I saw the news the other day that Dennis Hastert, Speaker of the US House of Representatives, started blogging. Interesting, I thought, even though the blog doesn’t have an RSS feed nor a way to leave comments. So I blogrolled it for a look now and again and moved on.
Until I saw this comment just now in my RSS feeds in a post by Jeff Jarvis:
[…] So the man two heartbeats away from the Presidency is blogging.
Now that makes it a far more interesting proposition than seeing it as just another politican who’s started a blog as a one-way communication channel.
The power of illustrative speaking!
That’s true, the power of illustrative speech! That is what caught my attention to your post. I followed your links to read Jeff Jarvis’s post as well because I find it extremely interesting that the speaker of the US House of Representatives has a blog. I have to say that I am a little skeptical of what he is going to be blogging about though or how much honest and efficient information he is going to post on his blog. I agree that I don’t think it is a good idea not to have a comment section on his blog. There has already been a negative response to the fact that he does not have a RSS feed or comments. But, he was probably advised not to or waiting to see if he has any response in another form of communication before he opens his blog for discussion. Plus, I don’t know how busy he his but if his responses to comments are eventually slim to none after awhile he might be getting negative views as well. My initial thoughts were that this is a good idea and I was curious to check out his blog as well and read what he said. I actually learned something too. But in all honestly, do you think he’s really writing this? I do but I also think there is a chance someone else has the ability to write for him.
I think a blog is good whether with comments or not. I prefer to read others comments but some that I know do not skim or read the other comments in a post that they are about to comment in. I mean in a way I think of a blog as more than just a website because when someone has a blog you are usually able to comment and get feedback for your post or comment. I do though think that is recognizable that he has started a blog and he is dipping his feet into technology and having a blog that is unfiltered by the media is good for him I think in a couple of ways.