An Opening For Reasonable Discourse?

Something interesting is going on in South Florida. It's related to the Herald's two new columnists who don't exactly fit the mold of most of the remainder of their stable. Jackie Bueno Sosa is supposed to be the conservative and Glenn Garvin the libertarian. Based on three columns (two by Garvin), this may very well be the case.

What's happening is that the South Florida blogosphere, which as a whole is left-leaning when it comes to politics and ideology, is starting to respond to the columnists and their pieces. It's no longer just local conservative hacks like me complaining about Leonard Pitts Jr., Carl Hiaasen, Fred Grimm and ex-columnist Ana Menendez anymore. It's my fellow South Florida bloggers starting to complain about Sousa and Garvin (and perhaps even Myriam Marquez). In other words, an arena for lively debate of important issues may be starting to shape up. At long last.

Unfortunately, a lot of the complaining from the left is not so much about the content of Sousa and Garvin columns. Instead it's about things such as Sousa possible plagiarism of a speech given by Kevin Costner's character in Bull Durham. Check here, here, here, and here. BTW, I agree with Rick that this is much ado about nothing.

When South Florida largest newspaper has coddled liberals for so long with their point of view and primarily their point of view, it's easy to understand this reaction to opposite points of view. Feel my pain. Maybe (more below).

Another strange thing is happening: the comments at the Herald site are becoming more, shall we say, reasonable. Both sides are actually making their points in a respectful manner (with a few outraged people stating that they're canceling their subscription because of the right-wing nature of these pieces).

Lest you're getting the idea that the Herald is becoming The Washington Times south, think again. They still have a left-leaning editorial board, Leonard Pitts who has two weekly columns, Fred Grimm, Carl Hiaasen on Sundays, not to mention syndicated columnists Ellen Goodman and Susan Estrich to counter conservatives George Will and Pat Buchanan. Sousa only has one column - on Mondays, and Garvin's column will only run every other Tuesday. Not exactly feature spots. The other metro columnist, Myriam Marquez, really doesn't fit neatly into a particular ideology (good). Overall, more balance which again is a good thing, but far from one side dominating over the other (another good thing).