You know a medium is no longer in its infancy when you start to read obituaries for its pioneers:
This weekend, another voice leaves the scene with the passing of Steve Gilliard. In fact, Gilliard had been ailing for some time. His backup blogger Jen stepped up and took over the blog until the end — this weekend, she has replaced the site (one hopes temporarily) with a tribute page. Without question, his passing today is the top story in the leftosphere today.
His is not the only notable departure this year:
In March, longtime Los Angeles journalist, National Review columnist and blogger Cathy Seipp succumbed after a long battle with cancer. She kept blogging right up to the very end, giving no outward sign that she was about to let go. As with Gilliard and his fellow progressives, her passing was a big deal in conservative quarters — for a time after, her name was even the top search on Technorati.
Seipp, alas, I never crossed paths with. Gilliard and I had a couple run-ins — he slammed me pretty hard when I was still with National Journal, and while we were never going to see eye-to-eye, last summer we had arrived at some kind of mutual respect. If he was biting in his public punditry — at times there was no one more controversial — his private words could be much gentler.
These are not the first bloggers to pass on, but so far they’re the best-known. Others, such as the lesser-known but loyally-followed righty blogger Mad Mikey, have come close and lived to blog the tale. Meantime, at least we can reassure ourselves that these things never really do come in threes.
I’ll always treasure my memories of Steve: particularly the time he e-mailed to demand that I never quote his blog posts again, lest he sue me for theft of intellectual property.
The leftosphere mourns him as a tone-setting pioneer and leading intellect for them: and the pity, for them, is that he truly was.