June 2, 2007
Posted by Patrick at 05:18 PM *
Steve Gilliard has died, after (as readers of The News Blog were aware) a long illness.
We didn’t know him well but we met him several times and we liked him a great deal. He was irascible, smart, and dryly funny. We’ll miss him at meetings of the NYC political-blogger barbecue cabal, and we’ll miss his presence online. All sympathy to Jen and to everyone else who was close to him.
Steve worked for me on a Crossover Technologies project a little over ten years ago. I enjoyed him then, and was delighted to see him skyrocket into fame if not fortune with The News Blog.
I miss him.
Me, too. I've been reading Steve Gilliard since his netslaves days. He would take apart S-1s issued by dot-com IPOs. I'm ashamed to admit that I assumed him to be white in those days: who else would do close readings of financial documents? Fierce intelligence, tight prose; he will be missed.
Thoughts and prayers, Steve, and Jen, and Steve's family. May the circle be unbroken.
I have only heard of him, but I have heard of him a lot. Steve Gilliard is one of the names that comes up when people talk about the good bloggers, the ones that bring important things to light and report sharply and honestly.
I am very sorry.
It hurts.
I expected it, but it hurts.
Wikipedia's article on Steve is on the "considered for deletion" list.
My condolences to all who knew him personally. I feel an astonishing since of loss without having been anything but an avid reader of his blog.
I'm very sorry to hear this news. He was a passionate and intelligent man.
I can't quite spend all my time reading blogs and LJs (even these days), so while I'd heard Steve's name, I'd never read his blog.
However, this morning Leslie Turek republished one of Steve's essays, A Fighting Liberal. I think I had read that somewhere, because I remember agreeing with almost every word of the essay, and I remember how pissed-off it made me. He was a terrific writer, and I'm sorry I wasn't more familiar with his work when he was alive. At least his words live on.
#8 don't worry too much about this deletion debate; consensus is running almost 9-1 for keeping the article and the original deletion nominator has already been chided for starting this debate *now*.
As for Steve himself, I've been missing him a lot since he went into hospital and had to stop blogging, as no matter how much we sometimes disagreed he was one of the good guys: funny, erudite, passionate and with a knack of nurturing one of the most engaging comment gangs in existence, on a par with the gang here at ML.
Very sad news. I think my reaction to the News Blog may be typical - I used to read it, really enjoy a lot of articles, love the fighting tone, get into the take-no-prisoners viewpoint, then I'd read something that really pissed me off and stop reading it. Grr! What an idiot! Etc! But then I'd be browsing someone's blogroll for something else to read and hey, there's a link to Steve Gilliard, well I wonder what he has to say...
I hate diabetes. It's taken too many good people away, far too young.
I came to reading him late, and I am still sorry as I can be.
As far as I know from reading what Jen had to say, he wasn't diabetic. The kidney problems were a complication of the original heart valve surgery.
Never met the man, admired him, don't want to see false info disseminated. If someone closer to the situation can confirm or negate what I'm saying, I will happily defer to them.
I have to say that I'd never heard of him until this post. Having read the "Fighting Liberal" essay I see that I missed out on something good.
The New York Times has an article on his passing.
Steven Gilliard Jr., 42, Dies; Founder of Liberal Political Blog
Here's a blog-safe link to the NYTimes obit that doesn't require a login and won't expire (from their RSS feed):
Steven Gilliard Jr., 42, Dies; Founder of Liberal Political Blog
horribly amazing how devastated the NewsBlog family is, although most of us have never met Steve, some folks were keeping things up and running against his return...thank you for posting this...
Brittney Gilbert lost her blogging job after she quoted another blogger who criticized Steve Gilliard in a socially questionable way. Her mistake apparently was not noting that she didn't share blogger #2's views.
Blogger leaves WRKN in wake of racial slur controversy
No Silence Here
I Guess This Is Goodbye, By Brittney