"Great Minds..."

I have read a lot of posts that seems to be unrelated, but now I see them coming together.
Earlier in the week Shawna of Shouting into the Wind has some thoughts about what the role of blogging will be after the election. Her closing paragraph:

I think that is the true power of blogs. We are a network. We help each other and collaborate to bring information to the fore. Right now the information most needed is about the candidates, Iraq and other issues. Post-election it could very well be something completely different.

I commented there that I agree with her, but said basically that blogs will have a role in the "pre-election" time period leading up to 2006.

Meanwhile, Stones Cry Out's Rick Brady has been talking about the roles of bloggers and at the same time wondering if one can perhaps make too much of an issue like Tora Bora.

Now finally, Ambra Nykol points me to the post that links them all together. Eject Eject Eject has two great posts on deterrence ["whether their positions increase or decrease the likelihood of further attacks on the US."] which I will excerpt more from shortly. But this is the part that fits in here:

During the past two years I have been angry with the President; angry that common amateurs in their pajamas (I favor a smoking jacket, fez and calabash pipe when I dash off these little gems) have to rise and defend the policies that we wholeheartedly agree with but which have been appallingly poorly defined and defended by the White House.
...
So here I am: feeling useless. But President Bush warned that this was going to be a different war - something unlike anything we had ever seen. The front line now, at this critical time, is in the hearts and minds of our own people. That's where the real battle is now. That is our weakest point, our breach, our point of failure. We have not made the case to enough people and time is running out.

So maybe now, at this absurd point in this new kind of war, we're the crack troops, we old and useless pajama patriots reduced to printing up pamphlets to sell war bonds to the weary, to make the case for holding on to an unglamorous, uninspiring, relentless grind because that - not Normandy and Midway - is the face of war in this gilded age of luxury and safety and plenty.

Maybe that's our job. Maybe we can help cover some small gap in the lines.

We'll see. But for now, I will take up the sword of the pajamahadeen, and rise up: just another citizen-wordsmith, trying to put words and ideas where they are needed: into the stumbling gaps, exasperated expressions and defensiveness of a brave and exhausted man under a lot of pressure.

Some may say that this is an overstatement of what the bloggers do and the importance of their role. But look at what he says "just another citizen." If mainstream journalists can have a grandiose idea about their role as sharers of news and truth, then bloggers can say that same thing. The role of a single person to affect change in the world can never be overstated. Therefore, the role of many many people desiring to create change and promote truth can definitely never be overstated.