This deserves serious reading:

"This is War, Michael, and You're A General (@Lobelia -- well said!!!)

Lobelia said it perfectly. "WE'RE IN SO MUCH DANGER. Salon real estate is too important to squander. You don't have much guidance from the top, so it's up to you to treat each assignment as a chance to save the world."

And what are you saving the world from? From neonconservatism, from conservative media dominance, from Republican efforts to destroy democracy, from war with Iran, etc.

The upcoming 2008 election is a war.

And like it or not, as Washington correspondent for Salon, you are one of the generals, Michael.

And that means you have to fight to win.

Salon is NOT unbiased journalism. It is supposed to have a liberal, reality-based, anti-Bush approach -- or at least I think it does. Someone should check with Joan, when she's not off appearing on conservative TV shows, and see if somewhere along the line, the mission statement and political bent changed, and they didn't tell some of the writers (like Glenn), and failed to inform the loyal -- and now confused -- readers.

We keep asking for Joan Walsh to explain why Paglia? Why Dickerson? Why the steady drumbeat of anti-Obama? But she's silent on the matter. Probably because she doesn't care to admit straight out the truth: that she wants these writers and articles to drum up controversy, and generate page views -- and get herself on tv to boot. (Oh, and down the line, maybe there's a White House Communications Director job with Hillary?!)

Joan Walsh crows that Salon has doubled its readership in the last year. One only has to wonder how that happened. Add Reader Letters, bring back Camille Paglia, add Debra Dickerson, find a bunch of people to nitpick every aspect of Obama, let them all insult our intelligence on a regular basis and spew Republican/conservative/neocon talking points, and watch the letters -- and the clicks -- fly. The kaching of the cash register becomes deafening.

This is not People magazine, or the Onion, and this is no joke. Lives are at stake, America's future is at stake, and yes, there are boatloads of bloggers out there yammering in the wilderness, but there are really only a small number of influencers -- those media outlets, TV, radio, newspapers, columnists, internet sites, bloggers, pundits -- who are going to really frame the discussion.

Salon is one of them. For now.

If Salon wants to maintain that sort of respect and position, the political writing is going to have to be top-notch, and it's going to have to be primed for battle.

Leave the satire, the fluff, and the Conservatives in Liberal Clothes to other places that aren't as influential as Salon. Someone give Camille her own bloody blog and get rid of her here.

Make every word, and every article, count as if your life depended on it.

Because ours do.

-- AncientAssyrian"

The emphasis above in quoting Mr. AncientAssyrian was very much my own.

Attention all personnel: at Oh-Six Hundred Hours, General Scherer will be briefing General Greenwald on war strategy. Forget the war on terror and draining the world terror-swamp. You will be recieving new orders.

Good to know, isn't it, who has the most to fear from a Democrat victory in '08? I'm comforted to know that the world will be made safe from... Republicans?!? I'll just bet that Hamas, the Syrians, the bombmakers in west Baghdad, Dr. Al-Zawahiri, and bin Laden in his cave, are all quaking at the thought of any one of the Democrat women (Clinton, Obama and Edwards) winning in '08.

Some people don't remember LBJ for the war that he and the JFK holdovers initiated in Vietnam.

Some people remember LBJ for the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which LBJ, with the help of the Republicans in Congress, managed to enact into law over the objections of Southern Democrats.

...and it isn't the Republicans, who want to lower my taxes, and reduce my risk of bogus lawsuits.

No, I think I will remain afraid of Al Qaeda and the other Islamofacsists. Who want to kill me. And who would probably be quite happy to kill much of the infidel, nonbeliever Salon readership if they had half a chance. Assalam Aleikoum.

Hmmm. Not a US citizen. But you'd like a group of Salon readers who are, to impeach the President of the United States for you.

This is one of the cute little pathologies of our time. Europe, Canada, South America; they all percieve the US as being so important, and so integral to their lives, that they yearn to have a vote in US politics. You know, I might wish to get rid of Dominique de Villepin, or Vladimir Putin. Or even Gordon Brown. But I don't go begging to the British newspapers about it.

Tell you what. If you find a genocidal dictator out there, just get your army together and go take him out. You could start with North Korea and its ant-farm of a national penal colony. And don't wait too long to take out Ahmadinejad in Iran and Bashar in Syria. If you wanted to start smaller, you could begin with Mugabe in Zimbabwe. Those are, by any measure except the doctinaire leftist view of Cuba, or Venezuela, or SALON, the worst dictators in the world. (Kind of funny, isn't it -- does anyone EVER remember when any of the world's worst, most homicidal dictators were named by Keith Olbermann as his 'Worst Person in the World'? I can't.)

And of course, if you want to get rid of President George W. Bush, just get yourself elected to the leadership of the U.S. Congress. Or get yourself the biggest, most powerful, most advanced military in the history of the world. Or, just shut up.