Something Smart Hugh Hewitt Said

Hugh Hewitt (conservative talk show host and blogger) said this about his liberal blogger counterparts today at our conference:

Kos and Josh Marshall are very difficult to get peeved with in person as their persona in the flesh is much more temperate than occasionally comes across on the blog.

This was so true about all of us at the Personal Democracy Forum today and most of us bloggers.

When we are all just human beings together in a few rooms, we can be surprisingly tolerant and open to someone's opposing views.

In fact, Scott Heiferman (CEO of Meetup.com) kicked off the whole conference with this notion that technology lets us be more and more DISCONNECTED from the human aspect and that allows us to demonize one another and not develop trust that can only happen in person. True, you might meet your enemy in person and have your worst prejudices and fears confirmed, but equally, it seems we have a prayer in hell of transcending our differences when we all meet in the flesh.

I honestly expected not to like Hugh at all, but even this weekend reading his book, I thought ... well, he doesn't sound like the monster everyone makes him out to be ... I'll give him a chance. I liked the book a lot. And of course, getting the chance to talk with him before our panel and listen to him during the panel, I changed my mind -- or he changed my mind more accurately -- and I thought he was swell.