We are told that blogs are the future, and since I plan on spending considerable time in the future I very much want to like the chatty Internet websites. But I don't. In fact, I find them disturbing. And that was before I tracked quite a number of them through the election. Now I am beginning to think that if blogs are the future, meaningful public debate is history. What scares me is the extremism so common in the political blogosphere. The tone of absolute certainty. The disdain for anyone who thinks differently. The refusal to acknowledge the existence of...