Nor from me
I understand the practical difficulties of always linking to primary sources. And citing other opinions does sometimes contribute something of value, in the "why didn't I think of that!?" vein, or "this is an interesting take on it". I was narrowly critical only of those references that amount to "see, he agrees with me!".
It might be useful to have a page of links to commonly-used references. Those would be to a front page anyway, so it's no substitute for direct links to an article.
As for directly engaging the source of an opinion, how often is that possible? It's not like I can pull Thomas Sowell or Andrew Sullivan personally onto this site like Woody Allen pulling Marshall McLuhan out from behind a movie poster. I have debated Sullivan via e-mail on past occasions.
What I meant was that I'd prefer to debate people on their own opinions, not a third party's opinion relayed through somebody here.
Hmmm...have you ever emailed a pundit to say "hey, we're having a lively debate about your [article], how about jumping in?" How about a variant of the Tom Sawyer Maneuver "I'm doing the best I can, but only you can really do justice to your opinion"?