I've noticed the same thing that Glenn has written about in this post and wondered when and how it all began. I've never been impressed with the level of political discourse in this country but it's gotten so awful in the past couple of decades that I just decided to start ignoring it all. Is this recent development just a coincidence or has there been some conscious effort to get the entire media establishment to conduct itself this way?

It was planned by conservatives like William Simon as early as the 1970s: (http://www.consortiumnews.com/1999/080499a2.html)

Beset by growing public outrage over the Vietnam War, Nixon determined that Republicans needed a more compliant media to promote their points of view -- and to make his hardball political strategies work.

On Sept. 12, 1970, while at Camp David, Nixon arose late one morning and began barking orders. He "has several plots he wants hatched," wrote his chief of staff H.R. Haldeman in The Haldeman Diaries.

"One to infiltrate the John Gardner 'Common Cause' deal and needle them and try to push them to left. … Next, a front group that sounds like SDS to support the Democratic candidates and praise their liberal records, etc., publicize their 'bad' quotes in guise of praise."

Then, Nixon turned to his pet plan. Nixon was "pushing again on [his] project of building OUR establishment in [the] press, business, education, etc.," Haldeman wrote.

[...]

But Nixon found the press corps harder to manipulate than it was during the early years of the Cold War. He lectured his staff on the need to bully journalists into line. Nixon believed "the press and TV don't change their attitude and approach unless you hurt them," Haldeman recounted on April 21, 1972. "The only way we can fight the whole press problem, [Nixon] feels, is through the [Charles] Colson operation, the nutcutters, forcing our news and in a brutal vicious attack on the opposition."

Two months later, Nixon's pugnacious politics would come a cropper in the Watergate scandal. As the scope of Nixon's criminality slowly emerged, The Washington Post and other major news outlets led the way in exposing the evidence and ultimately forcing Nixon's resignation on Aug. 9, 1974.

The disgraced president retreated to his estate in San Clemente, Calif. But Nixon's followers blamed the "liberal" news media for hounding Nixon from office and for "losing" the Vietnam War. They concluded that a more conservative press was vital to their success.

Taking the lead in this endeavor was Nixon's treasury secretary, William Simon, who was president of the John M. Olin Foundation. In the late 1970s, Simon began pulling together executives of other conservative foundations with the goal of building "OUR establishment."

How do we fight this?

By spreading the word.

By passing along pieces like this and Glenn's to your friends and family.

By not letting a lie go to bed unanswered.

By staying connected.

That's how you fight it.

He's trying to kill the story, but he picked the wrong guy to do it:

http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2008/02/20/mccains-favors-for-one-special-lobbyist-the-bob-bennett-angle/

They're over at Emptywheel's shop:

http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2008/02/22/why-mccain-got-a-criminal-defense-lawyer-to-manage-his-nyt-push-back/

Scroll to the bottom for the links.

A letter writer asks:

So let me get this straight: the reason why scads of self-identified evangelical voters found themselves drawn to the bilk the poor, celebrate earthly success, march in lockstep beneath the banner of patriotism, authoritarian GOP that we know and love today is because they felt a little put off by those who stridently affirmed womens' right to choose (as opposed to saying "I don't approve of abortion personally, but...")?

Yeah, that sounds pretty bogus to me, too.

The real answer, as does so much else in America, involves race.

"White evangelicals" is code for "white racist Neo-Confederates hiding behind a cross". If opposition to abortion and gays was the real reason they don't vote Democratic, why then aren't most black churched people Republicans? Most conservative black churchgoers know exactly why the same white Southerners who used to be "Dixiecrats" all vote Republican now. (Can you say "Southern Strategy"? I knew you could.)

Look at all the white conservative churches out there. They all either are from the former Confederacy or were founded and run by people with the Confederate mindset. (The whole reason there's a "Southern Baptist Convention" is because the Southern branch of the Baptist church broke away from the Northern, abolitionist branch in the 1840s over slavery, as did a number of Southern branches of big Protestant churches; but unlike the other breakaway churches, it never returned to the home church once the Civil War had ended.) The churches Amy Sullivan fawns over are the same ones that wouldn't allow black members up until the 1970s, if not later. Should we really be sucking up to them?

I'm glad that one of the letter writers brought up the extremely promising results shown by RU-486 in treating fibroids. Here are some more articles on the subject -- unfortunately, research is hobbled because of the anti-choice movement; if RU-486 is approved to be prescribed for uses besides pregnancy termination, it makes it much harder for the anti-choicers to get it banned.

Here's an article on the Rochester RU-486 study:

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/58389.php

Imagine the utter field day Kurtz would have if Michelle Obama had had Laura Bush's past.

-- Hitting and killing a former boyfriend in a car accident would suddenly be given a tremendously sinister spin, the way William Safire and other "respectable conservative" media talkers did to Vince Foster's suicide (after they drove him to it with their constant attacks on him and his friends, the Clintons).

-- Living with an alcoholic, drug-addled and explosive-tempered spouse would not be painted as saintly forbearance, but as weak-willed enabling.

-- Not pursuing a career beyond teaching would not be used as proof of her motherly self-sacrifice, but as a sinister example of her husband's holding her back like they do in those Muslim countries where the boys are all named "Hussein"!