Lawrence R. Velvel is the dean of the University of Massachusetts Law School and writes an interesting blog called Velvel on National Affairs. This earlier post referred to one of Dean Velvel’s earlier posts relating to the plagiarism scandal at Harvard Law School.
In this recent post, in the course of complimenting this Joseph Ellis op-ed regarding what George Washington would recommend as goals for the Bush Administration’s second term, Deal Velvel provides one of the most insightful descriptions of the power of blogging that I have seen:

Frankly speaking, I assume — I don?t know this, but am assuming it — that the column got into the papers in the same way that the book and newspaper industries normally work together. That is to say, to flog sales publicists at big name publishers ask big name newspapers to carry a column by a big name author relating to the subject of a new book the author wrote. Because the publisher and the author are big names, the big name newspaper agrees. This typical arrangement is symptomatic of the symbiotic elephantiasis which exists everywhere in this nation and is ruining the country: It is typical of the fact that, in every walk of life, only the huge in size, huge in money, huge in reputation, and/or huge in connections can really get anywhere.
This fact, incidentally, is one of the reasons for the rise of the poor man?s printing press called The Internet, which gives a small opening to people who are otherwise shut out regardless of competence — just as, conversely, others are insiders regardless of competence.