Where’s the love for Bob Herbert?

Over at TAPPED, Dana responds to the charge that NYT columnist Bob Herbert is boring (as T.A. Frank recently argued in the Washington Monthly):

Part of the problem here is how we measure influence. […]
As for blogs, it’s no surprise that the DailyKos family doesn’t link to Herbert. The majority of male netroots bloggers have proven again and again that they have little interest in domestic social justice crusades centered around identity. The civil rights and women’s rights wings of the Democratic coalition are far less important to their worldview than “muscular progressivism” in foreign policy, a stance largely calibrated to win elections. That’s not a bad thing, but it doesn’t make for a movement particularly interested in Herbert’s stories of inner city poverty and persistent racism.
Frank suggests that the format of statistics about pernicious social trends embedded within personal stories is ineffective, and certainly not well-suited to 800-word columns. I’d respond that Kristof won a Pulitzer doing exactly that. That returns us to the mystery of why, exactly, Herbert isn’t influential among media elites. To the extent that’s true, I’d guess it’s more our fault than his.

In other words, Herbert’s columns are plenty interesting to people who are invested in the issues he writes about. Regular Feministing readers are, of course, aware of Jessica’s massive crush on Herbert. Guess we should be showing him the link-love more often — especially now that his columns are out from behind the TimesSelect subscriber wall.
UPDATE: Jill has a post on Herbert’s column today.