<![CDATA[RIP Al Weisel]]>Weisel, better known to the blogging world as Jon Swift, reasonable conservative, apparently died on February 27th.  This is a sad loss to the liberal blagoweb, who will miss his wit and satire, but obviously a much greater loss to his family, to whom I offer my sincere condolences.

Thanks to Kate Harding, Jill Filipovic, and Jeff Fecke for the news.

I wasn’t really an active reader or commenter, let alone a blogger myself (though I can’t really claim to be very “active” now, either) when the legendary Steve Gilliard died, so my experience of the collective heartbreak of the lefty blogosphere at the time was only third-hand and at some remove of time; a web without Gilliard wasn’t a shock to me, as I hadn’t really known one with him.  I didn’t know Weisel personally either, of course, but the difference between the blogosphere with him, and the blogosphere without, is stark.

Update: Shakesville now has a post up as well.

]]>