With great sadness, I share the news that went up on The News Blog today:
Steve Gilliard, 1966-2007
It is with tremendous sadness that we must convey the news that Steve Gilliard, editor and publisher of The News Blog (www.thenewsblog.net), passed away early this morning. He was 41.
To those who have come to trust The News Blog and its insightful, brash and unapologetic editorial tone, we have Steve to thank from the bottom of our hearts. Steve helped lead many discussions that mattered to all of us, and he tackled subjects and interest categories where others feared to tread.
We will post more information as it becomes available to us.
Please keep Steve's friends and family in your thoughts and prayers.
Steve meant so much to us. We will miss him terribly.
– the news blog team
Steve Gilliard was one of the early front-pagers on Daily Kos, but I wasn't reading him (or any blogs, really) at that time. He graduated to his own blog, which I started reading occasionally around 2003 or 2004. From time to time I clicked through a link from somewhere else.
I liked his voice. He was funny, even when angry. He seemed to be about my age. Although his life experiences as a black man from New York City were very different from mine, I could relate to his perspective on many things.
I started checking his blog once a week or so. By late 2004 or early 2005 I was checking every day. Last year I was often checking two or three times a day.
I absolutely loved his rants. His writing style was so different from mine, and it seemed to flow so freely.
I also found his optimism refreshing. I can be a pessimist by nature. He was convinced that Bush would not serve out his second term. I didn't agree, but I loved reading the case he made for it.
He was knowledgeable about military history, and I learned a lot from his posts.
I didn't know him at all. A few times I sent him links to articles I thought he'd be interested in, and we exchanged a few e-mails that way. But you know how it is–when you've been reading someone's work for so long, it starts to feel like you know the person.
In February, Steve got sick and went to the doctor for a prescription. He thought he'd be home the same day, but he was immediately admitted to the hospital. His friend Jen started periodically posting updates about his health. I remember early on she warned readers that she thought Steve would be in for a while–she'd never seen him that sick before.
I hadn't known anything about his health problems, because I was not a regular reader of his blog at the time of his first hospitalization for open heart surgery a few years back. Apparently he suffered kidney failure while recovering from that surgery and was on dialysis ever since. An infection of unknown origin put him into the hospital this year. It turned out to be an infected heart valve, so he had open heart surgery again to replace that. Afterwards, Steve never left the ICU. He seemed to be making progress at some times, but then there would be setbacks. At least Jen got to visit him a couple of times after his surgery, and he was able to communicate with her.
I am devastated for Steve's family, especially his mother, who was with him every day in the hospital. I cannot imagine how hard it would be to see my child so ill and be unable to make him better. His loss will leave a hole in the lives of his friends, and Jen in particular.
I've been missing Steve's writing this spring. It's nothing compared to the unspeakable tragedy for his friends, but I do feel sorry for all of his readers who will miss him as well.
The News Blog does not currently appear to be searchable. If I can find it later, I will post one of my all-time favorite rants by Steve after the jump. It appeared shortly after the Katrina disaster.
UPDATE: Found it. “We told you so,” which appeared on September 3, 2005, is after the jump.
We told you so
A note to our conservative friends:
WE TOLD YOU SO
Ever wonder why New Yorkers detest George Bush?
Because we experienced his incompetence up close and person. We knew this guy was full of shit, absolutely full of fucking shit, after they started to play games with the funding and gave Wyoming terrorism money. We knew he was an assclown then.
We thought DC 9/11 was a comedy, because the Bush we saw hid in AF One like the scared bitch that he is.
But did you listen?
Fuck no. Until last week, Ann Coulter was calling New Yorkers cowards for not endorsing Bush's folly in Iraq.
We have been screaming for two years that Bush and his team sucked. That they had no clue. They sent soldiers to be wounded in Iraq without armored anything. And you idiots cheered him on from the safety of your keyboards. We told you he was fucking up Iraq. But no, we supported Saddam, we were racist, we blamed America.
You say this isn't about politics? Fuck you, this IS politics, real time, real life politics, where the insanity of all your ideas are exposed to the world for the fraud that they are. Tax cuts kill. Ask the relatives of the dead of the Gulf Coast.
Well, motherfuckers, the alligators are feasting on dead nigger and there isn't an Iraqi in sight. And Bush is trying to gladhand his way through a mess which has stunned FOX reporters. I mean, Shepard Smith is calling Fox's talking heads liars ON THE AIR.
CNN rips Bush in print and online after nearly five years of sleep.
Instead of hearing what we had to say about Bush, you called John Kerry a coward, mocked Max Cleland, blamed everything but herpes on Bill Clinton. You enabled Bush into this mess and now you're shocked?
Now, Fox can be outraged, now, Wash Times and Union Leader call Bush weak? Well, his coward ass disappeared in 2001. But you rather blame Michael Moore for that.
He can't even explain the Iraq war to a grieving mother.
So what did you do?
Write the most vile things about her and her dead son. Attacked her patriotism and her honesty.
Well, motherfuckers, and that means you, fat ass Goldberg and your master, Rich Lowry, PNAC Bitch Beinart, the racist wannabe white Malkin and the little fucktards at LGF, Bareback Andy and “Diversity” Instacracker, all you backstabbing, fag hating uncle tom ministers, you can see Dear Leader in action. America's largest port is gone, maybe forever, gas is $5+ a gallon and FEMA is coming. Whores come faster with old men than FEMA is getting to NOLA.
How did your wartime President react? Like Chiang Kai-Shek when the Yellow River flooded in 1944, with corrupt indifference.
Bush, the man your fever dreams built into the next Winston Churchill when he is really the live action Chauncey Gardiner, has failed to everyone, in plain sight, without question. Rick Perry is trying to save his ass, but it ain't working. NOLA looks like ANGOLA and that ain't flying.
Say 9/11 changed everything now, motherfuckers. Ooops, 9/11, 9/11. 9/11. Doesn't work anymore? Gee, maybe the sea of alligator MRE's once known as the citizens of New Orleans has something to do with that. Now you can shut the fuck up about 9/11. Bush just proved what would happen with another 9/11. Dead Americans as far as the nose can smell.
Drunken Chris Hitchens muttered some nonsense about blacks having it so good here. The poor man needs to stay in his bottle or go to Betty Ford before someone beats his treasonous ass stupid. Islamofascism means what, now motherfucker? Shove Islamofascism up your well travelled ass. The most dangerous thing to average Americans is not some mullah in Iraq, not even Osama Bin Laden, but George Bush. If he doesn't get you killed in Iraq, he'll fuck up saving your city so it turns into Escape from New Orleans. Armed junkies roaming the streets, looking for a fix, robbing and looting like Serb paramilitaries and about as sober.
George Bush's ineptitude has killed far more Americans than Osama could have dreamed of.
Some of you still try to see the clothes on the Dauphin, but he's as naked as Peter North around Jenna Jameson. Bush fucked up so bad, FOX turned on him like a rabid dog.
You can't hide behind racism forever. Bush fucked up, Bush is a weak, callous leader and the world knows this like it knows few other things. And all the stolen TV's in the world cannot hide that.
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