This is what I prefer about lj to blogs actually. I think blogs favour punditry more, and the highly visible comparative anonymity encourages tides of comments that are just like "Yeah! What You Said! Let's Link To It And Say That They Suck!!!!"

Whereas, in lj or comms, I think people dialouge a bit more, and the "comment threads" layout means 1 contentious comment needn't derail a whole page.