Shorter Daniel Henninger: Why the fuck are these fucking bloggers always saying "fuck" and shit like that? Do you fucking hear me saying fuck all the time? Fuck that shit.

Seriously: can anyone explain to me the obsession some writers have with the use of four-letter words on blogs? Every newspaper and magazine article discussing the so-called blogosphere seems to point to "profanity" as a clear and important reason why some bloggers shouldn't be taken seriously. (Many of them, like Henninger, even search through the reader comments sections -- which the blogger has little or no control over, beyond removing genuinely offensive comments -- to find some of that sweet, sweet profanity.) I don't swear much myself, it not being very appropriate for what I write about -- after all, much of the time I'm dealing with entertainments that wouldn't even have been allowed to use such words -- but I fully appreciate that sometimes a four-letter word is the right word, particularly when the blogger is going for comic effect. If print journalists faint at the mere use of the word "fuck," please don't take them to see Goodfellas and cancel their HBO subscription right now.

See also "The Emperor's New Clothes and the Fucking Blogger."