I Write for Money
Posted on | March 30, 2012 | 89 Comments
When I quit the blog Thursday morning, some people attempted to persuade me to reconsider — and I resented their efforts.
If I am not a fit judge of whether this enterprise has succeeded or failed, I am a fool. Why would anyone want to read a man who is both a fool, and an acknowledged failure? To ask me to continue my ritual ordeal of public humiliation by the Friends of Tabitha Club was to impugn my judgment that I had already suffered more than anyone should be expected to tolerate.
So my friend Dan Collins just pissed me off by arguing for my return.
What no one can seem to understand is that the value of this blog as a commerical enterprise was damaged by Tabitha’s decision in 2010 that the author of “How to Get a Million Hits on Your Blog in Less Than a Year” had nothing to say about blogging that anyone might want to hear.
Someone today suggested that I should be sensitive to Tabitha’s feelings. While she is attempting to put me out of business? Seeking to impair my livelihood and destroy my professional career?
When, in September 2010, I wrote “Where All the Important Bloggers Will Be,” Tabitha was put on notice that I resented my exclusion. Despite her public advertisement of my unworthiness, I was persuaded by my friend Chris Renner to attend the inaugural BlogCon. I suppose that this seeming acceptance of my initial humiliation was what emboldened Tabitha to insult me again in October 2011 (“Major National Gathering of Conservative Bloggers Will Include Everyone But Me“), and I resolved then not to attend an event where I was obviously so unwelcome.
So when the Friends of Tabitha Club announced its 2012 agenda, and my various friends began celebrating their acceptance into the club, it did not particularly improve my mood, already darkened by the evident popularity of the “Roll Over for Romney” movement.
Am I the only one who perceives that my lack of influence — my inability to persuade others to resist Romney — might be correlated to my persona non grata status with FreedomWorks and the Franklin Center?
This is what is being missed by those who have interpreted this as a mere personal spat: Tabitha Hale acts under authority of major conservative non-profit organizations, so that the donors, executives and board members of those organizations are all united in officially endorsing Tabitha’s judgment that I am unworthy of notice. It is they who have assigned her to mock me:
Am I to be publicly insulted, and take no notice of it? Is this how the Franklin Center expects Tabitha Hale to promote “citizen journalism”?
If I am a person of such trivial insignificance in the political blogosphere that not once in the past three years have I done anything to merit inclusion in the BlogCon agenda, why should anyone pay attention to what I have written about the 2012 presidential campaign — or anything else, for that matter?
Such are the thoughts that have troubled me.
Nevertheless, as I have always proudly proclaimed, I write for money, and you may thank two readers (one in Elmhurst, Illinois, and another in El Cerrito, California) for hitting the tip jar, burdening me with the sense that further services are due.
This is not my choice, and I continue under protest that nothing good is likely to come of it, yet continue I will.
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