John Adams and his pre-Internet...

John Adams and his pre-Internet weblog: "[He] was a lousy writer. At least when he wrote books and articles. His books are cranky hotch-potches; formless and almost unreadable. He was very combative; he was at his best in the quick give-and-take of argument, and was very successful as a lawyer. But he rarely took the time to organize his (often excellent) ideas into reasoned discourses. However, unknown to the world, he spent much effort writing in a different style. He owned the best library in North America, and the books he read most often were those whose arguments he hated ! He would fill the margins of those books with comments and refutations. He would tear them apart line by line. Does this sound familiar?"