Maybe that ought to be communicated to media honchos as well: we don't trust them because they've often regurgitated information from "trusted sources" without corroborating it that later turned out to be entirely bogus. One of the biggest trust issues with media outlets of all stripes is their unbelievable laziness in checking their stories.

Another is checking only with sources living in the same bubble who all say the same things. Their track record (and ABC is particularly bad here, probably third in line behind Fox and CNN) when it comes to contacting critics is nothing short of abysmal. What's the good of citing multiple sources if every source you cite is reading off the same Rovian page of talking points?

I think part of the problem with the "cranky" viewers is the same problem I have: we've been down this road before, investing in series that promised big pay-offs and delivered big disappointments.

For instance, a couple of weeks ago when Parachute Woman showed up and claimed that the plane had been found and all their bodies were on board, I immediately flashed back to the strange year when Dynasty presented a convoluted plot it couldn't resolve and the next year simply claimed the whole thing had been a dream. I said to another Lost fan that if this all turned out to be a "Dynasty-thang", I was personally going to fly to LA and throw a bucket of mud at the writers.

This "tantric" (we won't argue about the terminology) structure had better pay off. It's going to be used a lot more often given Lost's success, and if Lost turns out to be some lame trick with no explanations and no conclusions, viewers aren't going to be happy.

There may be many buckets of mud flung at everybody involved.

Consider this a warning.

I tend to agree with pieceofcake that no one should be judged by what they said immediately after 9/11. It was a twisted time when a lot of otherwise intelligent people weren't thinking straight. That doesn't mean I trust Holder to reverse anything. Obama is a moderate conservative and the chances are that Holder will do what Obama wants, which is mitigation rather than denunciation and wholesale decommissioning of Bush policies. I'm not even sure Obama will actually close Gitmo or that Holder will push him to do it. Everything now is "wait and see" so I'll w and s with everyone else.