being unmarried and under 30, my schedule is generally pretty flexible. I haven’t thought about this before, but I’m guessing that most serious bloggers tend to be younger and have fewer children. Then again, Glenn Reynolds doesn’t fit any of those profiles.


I was wondering if you could comment on how your blog has propelled you into the mainstream and more traditional press. Without Oxblog, would you have had the opportunity to write for a publication such as the Weekly Standard? A large part of my article will concentrate on how bloggers are shaking up traditional media and providing competition for the press "elites," if you will.

That’s a tough question. I think the fact that I work with Josh Chafetz is at least as important as the fact that I write for OxBlog. Josh was an intern at The New Republic before he founded OxBlog. He has always had his finger on the mainstream pulse.

As a result, there are a lot of editors out there who read OxBlog. But even if they read OxBlog because of Josh, they also wind up reading a lot of what Patrick and I have to say. When I pitched my article on Reagan to the Weekly Standard a couple of weeks ago, I got one of the editors’ e-mail address from Josh. I still needed to have a marketable idea, but connections gave me the chance to market it.

Of course, there are other ways to get into the Weekly Standard. Five years ago I published a book review in the Standard. I got the editors’ attention that time around because I was working for Bob Kagan. So merit alone wasn’t responsible.

But even if connections have helped me break into the the mainstream, the fact that I am blogger makes me want to shake up the media and challenge its elites. In that sense, blogging is more of an attitude than it is a profession.