Steve Gilliard of The News Blog has passed away.

I never met Steve, but I did have some run-ins with him over the years, most notably over the Downing Street Memo. I was pushing for blogstorms; Steve thought the whole thing was a waste of time.

In response to the people who disagreed with him about the DSM and a few other issues, Steve wrote an important post titled “Why We Fight.” In it, he exemplified the pugnacious, take-no-prisoners approach to political blogging that made him such a star:

What people have to understand is that we’re going to have a lot of fights, internally, externally and we need to make sure that it’s the other side which doesn’t want to take us on. We have to make sure that when they want to lie on us or attack us unfairly that the world comes down on them.. We have to be a very different kind of liberal/progressive/democrat/leftist, which is to say, we have to be the kind not only willing to stand up for ourselves, but the kind who takes the fight to the opposition effectively.

When I dismissed the Downing Street Memos out of hand, some people were pissed. Well, they missed the point. Congress doesn’t care. They need Bush or think they do, and short of being caught with his dick in Jim Guckert’s mouth, impeachment ain’t gonna happen. People need to take this fight local. To start bringing the war home to the chickenhawk Congressmen and Senators who voted for this war then didn’t support the troops. It means standing outside their local offices questioning their votes. You have to go to them at home, you have to make them squirm. Not talk about memos, but people, their constituents. You have to move from the Beltway to the home district. You have to endanger their seats, not speak nicely to them about something they don’t take seriously.

It’s not about being right, being right is easy. John Kerry was right. It’s about being effective. It’s about getting out your message and stomping the shit out of people who fuck with you. If Carol Darr wants to fuck with Kos, then her mailbox should be flooded. If they want to run their mouths about Dean, not only do they get the same treatment, they find out he’s raising money hand over fist from regular folks.

If some weenie wants to start shit with you, he can be humiliated on two of the most read blogs on the Internet.

This isn’t about agreement. This is about power and using it. We have to basically make people pay a price for starting in with us. Because we know their motives are not about policy. They want us to go away. So we have to show them two things, we’re here to stay and we can hurt them if we have to. And people get squeamish when power is used. Anyone think Kos is making an idle threat? No? Then shit, let’s back his ass up. We agree with him, so let’s act like it for God’s sake. Let’s not play the Judean People’s Front/People’s Front of Judea game,. where we argue over minor differences.

[. . .]

Politics is a hard business and you have to impress upon some people that you can fuck up their plans before they respect you, especially when you can execute your own.

posted by Steve @ 8:10:00 PM

[emphasis added]

Steve understood, before most of us, that Karl Rove and the Bush Administration had changed the playing field. All the heartfelt pieties and rational arguments in the world were moot; we had to learn how to fight, and Steve was the one who taught us how to do it.

Again and again, I’d watch Steve argue with his readers in his comment section. He’d debate them for a while before finally telling them to go start their own damn blogs.

I bet he launched a hundred bloggers that way.

If you want to remember Steve and honor his legacy, get the hell off of my damn blog and go start your own. Then go fuck up the other side’s plans, even if you piss off a few people along the way.

Whatever you do, don’t stop fighting. Steve never did.

May he rest in peace.

Update: Here is a wonderful tribute to Steve from Sara at Orcinus.

Update 2: Via Jon Swift, here is a round-up of posts about Steve: Tom Watson, American Street, Firedoglake, Mad Kane’s Political Madness (featuring a short interview with Steve), Sisyphus Shrugged, AlterNet.org, Daily Kos, skippy the bush kangaroo, State of the Day, The Carpetbagger Report, TalkLeft, August J. Pollak, Jesus’ General, All Spin Zone, the talking dog, The Impolitic, Happy Furry Puppy Story, The Democratic Daily, culturekitchen, Comments From Left Field, Brilliant at Breakfast, Digby, Orcinus, Avedon Carol’s The Sideshow, Meteor Blades, Making Light, Shakesville, Blog PI, Welcome to Pottersville, Galloping Beaver, Rude Pundit, The Agonist, Tbogg, Crooks & Liars, At Largely, Tattered Coat, James Wolcott, Pam’s House Blend, Rising Hegemon, Off the Kuff

Update 3: The News Blog now has a PayPal link up to collect donations to defray expenses for Steve’s funeral.

Update 4: (6/7/07) I knew — or, rather, I hoped — this was coming: the inimitable Driftglass, whose blog took flight under SG’s wing, lays down the best tribute to SG that I’ve seen so far.

Update 5: (6/7/07) Steve’s obituary in the NY Times

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