Listening to bloggers talk about the mainstream media must be like hearing Khrushchev bang his shoe on the table — history might be on their side, but you mostly wish they would just quiet down. When those bloggers are creations of the media they mock, however, it's especially absurd. Without the political talk show circuit, for example, Arianna Huffington would be a former beard with a failed career in politics.

Alas, the media made Huffington famous, and she used her cultural capital to start an online publishing company, The Huffington Post. Most media pundits believe that the value of blogs is to give voice to the voiceless, but Huffington used the Internet to present pieces by her influential friends, folks like Bill Maher, whose opinions are so rarely heard and so badly needed in today's policy debates. It's like starting an indie film company, so Brett Ratner can have a creative home.

In the process, Huffington seems to be making a fair amount of money. A recent piece in USA Today reveals that her site could start making a profit next year. Fair enough. What's shocking, however, is that the site's co-founder, Ken Lerer, says that it has no plans to begin paying writers since "that's not our financial model." Hey, Wal-Mart says the same thing about paying people higher wages.

I admire his honesty. But as a writer, I resent the implication that my services are less valuable than those of Huffington, whose main skill seems to be networking at parties. (Her latest accomplishment is convincing stock-shouter Jim Cramer to share with her the opinions left over after he's done hosting his CNBC show and writing his New York magazine column.) I worry that wealthy hobbyists willing to work for free will directly affect my ability to make a living. And as a reader, I have a hard time taking seriously comments about economics from pundits who are laboring for free to help Huffington build her new media empire. How, exactly, does Huffington propose that writers make a living? There are only so many wealthy Republican husbands to go around.

Huffington seems to believe she's advancing progressive causes, but I'm not so sure. On her website, the Democrats come across as the party of the unconcerned upper class, which is one reason why they lost the last two elections. And from her Brentwood Versailles, Huffington's own attitude seems to be, Let them eat blogs.