Dead Cant Rant

Via e-mail today from Townhall.com: Townhall SoapBoxes

Beginning this week, Townhall.com will open the Townhall Soapboxes, where Townhall readers can stand up and be counted.

Townhall readers can now sign up to comment on the blog entries by the staff. And readers can now even create their own Soapbox blog and let the world know what they think.

You’ve have to have an opinion on something. Something’s been bothering you lately. Something’s got you all ticked off. Someone said something stupid on one of the talking heads shows and you want to respond. Who knows what’s on your mind?

Townhall.com is the largest online publication of its kind, and you can be a part of the action.

This is an interesting concept, but I don’t expect it to last very long. I mean, how long before “SweetCheeks69″ posts about her availability for all to see?

Case in point, from soapbox columnist “cemab4y” comes this enlightened bit of wisdom: How long will we be in Iraq?

How long?

How long?

Yes, that’s the entire “story”.

Or this one, from “cleo”: Senator Durbin

I have to say thank you to Senator Durbin. For telling the truth. Maybe some don’t like to admit us angels from the US, is part of the criminal justified dutyies. Like we are so perfect, right.

With research you can find the truth. Like Durbin did. Check out Dahr Jamal’s Iraq Dispatches.com, and you may view photos as proof. Not only is he offering proof, it takes guts, something the public is lacking. It makes me so angry that one someone steps foreward with truth he is the bad guy, and the liars are the winners. That is what is wrong with this world. Thank you.

TownHall is opening itself up to a massive influx of people who vehemently disagree with their mainline conservative point of view. This is fine, provided this is their intent. But it’s obvious from their e-mail announcement that this is exactly the opposite of what they intended:

Each day in the Townhall offices, we get letters and hundreds of emails from good Americans all across the country — and some stationed overseas, asking how they can help-how they can get involved and spread the word.

Many of them are disillusioned by the left wing’s dominance of the mainstream media and they want to help cut through the static.

…

Whether it’s filibusters and judges, taxes and bureaucrats, or Michael Jackson and the culture, we want to hear from you.

One of the great things about TownHall is its concentration of superior talent, with editorial control. Blogs are great — we’re obviously biased in that area — but TownHall is a site for columnists, not bloggers. What they’ve essentially created is an online message board, more akin to Slashdot than to a true weblog, where “cemab4y” and “cleo” — and, yes, “SweetCheeks69″ — can run amok and make a mockery of what has historically been a serious conservative site.

Here’s hoping this will not result in a major dilution of the TownHall brand.