Once upon a time, there were three friends: the talk show host, the professional blogger, and the political consultant. Every Friday, the three would get together at a local watering hole in Northern Virginia to drink, talk politics, drink, discuss pop culture, drink, make fun of the left, and drink. All good things must come to an end, however, and when the professional blogger (Jim Geraghty) moved to Turkey, the Friday nights became a gathering of two. Then the talk show host (Cam Edwards) had twins, and the gatherings stopped completely.

The friendship remained strong however, and the three continued to talk (and drink) online. This blog is an attempt to capture the spirit of both the informal Friday night conversations, and the online chats between Jim, Cam, and Marshall Manson. Why does this world need another blog? Read on…

“We hope you’re linking, because we’re already drinking.”

WE THE CREATORS of ON TAP hereby declare:

We are not “looking out for you.” If you really rely on television talk show hosts or talking heads to look out for you, you deserve the horrors that befall you.

There will be no “Cam-itization of America Tour.” Proper names should only turn into verbs once in a great while. “Borking” is okay.

We will not refer to ourselves in third person. The only man who’s ever earned that right is Bob Dole.

We aim to embrace the finest qualities of blogs: When they screw up, they fix it. They laugh at themselves – at least most of the time. They have an honest humility about what they know and don’t know. Way too many members of the television and print media really believe that they are the Fourth Branch of Government, and when they speak, it is the Truth. Or at least, Fake But Accurate™.

Yet we On Tappers fear that at some point, somewhere between Eason Jordan’s resignation and the epoch-defining political earthquake that was Jeff Gannon, blogging jumped the shark. Perhaps it occurred when the first talking heads appeared on cable news, identified as a “blogger.” Every blogger now wants to be a star, raking in dough from BlogAds and/or relishing their Pajamas Media status, winning plaudits from Time magazine like PowerLine, and pimp-slapping a political party around the way Kos owns the Democrats.

On Tap is brave enough to face the truth: No blogger will ever make a million bucks posting his or her opinions on the Internet. The field is too diffused. The future of blogging is in its past – a bunch of folks just talking to whoever would listen, responding to readers, and offering unedited, unvarnished opinions completely devoid of the usual pomposity. Our ambition… is to stay true to our lack of ambition.

Of course, we still want this blog to give birth to a nightly cable news talk show.

On Tap stands forthright against the Celebrity-Industrial Complex. We demand that the media stop covering certain individuals as if they are still relevant or newsworthy, even though we are hours past their fifteenth minute of fame. Recent beneficiaries of the Media Celebrity-Prop-Up Program include Paris Hilton, Cindy Sheehan, Washingtonienne, Ashley Simpson and David Gergen.

Furthermore, we demand the end of updates on the criminal career and health issues of Lindsey Lohan until she eats something and gets her chest back.

We demand Anderson Cooper get a new “thoughtful staring off into space” look in CNN promos.

We submit that television show hosts may not be natural fit in radio, and vice versa.

We welcome the political opinions of celebrities, but we demand that if they wish to be treated as political leaders, that they actually submit to some skeptical questioning. When Cameron Diaz suggested that rape would be legalized in Bush’s second term, we assert that the circumstances warranted a follow-up question. Similarly, we wish to know exactly why Fiddy Cent reveres President Bush, and what policies warrant Fiddy’s assessment that the President is “a gangsta.”