"In other words, you are saying that the truth needs to be balanced with falsehoods in order to give readers a choice."

I didn't say that at all.

Of course you didn't. That's what "in other words" means. How about "Truthful perceptions and false perceptions are all part of the 'marketplace of ideas'"? Is that closer to what you said?

"The American people rose up and pulled of[f] a statistically highly improbable coup of turning both houses of congress over to the Democrats and giving them a mandate..."

They did indeed. And this is one reason why I disagree with Greenwald's and others mantra that "change is slow and incremental". As I commented the other day--change is variable in speed, depending upon conditions, not on time.

Yes, this is true, but the conditions for quick change are not present. Quick change requires a lack of opposition and frequently a cataclysmic event as a catalyst. In a democracy, change requires consensus and building a consensus without a cataclysmic event requires time. When it was found that there were no WMDs in Iraq and that the president and his administration had misled America into war on lies and half-truths and inflated intelligence I thought the American people would rise up and demand an accounting — didn't happen; when a covert CIA agent was outed by the administration to distract attention from her husband's pointing out one of the lies on which the invasion of Iraq was based I thought the American people would rise up and demand an accounting — didn't happen; when the abuses at Abu Ghraib were Saddam's prison had been refilled with Iraqis by American forces and then abused and tortured (sometimes to death I thought the American people would rise up and demand an accounting — didn't happen; when Bush played air guitar while New Orleans drowned I thought the American people would rise up and demand an accounting — didn't happen; when an American citizen was denied his constitutional right and imprisoned indefinitely without charges, access to an attorney, or the right of habeas corpus I thought the American people would rise up and demand an accounting — didn't happen; when the abuses at Guantánamo were revealed and it was found that hundreds of men (and boys) had been held for years without legal or moral justification and in violation of treaties and obligations to which the US is a party I thought the American people would rise up and demand an accounting — didn't happen; when it was revealed that the president had ordered spying on US citizens without warrants and in violation of federal law I thought the American people would rise up and demand an accounting — didn't happen.

I could continue this list of outrages that did not elicit outrage, but you get the idea. Bush was reelected in 2004, after it was known that there were no WMD and no Iraqi nuclear program worthy of the name and after the Plame outing and after the revelation of the Abu Ghraib abuses; the NYT times politely held back the warrantless spying story so as not to "influence the election". If there had been a complete reporting of the facts behind these abuses by the administration by the press whose freedom is guaranteed by the First Amendment and whose task is to keep the American public informed so that the populace can participate meaningfully in their democratic instituions, how could Bush be reelected? Because there is no longer any such thing as "investigative journalism". The story today is what the different sides say — the individual contributions to the "marketplace of ideas". There is no story behind the story any more. What the government says is what you read in your newspaper.

But despite the lack of coverage by the US media, the consensus is growing. By November of 2006 it was sufficient to end the Republican majority in both houses of congress. By 2008 it may turn the presidency as well as stronger majorities in both houses over to the Democrats (if it doesn't reach a size where impeachment becomes a possibility before that).

Further, your statement is a critical response not to me, but to Cole's interpretation of polling data, provided by Broder. You have assessed Cole's ideas and found them lacking. This is what well-informed voters do, in the democratic marketplace of ideas.

True, I find fault with Cole's interpretation, which is simply his attempt to put lipstick on the Republican pig, but I also find fault with your claim that blatant misinterpretations of polling data are just part of the "marketplace of ideas". When polling indicates that the people want an end to the war by about 70%-30%, then saying that the people are upset with the Democrats for trying to end the war goes beyond misinterpretation into something else.