Finally, an answer to the single most important question about this blog!

What do you think is the single most important question about this blog? I think it's: If Althouse is a moderate -- as she claims -- then why is she almost almost always picking on liberals and almost never on conservatives? If there's some other question -- not that I necessarily have the answer to it -- let me know. But the point of this post is to answer what I think is the single most important question about this blog: If Althouse is a liberal -- as she claims -- then why is she almost always picking on liberals and almost never on conservatives?

My standard -- inadequate -- response to this question has been something like: My way of blogging is to write about whatever gets my attention, and these are just the things that happened to strike me.

But I now know the answer to the question (and knowing the answer is likely to change what I notice in the future and what I will write about). The key thing about me is that I am -- usually -- writing from my remote outpost in Madison, Wisconsin. My milieu is thoroughly liberal and even leftist and has been for more than two decades. Things in the news catch my attention because they resonate with my observations in my real world life. I know the way people talk about things around here. I have a sense of how liberal and lefty folks react to things, and I am used to reacting to them. I take them seriously. They are quite real to me. They irritate, amuse, and confound me on a daily basis. I feel the urge to push back.

Conservatives? I don't know them. I know a few, but they are very amiable, moderate souls who -- maybe because they are the ones who choose to live in Madison -- don't say things that resonate with the news stories I read and, consequently, I don't have as vivid a response to the thing I read about conservatives. I don't take them so seriously. They do not irritate, amuse, and confound me in that immediate and real way that would make me feel the urge to push back.

To say to me, why do you write about liberals is like saying why do you write about Americans.

So, you may wonder: Why do I have this insight now? I'll have to answer that later. I've got a writing project that I simply must finish, but those who have been reading the blog the last couple of days have the material to discern the answer.