This morning, the New York Sun has a very good profile of some guy named Charles Johnson: The Blogger Who Helped to Dislodge Dan Rather.

In an almost unimaginably perverse way, the attacks of September 11 constituted the greatest religious infomercial the world has ever seen. In the West, Islam went from being a controversial but still rather remote creed to a religion many people couldn’t stop thinking, talking, and writing about. Even in sunny Culver City, a region of Los Angeles so squeaky clean the traffic lights emit cuckoo-clock sounds, Islam is a presence. There is a large, very beautiful mosque (through which one of the 9/11 hijackers is said to have passed), and there is Charles Johnson, editor of the political blog Little Green Footballs, one of the best information sources on the Web for those keeping track of the tentacular, global reach of Islamist ideology and terrorism.

Sitting in a Starbucks cafe, Mr. Johnson looked very much like any other Southern Californian with enough time and money to spend on a bountiful mocha frappucino grande. A pony tail escaped the back of his beige Nike baseball cap, he wore a maroon sweat shirt, blue jeans, and sneakers, and he had just bicycled some 50 miles for exercise - his custom on Saturday mornings. For a former jazz musician and electric guitarist who has played and toured with the likes of Stanley Clarke and Al Jarreau, he seemed decidedly un-laidback, even jittery at times. But then, many of his former jazz world friends no longer speak to him, he suffers from cyber stalkers, and he is drowning in spam - his enemies sign him up for every nitwit Internet product and crass e-mail letter they can find. It’s a tough world out there, particularly when you’re an arty type who has taken a staunchly pro-American, pro-Bush stand.