Well guess what folks. We're right smack between laugh at and fight on the progression. Don't underestimate whats happening.

Remember too that attrition will also take its toll in the long run. Many of the "beltway elites" we've been railing against are older than I am and I'm already older than dirt. - Paul Dirks

Thomas Edsall at Huffington Post:

Writer Quits NRO After Fabrications Exposed

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2007/12/07/writer-quits-nro-after-fa_n_75873.html

That was mighty quick...

Deborah Howell (ombudsman) at the WaPo criticizes Perry Bacon's highly questionable story on the "rumors" of Obama being a Muslim:

Stories about rumors are tricky and easily misconstrued. A Nov. 29 story and headline that explored Barack Obama's "connections to the Muslim world" and rumors that he is Muslim were met with a swift Internet reaction that left some staffers stunned at its ferocity. Even Post editorial cartoonist Tom Toles was "so upset" that he took the unusual step of taking potshots at the story in an editorial page cartoon.

My problems with the story by National Desk political reporter Perry Bacon Jr. and the headline ("Foes Use Obama's Muslim Ties to Fuel Rumors About Him") were that Obama's connections to Islam are slender at best; that the rumors were old; and that convincing evidence of their falsity wasn't included in the story.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/07/AR2007120701799.html

Certainly not the same Deborah Howell whose comment threads had to be shut down during her earlier bouts with the blogosphere, due to "bad language" from bloggers. In those days, she stonewalled consistently, trying to defend the WaPo's decision to hire obviously biased writers without any real experience or credentials. Again, this dispute was resolved much more quickly than it would have been just a year or two ago.

I think there was another one I wanted to highlight, too, but for the moment it escapes me.

It's also worth noting that both of these episodes overlapped with the Time/Klein fracas, in which both mag and writer ended up with lots of egg on their faces. Apparently, there are those who watch and learn.

Newsweek just hired Karl Rove!

I say put them both behind Harper's!

See looseheadprop's most recent post at FDL:

http://firedoglake.com/2007/12/07/will-american-lawyers-take-to-the-streets-in-support-of-the-rule-of-law-in-the-us/

a response to a call from a lawyer inspired by an earlier post by looseheadprop on a speech by Mario Cuomo.

http://firedoglake.com/2007/11/23/our-lady-of-the-law/

So I think our efforts would be best employed by incrementally chipping away or tossing pebble by pebble as GG and other bloggers are so capable of doing.

Glenn's efforts may not [yet] have as much impact as hand grenades, but at a minimum, they are in the cherry bomb category, don't you think?

And perhaps that much quicker retraction at the WaPo re: Obama's religion was at least partly in response to their observing the relentless attacks on Time re: Joe Klein?

As for the rest of us, I'll settle for the pebbles, but I still prefer the sawing-the-legs-off-the-table metaphor a bunch of you settled on one or two posts ago.

I know. I was surprised when I wrote that, too, but I think it's true, especially when it comes to holding down some of these sub-threads to the Reality of the earth plane.

I can't quite put my finger on it, but I have noticed something different about the overall tone in your posts.

Don't you just love the sound of that?

Sometimes I wonder if the best choice is simply to vote for the candidate who seems most likely to accelerate the process in the hope that things might actually get bad enough quickly enough so that the whole edifice might collapse and we could start over. What do you think, Che? Giuliani in 2008?

What makes you think this isn't how we already ended up with Bush, if not the first time, then the second? It's easy to make a comment like that when you can just sit and watch from the sidelines because you don't have much skin of your own in the game, but lots of people who do have been sorely affected by this maladministration.

I don't usually respond to comments like this one, but the "bad faith" negativity on this thread that wants to encourage everyone else either to give up or start a revolution (since nothing else would be supportable) is beginning to wear...

Now that you are addressing one another directly, Aycharaych, Talesofunrest, & Dounia, maybe you could take it to an IM session? Kitt's right; we're not that interested, and LWM has too much patience... not for incrementalism, but for responding to your comments. I usually have more patience, too, but it's just about used up.