As some of you will already be aware, Michael Brendan Dougherty’s blog Surfeited with Dainties marked its first anniversary on Monday. I regret that it has taken me a few days to put up a proper post acknowledging and celebrating this occasion, especially when Michael offered such oustandingly generous words for me and my blog, but I would like to assure you all that my delay is by no means any measure of the genuine respect and admiration for the work Michael has been doing there and elsewhere. Michael has been an extremely strong supporter and promoter of this blog, and he has been an equally fast friend and well-wisher to me. He had the foresight to imagine a network of genuine conservative writers working in close cooperation with one another, and he has been instrumental in forging numerous connections among like-minded writers to create the beginnings of that network.

Surfeited with Dainties itself is a fairly remarkable and unique blog that stands out from the crowd of bloggers with their cookie-cutter formats and their one or two hobby-horses that they (myself included) ride relentlessly. It is a blog with broad and varied interests that nonetheless conveys a sort of coherence and unity of vision that most blogs cannot begin to match. Michael has taken up the role of cultural critic in the broadest sense of the term, examining everything from music to fashion to sports to religion to foreign policy to economics to immigration to the more conventional battlegrounds of the culture wars with a sense of discretion and taste and a refreshing mix of wit, irreverence and serious reflection. It has been a pleasure to lend him what little I have had to offer by way of support for his work, and I look forward to the day when the name Surfeited with Dainties confuses and befuddles millions upon millions of readers.